The beginning of this entry loosely picks up where the last one left off: Yosemite Valley, after a successful albeit extremely grueling free ascent of El Corazon on El Capitan [full story here]. The wall tested me in every possible way, and by the time I finally staggered back to my van with the soul crushing weight of a haul bag full of used wag bags on my back, I thought I had finally seen the conclusion to the how much I had struggled for the past two weeks… or was it the whole season? Or perhaps the entire previous year? If only that had been the case.
I had spent the better part of the last year pouring my heart into learning to climb walls, feeling like I was facing an impossible challenge to get where I dreamt of going for almost the entire time. Finally by the end of winter, I succeeded on Crystal Dawn [story here] and it felt like all my hard work was starting to pay off; like I could actually become the wall climber I aspired to be. A few weeks later, every ounce of confidence I had built was drained away on El Corazon, when mistake after mistake made me feel not only like I was completely unqualified to be free climbing on El Cap, but that I wasn’t even good enough to support someone else on our shared mission. When we finally topped out the route, successful in spite of everything that went wrong, all I felt was completely emotionally drained. I had run myself into the ground and the burnout hit me hard. It was the strongest apathy I’d felt towards climbing in many years, and it rattled me to my core. I didn’t even want to look at a carabiner, and the thought of curling my toes in tight rock shoes or caking chalk underneath my fingernails sent a feeling of dread into the pit of my stomach.
I jokingly posed in front of El Cap wearing a shirt that said “Type 2 Fun,” because after going from one big soul-searching project to the next for so long, it felt like that was the only kind I ever had anymore. My last week in the Valley passed by in a haze of confusion and self-doubt. I tried to force myself to go climbing, because I didn’t know how to face the truth that I didn’t actually want to. I didn’t want to emotionally struggle, or physically suffer, or feel incompetent, or be scared, or feel any of the things that I had fought so hard to overcome on El Corazon; at least for a little while. At the same time, I felt like I didn’t know who I was if I didn’t want to climb, and that I had no value without it, so I continued to force myself to try.
Eventually I left Yosemite alone, hoping a little time to myself would help clear my head as I drove to the Pacific Northwest. Normally the prime season for Index would just be starting, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that Index has some kind of magical properties when it comes to healing a wounded soul.
My hopes for brighter days were almost immediately dampened however, as days turned into weeks where the sun never broke through the seemingly endless rain. What was far worse, there had been a distance growing between my partner and I. It terrified me, and it was all I could think about, so I poured myself into work, running the clock as long as I could alone in a windowless underground office to try and fight off the hungry anxiety that ate away a little more of me each day. I felt deeply broken, with no idea how to fix myself.
My fire for climbing had been a pile of smoldering coals at the beginning of May, but as the miserable weeks dragged on, it slowly began to grow back into a feeble flame thanks to the boundless enthusiasm and selfless support of my best friend Eric. We would wrap ourselves in trash bags and trek out in the rain to the completely manufactured World Wall 2, where one hundred percent humidity would send our fingers wet-firing out of drilled pockets on the glassy rhinostone. He knew I was struggling, but never failed to reassure me that even on my bad days I was still one of his favorite people to climb with; words I desperately needed to hear. Time and time again, he made me laugh when all I wanted to do was cry, and thanks to his support, climbing started to feel fun again.
When I wasn’t getting hopelessly pumped at WW2 with Eric, I would hit the gym with Lindsay, another friend who’s compassion and support was one of the only things that kept me sane. It felt good to jump around on plastic again, where you never have to worry about rockfall or tangled haul lines, and I began to look forward to gym sessions as much as crappy outdoor days. Towards the end of the month, climbing with Eric and Lindsay and a few other good friends became the only times I really felt even kind of like myself.
As my psyche began to return, I checked the long-term weather. Surely things would improve soon; it was almost June. Normally the rain would have stopped weeks ago, yet the forecast for the next thirty days looked identical to the last: unending rain. I knew I had to leave as soon as possible. My anxiety was only getting worse, and I felt like I was dissolving.
