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First Dates |
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by Ray Purcell |
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I don't typically think of my first date but I vividly remember how halting and painfully awkward I felt.� At once her attraction left me at least equal parts desperate and stuttering.� Standing close to her was palpably electric.� It was as though every sensory fiber had been newly formed and never before stimulated.� Of course the first kiss was blinding, plunging, a dream fall.� But those are memories now and I don't lament their passing.� Those sensations have been properly supplanted with the smoldering control of passion, an art that can only come of maturity and mutual experience, a flame that is not diminished by time and will spread over you with a whisper or the lightest breath. |
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| For me climbing is startlingly similar to those relationships, and routes that I've never climbed are so much like a first date.� My friend Steve Ford and I had meet and gotten to know each other on routes that for me were... familiar mature relationships.� But when I mentioned Crest Jewel on North Dome in Yosemite, we found that we were separately attracted by a mutual desire, a classic Sierran Dome, a perfectly blended mix of quartz, feldspar, and plagioclase, largely unblemished by cracks, laced by dikes, and subtly featured with fine crystalline texture.� By an odd twist of fate, serendipity, or coincidence each of us had first become aware of this route on North Dome at about the same time four years ago.� Though Steve discovered Crest Jewel while looking through a Yosemite climbing guide and living in Lansing Michigan. I learned about the route while living four hours away from the park, and after a typically vivid and enticing description of the route by my friend Scott Wayland. |
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| Steve and I had planned to climb Crest Jewel in October, during cooler fall days.� Temperatures typical of summer, and occasionally late spring can turn sticky rubber into a viscous semisolid on delicate face holds.� I had actually tried for Crest Jewel several summers before when I was romanced by the prospect of linking the climb with an ascent of Royal Arches, a common link up combination.� On that attempt my friend Geoff Jennings and I had done Royal Arches in respectable time.� But we arrived at the base of Crest Jewel just a little late in the day, slightly fatigued, already anticipating the dreaded descent of North Dome Gully, and enticed by a large combination pizza with beer.� Wiser for the experience and wanting a more leisurely and less ambitious approach, Steve and I choose to park at the Porcupine Creek Trailhead off of the Tioga Pass Road and hike down.� Though the distance to North Dome is signed at approximately five miles, because the trail is generally descending and quite smooth, we easily covered the ground hiking at a moderately a brisk pace, and with packs in an hour and a half.� |
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| It's certainly possible to do the climb car to car in a day, but Steve had never been to Tuolumne Meadows before so a tour of the meadows and a night spent at the top of North Dome became the preferred plan.� Besides the top of North Dome is perhaps one of the finest vantages for a Sunset in Yosemite, particularly with the expansive face of Half Dome reflecting the rose hue of alpin glow.� High above the noise and crowd of the valley floor we captured the pastels stroked across Half Dome and the Sierra Crest by the setting sun and then sat in mesmerized silence sipping whiskey as the deepening inky night settled across the sky.�� |
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| The next morning we were able to have a civilized start since it only takes about an hour to descend to the base of the climb.� From the saddle at the top of North Dome we dropped down to the west into a small drainage and aimed for the slabs that are free of the chaparral that chokes the margin along the base of the dome.� We avoided the temptation to cut over to the dome too soon and actually had to ascend a little to get back to the dome.� We had considered doing the direct start for the climb that had been added by the first ascentionists just the preceding June; this adds five pitches to the route and ups the ante of the crux to 5.10d.� But having arrived at the almost single pine tree that marks the original start we found we were too eager to start climbing.� We rationalized that since there are ten pitches on the original route, there was more than enough climbing ahead of us. |
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| We dropped our gear, which consisted of a single 60-meter rope and the recommended 15 full runners (ten or twelve are plenty); this face climb takes no other protection since it is fully bolted.� Thanks to the American Safe Climbing Assn. and Larry Scritchfield, we would enjoy climbing on a route that had just been fully rebolted this year.� As I chewed on a Clif Bar and chugged down some water my eyes wandered out over the expansive dome.� Suddenly my precious sense of carefully constructed and objective clarity fully sublimated into vapor.� My emotions were tossed up in a vortex, like ice crystals in the spindrift that swirls in the wind over a summit.� I felt giddy, there was an alluring tension that chilled and tingled.� Then came the juxtaposed and inevitable uncertainty, niggling self-doubt; I had waited for this date for four years.� How do I play it? |
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| There's a momentum that proceeds like an army in advance of convicted action, even when your emotional center is well... insecure.� You just have to be sure to never show the troops; it's an inner adult vs. child struggle that has nothing to do with my partner.� "I'll take the first pitch, if that's ok with you... or we can match for it."� No, Steve is ever the gentleman and graciously defers to my offer with a, "your on belay."�� I started out balancing my weight to keep my center of gravity over the balls of my feet in proscribed slab style.� The quartz and plagioclase crystals that give Sierran granite it's characteristic salt and pepper appearance and texture is mottled by palm sized lakes of much more glassy feldspar; I started to skate and then slipped on one of these.� I was frustrated with myself for not having cleaned the sand and dust off of my shoes before starting, and for the clumsy footwork that for me typically precedes adaptation to travel over the more steeply diagonal world.� It was more embarrassment really, kind of like slipping up in front of your date when you really want to look cool. |
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| Once my soles were cleaned by the slide I was able to marvel at the near magical purchase that I began to master on improbable placements.� I started to feel like I had cast off on a sea of granite, navigating from one bolt to the next in a balanced dance.� Just as I started to become concerned about getting becalmed with no sense of direction or star to guide me a bolt hanger would emerge from the granite like Xanadu.� The rule became to climb trending up and to the right.� This became the pattern and the rhythm as Steve and I swung leads to the sixth pitch.� As Steve lead out the first shiny new hanger that caught his eye was left of the belay at about 10 to 11 o'clock.� Once he clipped in about fifteen feet out from the belay he discovered that the first clip was actually right and at 2 o'clock from the belay.� The deceitful angle of the bolt hanger that caused its invisibility from the belay cost Steve an agonizing down climb. |
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| After Steve led the crux pitch with style and grace it was two more pitches of easy 5.7 to the top of the dome.� After several summit photos we hiked back to camp and uncorked a celebratory bottle of cabernet.� We settled back to another incomparable sunset after a satisfying salmon, pine nut, and mushroom couscous (a recipe adapted from a backcountry culinary creation by Scott Wayland).� As I reflect back over the day and this story I suppose I could have better described the details of the climb but a gentleman never kisses and tells. |
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October,� 2002. |
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Photos |
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