Night Shift

I can't help but think of ghosts, as I make more of the steps that make up the long stretch between rest stops on the very dark climbers trail up to El Cajon Mountain.

More than a few people have died on this rocky hill. Most were hikers. One rock climber on the face we are hiking to decided to climb without a rope. He fell and nearly took out roped climbers, perhaps turning them also into ghosts as he bounced foolishly into the shrubs at the base of the five-hundred-foot cliff. Most San Diegans don't know about the cliffs of El Cajon Mountain, but they do refer erroneously to the mountain as El Capitan

 I think about that ropeless climber as we hike.

 The summer air is still and hot at night. The full moon is not yet out, but the bugs are. Dogs on sentry duty at some of the houses far below know we are up here and yell at us: " Yark! Yark! " I don't mind that so much. Getting shot at is not so fun, and it happens. Near the bottom of the mountain is an old rock quarry that sits above the dam and reservoir. Climbers use the crumbling, overhanging rock face to practice the skills needed to sleep on the giant walls in Yosemite. It may or may not be the homeowners below the quarry that shots. Still, I personally have been sleeping on that wall, and bullets have impacted it not far from my hanging tent. Some locals don't like the rock climbers. Listening to the persistent alerting dog, I feel sympathy. El Cajon Mountain has a long history in San Diego of epics and tragedies. It features its most strenuous hike and spectacular modern rock climbing. It's highly crowded during the cool season, even on many weekdays, so we climb at night.

It is possible to climb the El Cajon Mountains infamous rock face during the summer months in daylight hours, but you must do so at the crack of dawn, as by afternoon, the rock will be hot to the touch and impossible to climb. During the day, the 2-hour hike up to the rock face is deserted during the summer months; the trail is steep, the rattlesnakes are plenty, and heat exhaustion has taken out more than a few experienced hikers. At night, the rock is still warm, but the temperatures are pleasant, and there are no other foolhardy people up there to share the popular routes that would otherwise see a line queued up waiting for their turn to climb. My friend is stopped on the trail ahead, so I turn off my headlight. In the bushes with no moon, it is pitch black. I am fairly sure I hear footsteps off the trail. I know the mountain lions are here. I turn on my flashlight and am relieved to see no glowing eyes as I shine it around me in a circle. I turn the light back off, wondering if the footsteps are in my imagination. I hear my friend Mike smoking in the dark as he waits for me. I think of ghosts again. There is a different way to get up to the rock face over by the park. If you go that way, you walk by the ruins of an old miners' Homestead, where some remains of the belongings of the person who lived there still lay, including an old rusted typewriter and a decrepit motorcycle that will never run again. Who were they? Could it be their ghost I hear walking on the trail behind me? I start walking along the path again. Mike is waiting for me. He has to do that more these days, as I have fourteen years of living ahead of him. I think about being a ghost someday. I'm in no hurry for that, even though rock climbing is a sport with a memorial section in the magazines honoring my peers who fall. I call the hike up to the rock face " The Golden Staircase " because the second half of the trail is as steep as a set of stairs, and the boulders along the trail are gold and brown in color. If you are trying to make good time, it's a 1.5-hour hike in daylight. At night, it's closer to three hours before we get to the start of the route named Meteor. The moon begins to rise as we rack the climbing gear and start climbing up. We think the Meteor gets its name because it is very steep and you climb straight up. One morning, I was driving along the 8 freeway heading east. I glanced over to the left where El Cajon mountain rises, and I saw that when the sun first rises, the stunning outside corner of the upper part of the climb catches the first morning light, and it lights up like the streak of a meteor in the sky. We see no meteors or shooting stars in the sky tonight as the moon rises, casting our shadows on the granite face. I am climbing up first, clipping the bolts and setting the rope through the anchors.

