“The anchors are fucking up there,” Z said as he got out of his beat up pickup truck.
Z’s a local to Taylor Canyon in Gunnison Valley and he was mad that the mountain bikers had taken more parking spaces than they needed. They were planning load their bikes into their vehicles.
That morning, Z hadn’t really brought the “Aloha” vibes with him.
Kyle and I were looking at the guide book and looking up at the Second Buttress – taking in a good view of the long 60ish degree looking ramp. Kyle had put some time climbing in “The T” – colloquial bro code for the Taylor Canyon – but he was out of practice and couldn’t remember specifically where the anchors were located. The only piece of solid information Kyle could offer, was that he felt “pretty accomplished” after he’d sent that route for the first time years ago.
Looking between the guide book and the chunk of rock, I still couldn’t find the anchors. But, Z said they’re up there. So, we grabbed the rope, the rack of gear, water, food, climbing shoes, and helmets, and headed to the base of the route.
The approaches in The T aren’t all that bad. It took about five minutes to walk from the car to the base of the route, and we’d only gained about 80 feet of elevation on the trail. Hardly enough of a trek to begin breathing heavily.
At the base of the route, there were white marks covering portions of the rock wall, signifying where other climbers had previously put their chalked up hands to pull themselves up the route. While it looked manageable, the cracks and places to put gear to protect me from taking a ground fall seemed… sparse, and not all that great.
This was the second harder route I was putting myself on the sharp end for this trip, trying to step my game up in the canyon. The day before I’d been spit out of Sassafras, a stiff crack for the grade, and took a good fall onto a green camalot.
Though, when I racked up and tied in at the base of Angle’s Away, I wasn’t thinking about the previous days fall.
I verbalized the pre-climb check-in with my belayer to let them know I’m prepared to climb. “My knot is tied, through both loops, and I’ve got all my gear.”
The beginning of the route has great jugs to hold and pull on with three inch wide ledges to stand up for about the first 15 feet. After that first 15 feet, I was able to get a grey camalot into a shallow crack, hopefully ensuring I wouldn’t deck upon a slip. Should a fall occur, considering rope stretch, I was safe for about the next eight feet.
“You’re going to want to have your blue and gold offset nuts ready to go,” sprayed Z as he comfortably lit his cigarette on the safety of the flat ground.
With each step onto another ledge, the handholds became smaller and the rock more polished. The gear placements for protection either became non-existent, or not quite…. bomber. The flaring cracks weren’t able to hold camalots or nuts very well.
The gear was becoming less secure with each movement upward, and I was no longer standing on ledges or using my fingertips to hold me up. I was now standing on the balls of my feet, pressing my back into the adjacent wall – using friction and pressure to keep myself wedged on the rock.
As I’d make a move upward, it became necessary to use my palms to push into the rock where my feet were located, and scum my back on the rock wall behind me.
I was about ten feet above the last piece of protection and 50 feet off the ground.
The last piece, a blue camalot, was not settled in a place that inspired much confidence. Should I fall, and that piece did not hold, I was potentially looking at touching dirt.
My feet smears were starting to slip. The palms that were pushing my back into the other wall were beginning to sweat and leave imprints on the rock. At this point, chalk was all but useless and was not drying my hands.
Exasperated, I’d begun to breath quite heavily and was beginning to lose the battle of the zen-like flow state. I’d begun to lose my composure.
“Breath dude, you really don’t want to blow it here,” yelled Kyle from down below.
Z added, “Yeah, man… this might be a real shitty fall. Maybe you should down climb and regain your composure. You’ll still keep the onsight if you do that!”
“I can do that,” I thought, and began to make the tedious, careful steps to climb down about 12 feet to relative safety.
After that dozen feet of down climbing, I was standing on chips that were good enough, and holding onto one to two inch crimp rails that allowed me shake out the built up lactic acid in my forearms and legs.
“Point your heels down, so you’re not standing on your calves and flexing them,” added Kyle. I’d heeded the mountain guide’s suggestion, which was a good piece of advice. (Note: I typically take Kyle’s advice, because he’s spent a lot of time acquiring certifications to guide people up mountains.)
Normal breathing returned.
Palms became less sweaty.
Forearms became less pumped and I felt as if I’d be able to hold a soda can again.
My feet didn’t feel like they’d unexpectedly slip out from under me.
I was able to objectively measure my next moves.
It was 12 feet to where I was last stuck and began hyper-ventilating. After that, another seven feet of climbing where I really don’t want to fall. Then, there’s a good pinky lock and I can place a purple camalot that will be totally bomber.
After running through the scenario in my head, I went up.
The sequence went: smear the feet and use my right hands palm to push my back into the other wall. Stand up. Find another place to put the balls of my feet and another place to put my palm. Stand up. Repeat four or five times until I’m near the pinky lock.
I stood real tall and slotted my right hand into the crack, for an amazing pinky lock. Once that hand was slotted, I’d felt as if it was impossible to fall out. While thinking this, I’d instinctively taken the purple camalot off my harness, put it into the crack, and clipped the rope through the carabiner.
“Gun it,” Z said.
I really had no other choice for the next 15 feet. There was nowhere else to put protection, but the featureless glass-like rock had disappeared and handholds had reappeared. All I had to do was keep breathing, find places to put my feet, and grab onto ledges and jugs to pull my self up.
After five movements that entailed long reaches out left and up high, and the left and right shuffling of my feet as I’d stood up, I’d gotten to the anchors.
“Whooooo! Fuck yeah!” I exalted.
I faced my fears, I climbed hard (for me), and I didn’t fuck it up. These were all great emotions associated with the route, but was potentially more excited to clip to the anchors and get lowered.
After Kyle had lowered me to the dirt, he’d said, “my bad dude, I think I might’ve sandbagged you. But aren’t you glad you did it?”