They cited a couple of new laws, I guess. I was from the city, and had no idea what the hell they were talking about anyway. Dutifully, I left the hammer drill behind, opting instead to carry an old quarter-inch hand drill, plus a few equally ancient rawl bolts. Just in case. Since I was the one carrying all of the aid gear, I figured it was justifiable. They'd recruited me in case the route they were finishing required aid climbing...
Funny thing about those bolts I was carrying. We never used them for upward progress, nor, as it turned out, for downward egress.
Jeb led the corner he had told me "might be 5.9."Might be was right! It was more like 5.10, if not a little harder. He danced, a skilled lento, kinetically upward-bound to a small roof. From our vantage point at the base of the route, Eric traced for me an imaginary line to the right of Jeb's stance some 140 feet up, around a sharp arete, then up a vertical section with horizontal seams which were impossibly spaced for conventional free climbing methods.
"You'll have aid that," he said to Yours Truly. I guess they were depending on me to link up the Imaginary with the Known World, one might say. My mouth went dry. My hands started to sweat. I didn't mind the face above so much. It was that wickedly sharp flange sticking way out over Jeb's belay stance...
I followed Jeb, then Eric followed me. And there we were, hunkered in to a tiny space, intimately experiencing the aromas of each others' perspiration and flatulence. Our anchor was inspiring: a few, crappy body-weight-only placements, and one very good, albeit tiny, TCU. Three grown men, chalkbags a-flutter, before a vista as grand as any you'd see in a decent beer commercial, one before these days of computer-generated beasties belching out trade names from America's finest breweries...
A council of war concluded that the route was finished, and from this point forth wouldst be known as "Three on a Ledge." Now to get down...
Eric rappeled to make some space for Jeb and I to work on beefing up the anchor. Actually, we hadn't figured we'd have to descend from the halfway point on Baron Crag. We were supposed to finish this route to the summit and walk off the top somehow.
I always try to be economical, within reason. This means that if there are any heroics called for, I try to let some one else be the hero. That's usually Jeb, especially way out here in "Remote America." He's from Remote America. But first, I give it my best shot. I couldn't bear to leave my TCU out here at Baron Crag, not after all the good times the little unit and I have been through together, even if it is dirty and mangled. Besides, TCU's are expensive! Thus, I proceeded to hand-drill a bolt hole. A few minutes later, I became even more economical, and Jeb took over the task, he having the bigger guns ("fore arms," in climbers' jargon ). He is, after all, a hero. The placement ready, I inserted one of the ancient, quarter-inch bolts. It bent nicely under one of my near-sighted hammer blows. I attempted to straighten it, but, alas, it broke off cleanly.
"Hmmm."
"(sighhh)"
Silence. The quietness was astounding, almost deafening. Only the sound of pine boughs rustling in the breeze that whispered o'er the verdant, rolling hills. A bead of perspiration dripped from Jeb's brow and splattered onto the rock; it sounded like a cymbal crash from a Mahler symphony. And out of the pastoral peace came a sound as electrifying as a woman's scream from an urban alleyway. I nearly reeled back against the belay anchor, so startling was the sound of my own voice:
"I've got a couple of baby angles ("pitons," my non-climbing reader) here. They might do."
"Ahhh. Gimme."
Clack, clack, clank, clang, ring, ring, rrRINGG! And again. Jeb liked my pitons, the first he'd ever driven. He liked them so much, he let me rappel first, backed up by the TCU.
That's why he's my hero.
Down on the ground, we climbed another natural line which we called, "God's Own Layback," a much easier route than the previous one. We were able to walk off from the finish of God's route. Then we had to start back toward the distant road, a long walk you just don't find most people willing to do these days for a chance to explore the unknown rock of RemoteAmerica.
Copyright 1996 E.B.Boykin,Jr.
� 1997 [email protected]
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