My right hand grips a thin edge the width of a pencil, and my left hand is feeling around above me, looking for the next move. I am reading g the rock with my fingers like a blind man reading  braille. I don't look up much, just enough to see my headlamp shine on the next safety bolt. I keep my attention on my feet, feeling gravity edge them off my stance one millimeter at a time. Each move higher as difficult as the last, some of the holds feel like I turn over a miniature hour glass, the tick-tocking of a timer clock, because I must move fast or tire and slip.

I know Mike can only see a bobbing headlight above him, nothing of my confidence or fear. Climbers talk to each other: " You got me Mike? " I ask, my voice echoes off the walls of the canyon. " I got you, " he says in the darkness one hundred feet below me now.

I pause at the shelf halfway up the first pitch and take pictures of the city lights below. I hum the Cat Stevens song " Moonshadow " as I finish the first pitch. Mike quickly follows up on the long first section, his headlight throwing conflicting shadows on the wall. We pause at the ledge before the upper corner and share a smoke break and the view. Far below now, the dogs are still barking. Mike starts up his section, and the moon is now so bright that we can almost turn off our headlamps, but we don't. Things feel more serious when we rock climb at night, and perhaps it is. We talk to each other more, both words of encouragement and caution. When he tops out on the false summit of Meteor, he pulls the rope up, and I follow as quickly as I can. Near the top of the face, there is a breeze. The air is no longer stale and now has the fresh feel of the coast. At the top of the climb is a perfectly flat shelf, just big enough for two or three people to sit on. We feel lucky to be here. The 125 freeway is far below and to the south, curving through the lights on its way to the hills that border Mexico. From up here, we can see it all and the darker space of the ocean beyond. To get off, we have to slide down our ropes past an overhang that has you hanging in space twenty feet from the wall and a hundred and fifty feet above the base. This part of climbing is the most dangerous, aside from the drive to get to the cliffs. One mistake would lead to a fast plunge into the darkness. I think again of the ghosts as I start down the trail. It's now 4 a.m., and only we and the dogs are awake. We are treated to the sight of Starlink as we near the car, like an interstellar freight train.

Strip Mining for Gravel

The Vulcan Corporation is a giant company that operates many types of businesses that produce goods extracted from the Earth. It's a long established good old boys club that lists its products and its green policies proudly on their websites. Like a giant octopus, the camoflage it uses is well developed. There is an inky screen it uses to escape most attention and danger. It has many tentacles and is ruthless in pursuit of its prey.

California is well known as a state that is hard to do business in. It is common to hear companies complain of the difficulties of regulations and permits required to operate businesses. Especially ones that product dust and leave pollution in the ground water. Mining is expensive in terms of permits and insurance. 

It's been said that there is no such thing as an honest business man: they will reluctantly be honest about the profits and methods they use, as the risk of both the competetion and the tax collector are ever present.  Its good business to minimize taxation and permit costs.

In a state that is allegedly overly active about regulations, the truth is that there are key things in the supply chain that are not regulated at all. Homeowners sometimes find out after they buy a house with a clean inspection report that the roof leaks. They investigate and quickly find out that there are no standards or licensing requirements for home inspections in California. This allows real estate agents to conduct their business with reports from " inspections " that serve nothing more than to facilitate the transaction. The transaction is always the imperitive for both businessmen and tax collectors.

Companies like The Vulcan Corporation have their similar exploitation. They do not pay their far share of taxes nor pull permits for what is likely their most profitable byproduct because it is completely unregulated.

The lack of regulation and proper oversight is circumstantial evidence that somewhere along the lines the wheels are being greased.

Gold and other metals are sluiced out of these gravel beds: in every single known location where historic gold mining happened the Vulcan Corporation has set up massive " aggregate  plants " that process millions of tons of gravel that is sold at a profit.

Completely undeclared and undocumented is the products these operations yield as a byproduct. 

Truckloads of gold, literally, taken illegally out of them thar hills. There is more gold in the ground that was left behind then was ever pulled out by the old time prospectors, and there is no way this Corporation would get permits to operate a strip mine at the mouth of the Azusa Canyon that produced gold.