I could no longer tell reality from the nightmares that plagued my sleep most nights, until eventually they became one and the same when I was finally faced with the truth that my relationship was at an end. While I had watched everything fall apart in slow motion over the past few weeks (and even before then), it still hit me like a freight train as my world came crashing down around me.
He had taught me everything I knew about how to succeed high off the ground, and my identity as a big wall free climber was deeply intertwined with our relationship. I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else, or by myself.
Suddenly I stood at a fork in the road between who I had been before him, and who I had become thanks to his mentorship. I had never quite figured out how to merge the two lives, and now the split felt more tangible than ever. It didn’t feel like I really had any choice however, because latter road required the four-wheel drive that only his truck had. My van could only go the other, easier way if I was now back to driving alone.
This was fine, I told myself, because there was a part of me that deeply missed some of the kinds of climbing I done before. I missed hard, desperate cracks, and the raucous beauty of the Utah desert. I missed befriending strangers, making my professional climbing career a priority, and other goals of my own that I hadn’t known how to fit into our shared path. I took solace in my ability to once more be in complete control, to prevent facing how utterly crushed my heart actually was.
Eric and I left Seattle together at the beginning of June, caravanning across state lines until we finally arrived in Lander, Wyoming. With every mile I put between me and Seattle my heart felt lighter, as I focused on the future instead of dwelling on the past. I had a lot of amazing things to look forward to: speaking at the International Climber’s Festival, meeting some of my heroes, reuniting with many old friends, and type 1 fun on the beautiful bighorn dolomite of the Wyoming foothills. Everything would work out for the best, I convinced myself. Still, I skipped every sad song that came on the radio. I had been drowning for so long already, I needed to stop dwelling on it for a while.
For the next few weeks, Eric and I romped through the wildflowers of Wild Iris, Sinks Canyon, Wolf Point, and Fossil Hill. The gain in elevation from sea level left Eric gasping for breath as we hiked up steep grassy hills and pulled through powerful pocket climbing, but for me it felt like the first time I had been able to actually breathe in ages. It felt liberating to be free of the dark shadow of anxiety: an enemy that has periodically paid me visits throughout my life (though rarely as crippling as it had been this spring). It was a beautiful time to be in Lander, with every sunset tugging at our heartstrings and the joy of sharing it with my best friend breathing life back into my soul.
Eventually Eric left right before the Fourth of July, far less interested in participating in the debauchery than I was. I embraced the chaos of Independence Day myself, making plenty of regrettable decisions such as allowing a firework go down my shirt during a roman candle war. The parties from the Fourth bonded me with a new friend Adam, who became one of my frequent climbing partners for the rest of summer. I felt strong and psyched, but I held off on projecting anything too seriously for fear of sending my recovering psyche back into the dark place it had been just a few weeks before. I kept everything light and fun, and tried not to miss the purpose that projecting brings me. I knew it was important for me to just focus on having fun for a while; no soul-searching.
The summer festivals came and went, stacking up a long string of powerful experiences as I connected with some of my biggest heroes like Mark Hudon, Amy Skinner, and Paul Piana, and signed Chris Hampton’s chest on stage at the Keynote Speaker event at the festival.
Summer was in full swing, but I had already been in Lander for almost two months and just climbing for fun was starting to get boring. On paper I had everything that a past version of myself could have ever wanted, but as time went on, the adhesive from my “just go back to who you were before” band-aid started to peel away. I was happy and life was good, far better than it had been not long ago, but in my heart I knew something was missing. I still wanted to climb walls. I didn’t want to just be who I was before, but neither did I want to be who I had been for the past year. I wanted to be both. I wanted to be more.
The scars from my spring had healed enough that I was not only ready for adventure again, I craved it. The only problem was that I no longer had someone more experienced to guide me into the unknown or bail me out when I failed or fucked up. I was driving the ship now, and it terrified me because the weight of all my failures on El Corazon still sat heavily upon my shoulders. Magnificent walls were not even very far away, with the Wind River Range just outside of Lander, but all summer I had been telling everyone I had no interest in them because I felt unqualified to be there.
