Sometime way back in the early eighties we were in Yosemite. We weren’t very good climbers in terms of high grades, and committing climbs, but we were enjoying the hell out of life. Because of our modest capabilities we had our sights set on a number of obscure climbs that were within our meager limits and away from the throngs. Yes the valley even had throngs in those days. I can’t remember the exact name of the route but it was about five or six pitches in length, and solid old school 5.6 and 5.7 climbing. There were lots of nice fat ledges connected by a variety of interesting crack systems; that required a surprisingly complete arsenal of crack skills, fingers, hands, offwidth’s and chimneys. It was kind of bushy in spots, but all in all fun stuff, Manzanita and ants notwithstanding, and a great days outing. I am only recording it here for posterity’s sake and because two slightly interesting (to me anyway) things happened; one on the ascent, and one on the descent.
The climbing was going great, interesting and lots of fun, and low stress. On the second to last pitch the crux was near the end and it involved negotiating a small roof that had a flaring crack running through it. A nice and easy hand crack led up to the difficulties, which meant that I hadn’t placed a lot of gear prior to the roof. My last piece of gear was probably twenty or thirty feet below me. Now however I was faced with some awkward climbing, that I was more than a bit nervous about. I fumbled around for a bit and finally got a stopper in place, but it didn’t really instill any great confidence for me. So I figured I would back it up with another. Remember this is the early eighties, no cams. At least none were on my cheap and skeletal rack. Also recall that this crack is flaring and somewhat overhanging. Okay, now with stage reset… I decided to add another piece to a short crack nearby… also flaring. This continues on for a bit until I have managed to finagle together a collection of five pieces of gear in about
a two square foot area. I probably would have added more pieces but I believe I ran out.
Nothing for it now but to make the move. Geeze, it can’t be that hard, it’s just that the last solid piece of pro is pretty far down. Two or three moves then I will be safe at the belay in a nice little alcove. Two or three moves. Here goes… One, two… Clink, clink, clink, clink, clink, I looked between my legs and see all of the five pieces I had so carefully placed get lifted out of position by the rope and slither and clatter down the face to come to rest at the lonely hexcentric way below. Three. I made the belay and all was good except my heart rate.
It’s of course pretty easy to see some of the lessons here. One easy thing to do is to place gear before the going gets tough. If I had more experience maybe I would have had the foresight to put in a piece or two after the last good one I had. After all I had run out thirty feet or so on a bomber crack where I could have put lots of solid gear. That would have made the need to be so concerned about the roof less daunting. These situations also certainly highlight the necessity in placing extension runners on your gear. But all is well that ends well.
The rappel descent was uneventful except for the second to last rappel. We ended up on one of the many ledges, although as I recall this was a pretty narrow one. The thing was that the rappel anchor was not at all giving us that warm and fuzzy feeling we all like to have with solid well placed quarter inch bolts and such. (Remember this is still the eighties) Nope, none of that here…. Just a stubby root of an old bush protruding from a crack. No bigger than my thumb really. It was swaddled with a variety of weather worn old slings, and it was loose. Because we were doing single rope rappels, and they also didn’t follow the route exactly; we didn’t really end up in ideal locations. But from the looks of the webbing, some other folks had ended up in the same predicament. I cut free the old tat and added a shiny new sling. That solved problem one. I made my partner go first, while I steadied the root by hand. Figuring that if it held her, that it might just hold me too. That solved problem two.
Doing double rope rappels might have fixed this situation of course; but we were lucky we could afford one rope let alone two. And double rope technique was still a bit of a mystery on this continent in those days, or at least in our circles it was. We also could’ve left some gear for the anchor, but that was anathema to us as well, as we hardly had two coins to rub together.
Well the root held, and we were soon on the ground hilariously trying to do the Gait of Power through the forest and back to the trail and road in the gathering dusk.