But innocent gravel used for building and road purposes? that's easily permitable.

They are able to get started in areas favorable to the underlying goal, which is the unregulated and unregistered processing of byproduct.

" I knew of a man in the San Joaquin Valley of California (near Fresno) who set up equipment in several gravel pits up and down the valley from Sacramento southward. He would place large washer boxes in the existing gravel classifying equipment and catch the fine gold as the river rocks and gravel moved through the system. I understand he would find 20 to 50 ounces a month depending on the location and output of the gravel pit. I know from first hand experience that most of the sand and gravel pits in this area of California do their own recovery of fine gold, and many make as much on the gold as they do on the sand and gravel. "

Many of the locations in San Diego and elsewhere they operate are not involved in any obvious way with this massive scheme. They are callous in the apparent disregard for complaints from townspeople nearby about dust and noise, but otherwise operate large settling ponds and processing pits in unsuspecting areas like Black Mountain in San Diego, near the 15 and 56 without much notice.

Other areas, the plunder is much more brazen. Like the area around Fish Canyon at the mouth of Azuza canyon where they are grotesqely strip mining the hillside and using these ill gotten gains to, one can speculate, bribe the right hands at the right intervales to keep this organized scheme off the radar of most of the residents.

One can find many links to now deleted web pages about court battles and town meetings regarding this area. The company does all this, claiming to be producing building materials, but the real cash cow is the byproduct of the areas they work in. The residents complaining about dust, noise from blasting and loss of access to hiking trails

 

Information about the tin and copper deposits around Vulcan Corps Corona California " aggregate " plant.

https://thediggings.com/mines/18678

San Diego lawsuits:

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp2/106/1010/2510758/

Gravel prospecting: https://www.treasurenet.com/threads/prospecting-in-gravel-pits.33577/

The Big Wet One

 "The Big Wet One "

Many San Diego homeowners and property owners are battling with storms and flood water and the associated moisture and mold issues that come with them. This fight is not just contained to the recent storms that brought national attention to our city; it is a war of attrition. Like a Trojan Horse, the rain was welcomed. But now the infiltration is near complete, and people realize there is "water, water everywhere. "

The real troubles may lie directly ahead. 

https://www.aonedge.com/Resource-Center/Blog/California-Great-Flood-of-1862

In this age of social pitfalls, where stating the wrong opinion about viral ideas and "settled science "can have one blacklisted, stalked, harassed, and generally regretful about ever bringing up the notion that there might be bigger wheels turning, the casual heresy of talking about weather calamities as being natural and cyclical is rife with concern. So, for argument, let's suspend disbelief and accept this presentation as an allegation of real people and events. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. There is no need for torches and canceling; we can all agree that people have a direct cause and effect on our climate and that pollution is terrible.

Recent storms in San Diego flooded homes and businesses. That is news. 

Why this is happening is not news because it's not easily understood.

San Diego has experienced several years of above-average rain. Before the hurricane last year, the previous rainfall of 2022-2023 shattered records and seemed relentless. My rain gauge outside my East County home measured over forty inches of rain, far exceeding what was reported. Some may recall that on Friday in 2019, over four inches of rain fell in San Diego, beyond the January storm that made news as the largest on record in 100 years. 

What is this? Fake news? Lazy reporting? A scramble to be first to print?

Loudly absent in the cacophony of news anchor voices shouting about "atmospheric rivers "and "accelerating man-made climate change "is any sensible reference to history. 

Looking at history, using various sources and historical data, the reality is that current weather patterns over the last several years mirror the weather patterns of 1862, which destroyed 25% of the inhabited real estate in California, forced our state capital to be moved fifty miles away to higher ground and killed thousands of people.

If the pattern repeats its complete previous cycle, it will be the greatest natural disaster in our nation's history. Imagine the 8 freeway in Mission Valley under ten feet of water.