Eventually though, I always get sick of someone telling me I can’t do something, especially when that person is myself. I began to draw courage from my stubborn pride, and over time it grew to be stronger than my fears and insecurities. I finally came to terms with the fact that my doubts over not being good enough to climb hard routes in the mountains were actually the signs that those same mountains were exactly where I needed to go to become good enough. If I already knew how to do everything that I wanted to do, nothing would be gained from the adventure.
I wanted big wall free climbing to continue to be a part of my life, so it was time I went and free climbed some big-ass walls. It was time I went and climbed the big-ass wall: Mount Hooker.
A sheer, 1,800’ big wall that had captured the imagination of so many great climbers throughout history, Hooker is considered by most wall climbers to be right up alongside El Cap as one of the top granite monoliths in the country. First climbed by Royal Robbins, Richard K. McCracken, and Charlie Raymond in 1964, and later free climbed by Todd Skinner, Paul Piana, and Tim Toula in 1990, the wall has evolved through history to not only be the stage for the historic figures I most idolize, but many of the modern free climbers I admire most as well, such as Hayden Kennedy and Mason Earle.
I had heard enough from friends in the past to know just how remote Hooker actually was however, and the nearly twenty-mile approach seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. I couldn’t help but assume that just getting myself and my gear out there would be so soul-crushing that I wouldn’t even be able to scramble around on alpine boulders, let alone climb nearly two thousand feet in a day. Add in the factors of high elevation (the summit stands at 12,509’), unpredictable weather, notorious mosquitoes, and knowing I’d probably be leading any difficult and/or heady pitches, and Mount Hooker sounded like nothing more than a pipe dream. Even in his book Big Walls, Paul Piana had described it as:
“The lone black stallion way up in the back canyons that, from time to time, ran briefly among other dreams and riled ‘em up, but that we could never quite get motivated to bring in and brand.”
It wasn’t just the Black Stallion to me, it was the most volatile and untamable wild horse any Wyoming cowgirl had ever seen, and I had only ever ridden ponies.
No way.
There was just no way; such a mountain was beyond me.
Except… somewhere along the line, I didn’t want that to be true anymore. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who let all those excuses define my dreams. I didn’t want to only climb the big walls that were easy or convenient to get to, the ones on the side of the road, or the ones you can rap in and fix lines on and rehearse until all the adventure is gone. I didn’t want to only ride ponies.
I wanted to mount the black stallion, and ride until she bucked me off. Then I wanted to get back on and take that ride again, and again, and again, until that wild horse and I were equals, galloping off into the sunset together as one. I knew the only way to be the kind of person who could climb Mount Hooker, was to swallow my pride, face the challenge, and go try and climb Mount Hooker. This time I was ready to struggle and even fail, and would welcome it as a motivator, a teacher, and a long-lost friend.
We assembled a ragtag crew, consisting of:
Kevin: The Dirtbag.
Miya and Clatch: The Photographers.
Adam: The Local.
And me: The Rope Gun.
We picked a time: the second week in August.
As the trip grew closer and closer, my desire to be in the mountains escalated from a distant dream to an obsession. I became singularly focused on Mount Hooker. Sport climbing projects were abandoned in favor of attempted volume days, where Adam and I drug each other up as many pitches as we could. I started to skip climbing altogether to go on steep runs to build leg strength and cardio at elevation. As music pounded in my headphones, I imagined myself a thousand feet off the ground; a tiny speck adrift in a sea of granite.
A week before we were tentatively going to leave, I returned to an alpine route I had bailed off of two years ago. It was an easy day trip from Lander to the Leg Lake Cirque for a route called Weeping Moon, and should have been a casual mission now that the rock was dry and there was no post-holing required like the last time I had tried. We almost immediately turned onto the wrong trail however, and hiked two hours in the wrong direction. We crested a hill to finally see the wall, just as far away as when we had started, and my heart sank. I was exhausted by the extra miles and my heavy pack, but we couldn’t stop for more than a minute or two at a time without being consumed by swarms of mosquitoes.
