We didn’t set out looking for a “mini-epic”. In fact we anticipated everything going smoothly, as planned. After six pitches, we would be 600 feet above the start of the route, “Dope Ninja”, which was already well above the road we hiked from camp. We would take a few pictures at the top, eat lunch and then begin the awkward repel down. Once we had our feet back on horizontal ground, we would decide how much more daylight we had for a few small climbs. We had no idea what the next thirteen hours had in store for us.
At El Potrero Chico, casual is the norm. You wake up when you want, take your time getting breakfast, plan out your day, and then wake your friends up so they can do the same. No one seemed to be in a hurry, and if they were, I wasn’t up yet to see it. If you had a week or more there, you didn’t see the need to burn yourself out early in the week. Believe me. I was spent before the week was over.
We told ourselves we would start “Dope Ninja” around 9 a.m. so that we would actually start before noon. Of course, two other rope teams had the same plans as us. They just got there before us. Maybe they were shooting for 8 a.m. While we waited for the second team to get high enough up, the “Peanut Gallery” shows up. That’s right, the other rope team that was travelling with us. Both of them were much stronger climbers than me, but somehow, when presented with over six hundred climbed routes and potential for new routes far exceeding that, climbing suddenly wasn’t there thing anymore. They felt that heckling us was much more important. In retrospect, I should have known that these two albatrosses tromping up the loose approach was not a good sign. Four pitches up, I would recall The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “…nor any drop to drink”.
Eventually we began the climb. I lead the first pitch (because it was easy). The next pitch was long for us, 140 feet. Max, my climbing partner lead it and I followed. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. When I reached the belay anchors, Max informed me that he lost most of the water in his hydration system, because the bite valve leaked. I thought, “No problem. I have plenty for both of us.” Before we started the next pitch, the rope team before us was repelling down. They were worried about their dogs at the bottom and decided not to go all the way up. We moved to the side of the ledge to allow them to set up their next rappel on the anchors. More time lost, but we wanted to give them plenty of room.
On the third pitch, Max couldn’t see any more bolts above him. I told him I could see one to his left around the corner. He clipped it and continued up. Again, he couldn’t see any bolts. I consulted the guidebook, and realized the route was supposed to have gone right instead of left. What was that lone bolt doing there? I told him he might still be able to see the anchors above him, because the path he was taking should meet back up with the route to the right at the next belay anchors. He moved up a little and saw them. He told me that he was going to go to them instead of downclimbing and taking the bolted path to the right. Then he asked, “What are you going to do?” What? What am I going to do? Uh? Other than belay him to the next anchors and then follow, what are my options? “I’m going to follow you up,” I yelled. Then he told me how loose the rock was and I understood why he asked. “Check every rock,” he called down. “O.K. Thanks,” I replied. “Every rock!” “O.K.” “Even the big ones.” “I will. Thank you, Max.” I paid out what only seemed like a descent amount of rope while Mad Max the Runout Warrior ran the rest of the way out to the anchors. Funny how it doesn’t appear to be that much rope when you are at a blind belay, and then later you get to see how far the runout really was. As I started to follow, I thought I could make it past the crux by climbing this smooth slab to a dihedral. It proved too slick. I moved to the aręte instead, and fell a few times on the rope while working my way past the crux. After cleaning just a few draws, I reached the loose chimney. Checking every rock was sound advice. I had to forgo many deceptively bomber looking holds because of loose rock. There was one huge rock that I might have pulled right on top of me if I hadn’t received such prudent warnings. After carefully making my way through the small chimney, I saw Max, way up there. He said he was glad to see me again. Later, I jokingly told him that I didn’t even need to clean that pitch. I just top-roped it.
I started to wonder about time, but at this point things were going somewhat smoothly, we just had some delays. Besides, we had finished half the route including the two hardest rated pitches, and I was looking forward to the next pitch, a 5.6 traverse. On this pitch, the rope drag became extreme. When I reached the anchors, my harness had been pulled all the way around to where the belay loop was on my right hip. Also, the wind had picked up and we could not communicate. This is really where the trouble began.
I kept shouting, “Belay On.” He never responded. I knew he couldn’t hear me. The only reason I wasn’t worried, was because I knew Max wouldn’t do anything stupid. Even though I had him on belay, he could have climbed without me knowing. The rope drag was that bad. I couldn’t believe I had dropped my radio four days earlier. I had just made it to the top of our first climb. I reached above my head for a better hold and knocked the radio upwards and off of its clip. There wasn’t a tether anchor spot on these cheap radios like most. The whole thing was slick and rounded. I should have tied a tether to the clip (which was also well rounded). Instead, the radio plummeted until it hit the wall and sprayed outward in many pieces. Radios would have changed everything. The downside of being patiently cautious and waiting until we could communicate, was the loss of much time. Eventually he was able to safely climb. I had to pull with almost all of my strength at first because of the rope drag. Finally, he was close enough that I could tell him that I was glad to hear him again.
The next pitch proved to have the same communication problems. Again we lost too much time. I was not going to climb until I knew Max was ready, but I could hear nothing when I shouted out to him. By this time we were out of water and didn’t even know how much longer we would be up there. When I reached the top of the fifth pitch, I had summit fever. We had done all of the hard parts and only one short and “easy” pitch remained. I asked Max how he thought we were doing on time. This was only a lame way of putting the burden on him to call it. Of course he wanted to continue. If he wanted to start descending, I would have respected his decision, but I was glad he did not abort.
After a quick snack, I started the final pitch. It felt like the hardest 5.7 I’ve ever climbed. I was tired. When Max made it to the top, he said, “That was the hardest 5.7 I’ve ever climbed.” It was starting to get dark. We decided to work efficiently and safely. In a few moments it would be as dark as it would get, and there was no point in trying to race the sun. We had already put our headlamps on our helmets at the last belay station in anticipation of the darkness.
We knew that we would have to use sub-rappel anchors on the longer pitches. We also knew that we would have to rappel down onto some flat areas, walk across and then climb back up some to some anchors due to the traverse. We decided that due to the darkness, we would remain roped on these ledges for safety. All of this would mean setting up far more than one rappel for each pitch, a time consuming process. In fact, we set up eleven rappels in total even though some where more like walks down a trail on an almost unweighted rope. Our rope became stuck on the vegetation many times, and once it was stuck on the rock above us. We had enough rope available to belay Max back up and free the rope. This is now something I worry about while climbing: stuck ropes. We had many troubles on the way down, but we kept our attitudes up throughout, despite fatigue and darkness. In fact, we enjoyed the long trip down. At one point, Max commented that I hadn’t fallen on the rope at all. My eyes got big when I realized that the rope drag had been so bad earlier, that he didn’t even know I fell. It must have been after 1 a.m. when we finally made it all the way back down, because it was 1:30 when we got back to camp. We really did rejoice when we had completed the climb. It was an exciting accomplishment.
The most important thing I learned was the importance of a good climbing partner. They not only determine what you can lead and what you can follow, but also how safely you can do it and how much you will enjoy it. Do you want to spend your climbing trip bickering and not getting anything accomplished, or do you want to safely descend down into the valley between two magnificent limestone formations, rising into the clear night sky like two massive serrated blades, as if everything around you was intended for just the two of you to enjoy?