Adventures in Testing New Skills - Part II

"How's it going?" Kal called out. "I think the anchor is ok - two pieces are good and the third one is sort of alright, it probably isn't even necessary." There was a moment of silence from below then Reece called up, "are you sure - I think you should try to get a better anchor." No one had a real good view of what I had built except me but now I was starting to doubt my handiwork. I resumed the search for a better third placement for about ten more minutes before, confidence soundly eroded, I gave up. "I'm going to take the anchor apart, climb up a little way and see if I can build a better one." Everyone below seemed pleased with the decision. If a cartoonist had drawn a picture of me right then there would have been little storm clouds and skulls over my head.

I climbed on up to a big overhanging roof of rock that had an inviting looking recess under it. From below it looked like it might be a good location to build an anchor, from up close it became obvious that the rock was a crumbling mess that only lunatics would trust their lives to. I was all done being confident and was starting to feel just a tiny bit uncomfortable. "Uh, Shaggy" Reece called out, "you should try to get some protection in, you're getting a little run out*." . I looked down and assessed the situation. Yep, sure enough I was getting a little runout. I proceeded to make an inspired but not all that good placement in the loose rock in front of me then tackled the overhang.

I part climbed, part groveled my way over the overhang and onto some easier climbing above it. Immediately something became obvious. The rope that trailed behind me was being pulled down under the overhang below me by my little piece of protection, then I was dragging it up and over the overhang, producing an incredible amount of friction. As I started to climb up the rope fought me. I moved up and the resistance got worse. Soon I was having to pull with all my might just to move the rope a few inches. The climbing itself was pretty easy but there were no opportunities to build an anchor - in fact there seemed to be no opportunities to even place protection. I heaved on the rope as it threatened constantly to pull me off the route. Below me the runout grew and grew.

I began swearing loudly as I heaved up on my malicious lifeline with each movement. The world was not a happy place, I didn't particularly like where I was anymore, and my harness was pulling my underwear into an undesirable position (they never talk about that in Climbing magazine). I screamed loudly at the universe. Repeatedly. Suddenly I became aware of a sound. It was like gurgling water, but not quite. A strange alien sound in my little world of anger and suffering. Then I recognized it. A look down revealed that Reece and Kal, a good 100 feet below, were visibly shaking. No, it wasn't fear or concern, they were laughing. They were trying to mask it, but my teammates were on the brink of bursting into hysterics at the sight of me having a terrible time. I failed to share their mirth.

I continued straining my way up the route with the top nearing now. The thing that weighed most heavily on my mind was not the incredible rope drag that threatened to pull me off, not my amazingly annoying friends who could still occasionally be faintly heard enjoying my predicament, not even the complete absence of protection in the last 40 feet of rock. What was weighing most heavily on my mind was that the end of the route was coming up, but the end of that damn rope was probably coming up sooner. "Can you build an anchor?" Reece called. "No, there's no f**king place to build one!" I called, "how much rope left?" "You're almost out - maybe 5 feet left." This wasn't what I wanted to hear. Five feet of rope and about ten feet of route. Ah crap.

I fought my way up the next few feet, hauling against my mortal enemy the rope with all my strength. I stared at the large pine tree that sat on a big delicious ridge a few short feet above my reach- a little island of happy safety just out of reach. I felt dissatisfied. I began to seriously consider untying from the rope and dropping it. I could easily solo that last five feet of route to safety and then someone else could climb up with the rope. The idea, although potentially fatal, was incredibly attractive - drop the rope and in a few dicey seconds I could be up on the big, fat, safe ridge above. I considered it for long seconds - then sanity prevailed. "Can you move up at all?" I called down to Kal who was belaying me. "I can probably move up a bit, but I won't have a good hold on the rope for a minute - do you want me to try it?" he called back.