“We don’t have to do this,” Adam cautiously said once or twice when I let it show how much I was struggling. Technically he was right, but in my mind there would be no bailing, not again. I had shied away from this level of challenge my entire life. Every time I had ever tried to climb in the Winds before I had failed. I had been fighting with wall climbing for so. long. It had even been suggested to me in the spring that ‘Maybe I didn’t even really like multipitching’ as a misguided attempt to help me find my way through one of the low points.
I was climbing that Godforsaken wall, and then I was going to climb Mount Hooker next, and nothing nor no one was going to stop me.
We topped out Weeping Moon in a light rain and heavy bug cloud, but none of it mattered. Even though we had still messed it up rather spectacularly, I had finally tasted success in the Winds. It didn’t mean I was a match for Hooker, but I now held the belief that if I was brave and tenacious enough, I could find a way.
A week later, at the last minute pack horses were booked, we had a steadfast crew assembled and it was finally time to answer the call this mountain had been singing to me so loudly it was almost a scream. The miles of dirt roads to the Big Sandy Trailhead flew by under the tires of my van as Adam jokingly strapped on his helmet to mock how fast I was driving, but my psyche was unstoppable.
My phone buzzed with the last patch of cell phone service I was expecting to have for many days. Mostly messages of encouragement and well wishes on the trip from friends, but amongst them a piece of news that I hadn’t been expecting: someone I knew would be out at Mount Hooker. We hadn’t spoken since the breakup. My stomach wanted to turn itself inside out. Fear, stress, and guilt were a tangled ball of snakes inside of me. I already thought it was going to take everything I had to climb this mountain, but now I had to face my ex too? It would have been easier to add an extra five miles to the hike than run into him out there. Not only that, but was I about to drag all my friends into my drama? That wasn’t what they had signed up for and I felt sick at the prospect of putting them in such an unfair position.
I told Adam what was going on, but he took it in stride, reassuring me that it was just a part of life and that everyone else’s experiences were not my responsibility. Still, no one in our group would be here if it weren’t for me. How could I not feel responsible?
I pushed it out of my mind as we rolled in to Big Sandy Lodge. A friendly cowboy with a gelled English mustache led us out to the barn where we weighed all our packs, around 60lbs per person except for Clatch, who neared one hundred. We slept in a grassy field near the trailhead as the sun dipped behind the mountains, relishing in the cool air that was a welcome reprieve from the previous few months of summer heat. My friends curled into their vans and tents to hopefully dream of shining peaks beyond the horizon, as I tossed and turned with nerves.
Wednesday morning we gathered at the trailhead amongst a packed parking lot of cars. I immediately recognized the one I had been hoping not to see. My chest tightened in a hauntingly familiar panic that I hadn’t felt since Seattle, but as the miles turned to dust under our feet, the beauty of the backcountry washed over me and carried my imagination back to the real reasons I was here. With nothing but snacks and light jackets in our day packs, we made it to the scheduled drop point for our gear by noon. A few minutes later Troutman and Johnny, friends coincidentally sharing our horse drop arrived, and we settled down for what we expected to be a short wait. One thirty at the latest, the cowboys had said, but an hour went by, then two, then four. Something must have gone wrong, and if the horses didn’t show up we were either shiver bivvying here with no food nor warm clothes, or hiking ten miles back out. Both options made me feel like a trespasser in a very foreign land.
Finally, two climbers, Stefan and Suraj, came hauling up the trail, reporting that they were just a few minutes ahead of the horses, and we cheered in relief when the tired beasts finally emerged from the trees. Laden down with food, ropes, tents, cameras, and gear, we began the last few miles of steep slogging up Hailey Pass and down the other side.
My idea had always been to climb a route called The Optimist on my first day. With only two pitches of 5.12, plus it climbing a slightly shorter part of the wall made for a better introductory route than the more intimidating ones on the apex that rose several hundred feet higher. A few conversations with various friends we found milling around the base Wednesday night brought numerous doubts into my plans however. We received reports that a hangar had fallen off a bolt on the crux pitch: the Optimist Slab. The bolt was here on the ground, and who should have it but my ex, because he was also planning to climb the same route, on the same day, twenty miles in the Wyoming backcountry. Of course.
Here I was, trying to prove to myself that I could climb walls on my own, and who should hold this seeming metaphoric key to that success? Of course it was him. The irony was a slap in the face of all it had taken for me to get here.
“What do you want to do?” the others kept asking, but I had no answer. If another team had the bolt, I should let them go first and replace it. At the same time, I was disheartened at the idea of compromising my plans over something that might not even matter. That shouldn’t matter.
“Leave it to the people with small dreams, to make a big deal out of small problems,” I couldn’t help but think; words from Todd Skinner’s book Beyond the Summit that had become like a bible to me over the past few years. I hadn’t come here play games or back down because I was insecure, and thought someone else had more of a right to be here than I did. I had come here to do the exact opposite: to earn my place in the mountains, on my own terms. I had come here to climb Mount Hooker, to become a greater person than I had been when I left Lander, and this was such a stupidly small thing to be so worried about.
Fuck it. “I want to climb the Optimist tomorrow,” I finally said to the others with conviction.
Kevin and Adam volunteered to go try and figure out what to do about the bolt, but I held back. The moment they disappeared into the night, I felt disgusted at my own cowardice. I shouldn’t be sending my friends to fight my battles for me, and running from this confrontation did not make me the kind of person I wanted to be. When the boys returned empty handed, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief. I had just been given a second chance to be the bigger person, and I decided that when the opportunity next presented itself, I would be brave.
The next morning, Clatch and Miya blazed a trail up the early pitches of the Optimist to get in position to shoot photos, as Adam and I followed behind. As we readied ourselves for the iconic Razor Roof pitch, I saw movement down below us. They were here, and I didn’t care. Come what may. I pulled over the roof and out of sight.
When Adam caught up to me, he brought good news. They had given him the missing hangar and a wrench, and were leaving. As Adam handed me the bolt, he suggested I put it on a sling for backup, but I was only half listening as I clipped it to my harness without taking his advice.
I climbed up to where a hangarless bolt stuck out of a blank granite slab, just a few moves past the crux of the route. I was on point and despite the precariously balanced position, thought I could fix the bolt while on lead. Switching back and forth between two sloping handholds that were radiating heat from the sun, I unclipped the wrench from my harness, and before I could even attempt to use it, fumbled the entire ensemble. The tools tumbled away into the talus field far below, leaving me and the useless bolt alone in a wash of smooth, blank, 5.12 friction slab.
I was already far above the last protection, but a strange sense of confidence washed over me. Looking at the features of the wall, I felt no doubt that I could climb through the next section without falling. For all the insecurity I had felt thus far, now in this moment of truth I felt completely calm and in control. I knew what to do, and I knew that I could do it. It was a stark contrast to how I had felt the last time I’d been on granite, when memories of storms and rockfall had left me quivering in my rock boots. Now I felt like myself on my best days: the fearless, highlight reel version of myself that I hadn’t been on a wall in a long time.
I girth hitched a sling tightly around the remaining shard of metal in the wall, and launched up the slab, breathing a sigh of relief when I finally clipped the next real bolt. Safety felt only half as good as thrill of having bested the situation.
With the Optimist Slab behind us, the rest of the route went by quickly, only one other pitch of 5.12 tested us at the top of the wall, but the rock was cool and dry, and even the added pump from being at 12,000’ was no match for our psyche. Soon Adam and I stood atop Mount Hooker just as scattered raindrops began to fall.
“If I get struck by lightening, you have to tell Max,” Adam said as we coiled the ropes. It wasn’t the first time he had expressed concerns about getting caught in inclement weather, and after this spring it was something I was also very inclined to avoid. Knowing I wasn’t the only one worried about the afternoon thunderstorms of the alpine kicked me into gear.
I had drug Adam out here, I had picked this route, I had chosen today to climb. Every decision that had brought us to this point had been because of me, and if something went wrong, that meant I was responsible. I couldn’t let that happen, not when I was already trying to overcome my fears about being unqualified to be in the mountains in the first place.
In the end the weather held, with only a few sprinkles adding excitement. We were back at our tents eating strawberry pop tarts (an homage to what the first free ascent party ate in celebration of their send) just a little over twelve hours after we had left that morning, exhausted and content.
I spent the following day exploring the lakes and hillsides, making sure I got a good look at Hooker from every possible angle. I found the wrench I had dropped, and watched Kevin and Adam attempt to climb Cache Pirates, only to get immediately off route and decide to bail after questing through what they dubbed “Choss Pirates” for several hours. At the top of Hailey Pass I picked up a recent forecast, and the outlook was grim. Some kind of severe weather event was predicted over the weekend, with flooding and up to an inch of rain.
We decided to wake up long before dawn to squeeze in some scouting pitches on Saturday before the storm hit in the early afternoon, and let Sunday be a bust. While the forecasts had been wrong so far, almost exactly at noon the next day the start of the ‘weather event’ appeared to have arrived. To our surprise however, it passed in only an hour, and the rest of the day was clear. Nearby we watched Stefan and Suraj wait out the storm in a miserable huddle, in order to have many hours left to climb in the evening while we sat around at camp.
Sunday’s forecast scared me into resting, but the clear skies on Saturday night gave Kevin and Adam enough optimism to make another attempt at Cache Pirates. I had a bad feeling about their outlook. The weather hadn’t been very accurate thus far, but if it was, they were about to climb headfirst into a stormy nightmare just like El Corazon, only they had no portaledge in which to shelter. I watched their progress through binoculars with trepidation. They were moving fast up the route, but would it be fast enough?
I decided to go check the weather at noon. One hundred percent chance of rain starting within the next two hours. They were screwed, and there was nothing I could do. I trusted my friends to handle themselves, but I still couldn’t help but worry and continue to feel a sense of responsibility for bringing them here.
I only made it partway back to camp before the rain started, an hour ahead of schedule. The glowing embers of a fire beckoned me into a cave, where Matt, Jesse, Stefan, and Suraj were hunkered down. I had only planned to say a quick hello, but the real weather event was here however, and relentless rain crept farther and farther into the cave as minutes turned to hours.
Eventually I made a run for camp. As I approached the base, Hooker was shrouded in a fog. I couldn’t help but remember a not-too-distant time when I had been up on a big wall, surrounded by clouds so thick you couldn’t see the ground. Memories of El Corazon sent a shiver down my spine, and I hoped desperately that the boys weren’t still up there.
Fortunately, Kevin and Adam were down, hiding in their own cave and looking like they had just crawled straight out of a watery hell. They had rappelled for two hours in the downpour, including missing a rap station and having to prussik back up the rope with an ATC. All the gear was soaked, but they were safe and happy to be done with their ordeal.
Our days were numbered at this point. After allowing Adam a day of rest, we prepared to climb Gamblin’ in the Winds as our last route of the trip. We had already sussed the first few pitches of 5.12, and I was confident that I could climb them quickly so that we could have a full day for the rest of the route. It was a fair bit longer than the Optimist or Cache Pirates, and would be a step up from anything either Adam or I had done in a day before.
I flew through the opening crux pitches, leading us halfway up the wall in just a few hours. Adam took over after that, onsighting pitch after pitch and essentially doubling the number of trad 5.11s he had ever led. It was no surprise to me, I had watched him casually hike 5.14s all summer in Lander and he had immediately adapted to all the wall techniques I liked to use. He had been supporting both Kevin and I all week, taking no rest days and waking up each morning insisting that he felt fine while I felt like I had been hit by a bus and could barely walk. While I had led the crux pitches, they had been rehearsed. His onsight leads were of equal difficulty to my redpoint ones in a big day on a route as adventurous as Gamblin,’ where fifty-foot runouts are not uncommon.
Every single pitch on the route was spectacular, the skies were blue, and we were both climbing flawlessly. There was no struggle at all, but it came as the reward of having struggled so many times in the past, which only made it all the more rewarding. I hadn’t felt this good on a wall since the day I sent Crystal Dawn, and it was like magic.
With only two pitches to go before the official route was over and we were on the “5.10 mountain climbing of choice to the top,” when the occasional fluffy white cloud started to turn to a more ominous gray. I wasn’t worried about it, but I suspected Adam might feel differently after his experience with Kevin. Either way, there wasn’t much we could do except continue climbing efficiently and hope for the best.
I took back over the lead for the last few mountain pitches, pulling onto a ledge and suddenly finding the great Der Major opening up before me: a giant grassy boardwalk that runs horizontally near the top of Mount Hooker and marks the official end of many routes. I hadn’t been climbing for very long, but in the time I had led the last rope length, the sky had darkened dramatically. Time to get out of here.
To my dismay, a few drops of precipitation spattered against the raincoat I was already wearing as I hopelessly tugged on the haul line that was surely wrapped around one of the many corners, roofs, or ledges I had just wandered through. Things were deteriorating quickly, and by the time Adam joined me it was clear that we were in trouble. “I thought you said it wasn’t going to rain,” he muttered unhappily. We were both soaked and he looked miserable. I could only imagine what he must be thinking, to be caught in a second storm at the top of the wall in as many days. This time, however, we could not so easily rappel. Our safest and easiest way off Hooker was over the summit.
For all the times that Adam had picked me up when I had needed it, now it was my turn. A strange sense of calm acceptance washed over me. Whatever happened next was going to majorly suck, but I meant it when I told Adam that we were going to be okay. “I’ll get us out of here,” I promised, and then set off up next pitch in what had now turned to aggressive hail.
Scant gear protected long sections of chimneying through waterfalls, and every time I had to step on a wet clump of slippery grass I sent up a prayer to the heavens for mercy. Eventually I reached a small ledge where, if I huddled against the wall, I could avoid the worst of the water that was actively falling from the sky. Seeing as it was now raining too hard for me to look up and see where I was going, and how Adam was still violently exposed to the elements at his miserable belay, I decided to stop and bring him up. It had to be better here than where he was.
By the time he caught up, the storm seemed to be calming down. Time to push to the summit and hope I wasn’t signing myself up to get struck by lightning.
At long last Adam pulled over the summit to where I sat shivering in soggy clothes feeling for all the world like a drowned cat. I cheered at both our survival and success, as we began hurriedly packing away the gear for the descent. Gradually our frantic pace slowed as we noticed a tiny patch of blue sky headed our way.
The closer it got, the more it grew, and we knew that our brief suffering had come to an end. Stripping off my harness and abandoning our supplies, I jogged to the apex of the summit alone. I could see deep into parts of the Wind River mountains that I hadn’t even known existed: craggy ridges and endless rock faces seemed to stretch on forever; a lifetime of adventure for even the most savvy explorer. I couldn’t help but wonder what Royal Robbins had thought when he saw this view all those years ago. What about Todd Skinner?
As I stared across the jagged peaks of the Winds, tears began to run down my face. It was then that I realized that I hadn’t felt anything about climbing, truly felt anything, deep in my bones, since April. Now though, standing atop the summit of Mount Hooker for the second time having fought like hell to get here, I felt truly alive in the rarest and most precious sense. Watching sweeping expanses of granite open up all around me, looking at aquamarine lakes teeming with trout, meadows dotted with wildflowers, and boulder fields hiding caves home to scraggly climbers, beauty radiated from every rain-soaked angle and I knew in my heart that of all the infinite places on Earth, in this moment in time I was exactly where I was supposed to be. I saw all my mistakes laid bare before me: every regret, failure, and flaw, and knew that none of them had been enough to stop me from still clawing my way here. Every difficult, beautiful, heartbreaking thing that had happened in the last year of my life as I tried to learn to climb walls, or in the twenty-nine years of my entire life, or in the nearly sixty years since Hooker had first been climbed, had led me to this place, and so that was where I belonged: here in the mountains, on walls, on summits, or anywhere my wildest dreams could possibly imagine myself going.
The Lone Black Stallion had reared, and bucked, and done her very best to throw me to the ground in so many different ways, but I had clung on for dear life until in the end she finally saw that our spirits were one and the same:
“A little too hard to handle
A little too tough to get to
But beautiful once you break through.”
[Lie Like This – Julia Michaels]
Now onward together we ride to the next windswept crag, desperate crack, or maybe even another wild and remote alpine summit.
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