"Water is coming out of our floors. "

San Diego is at an intersectionality proving painful and costly to many homeowners. Imagine your roof is not leaking, but the carpets and baseboards around the living room are wet. Your home is on a slab.

The process is common for homeowners. They call a fire and flood company, who comes in and usually removes the floor and bottom two feet of drywall, stripping the home down to its bones in the area affected. These companies set up fans and dehumidifiers, and the homeowners are told to seek a remedy through a plumber or drainage specialist. 

All of this happens with the real suggestion that lack of action can cause mold to set in. Still, it's a whirlwind, and the terrified homeowner is now locked into costly rentals and reconstruction. The hapless homeowner pays a leak detection company to find that there is no leak. They then turn to the internet, looking for a drain company. Plumbers and gardeners are usually whom the oracles at Google send the homeowners to, and some of these companies, or people, may see an opportunity to take money from the victim's hands, turn it into food, and put it in their mouths, so they give a price to fix the problem, often times having no previous experience whatsoever.

The homeowner may spend thousands on said work. Then it rains, and they sometimes find their situation worse because gardening and plumbing aren't drainages. Drainage done incorrectly can redirect and concentrate the water, worsening the problem.

The money pits and traps for the homeowners are more intense for San Diego homes with a crawlspace. People don't associate basements in homes in San Diego. Still, there are literally hundreds of basements in cities like La Mesa, Vista and La Jolla, in areas built into hillsides that are currently seeping water into the living spaces.

The confluence of aging homes, poorly designed or non-existent city planning, and lack of experience with waterproofing homes by local contractors is now a multi-billion dollar problem for San Diego property owners. Some cities like La Mesa and Encinitas have zero civil engineering, i.e., plans for drainage and parking, because the houses are built on what was once farms, and the city incorporations came later. It is not uncommon for homeowners in these areas to find out that they are in a flood zone or that large storm drains on their properties are older than the city they live in. When they fail, the homeowners may be able to file a claim with their insurance company but are otherwise on their own.

They then have to go through a process of trial and error with contractors to find a fix.

The multi-billion dollar flood and reconstruction problem is a gasping canary in the coal mine, warning of lousy air ahead. 

This recent storm brought much more severe localized flooding than the storms of the last few years, which added up to more rain. It wasn't just a  single record rain day that caused these floods, because we have had those and have not flooded to the same extent. Why the storm was measurably worse in property destruction because all the soil was already saturated from the previous year's rains, and not only could the soil not absorb any more rain, but the hydrostatic pressure from the water table was pushing the groundwater up so that some areas and neighborhoods in Clairmont made news last spring because they were literally flooding with groundwater.

Areas without the obvious crisis-level flows requiring cities to set up pump stations are experiencing this same hydrostatic pressure. Rainwater aggressively pushes its way out of the soil, into the footings and crawlspaces, up through the concrete slabs, and into the walls. This can cause anything from wet carpets to rendering the homes literally uninhabitable because of mold. 

Why does one San Diego home get mold, and the next just gets a wet patio after the rain?

It seems to be luck. Homes that have more rocky soil tend to have fewer issues. Areas of high clay ( see 90% of San Diego ) have more costly problems.

The recent storms brought localized calamities that were entirely preventable. From clogged rain gutters pulling them off the homes and clogged landscape drains to blown-out sump pumps never maintained since installation, the worst case I heard of was an Encinitas homeowner who had the intersectionality of trash cans in the curb pushing a deluge out of the gutter, a clogged street storm drain, and her garage set below street level. She watched haplessly as the water roared through her home with enough force to rearrange the furniture. 

Historical Patterns & The Looming Disaster.

Now, our soils are at peak saturation, and another "atmospheric river "is said to be coming. 

It's easy enough to research and pick from various sources. I like dry facts and plain numbers without the faintest trace of politics. I understand that politics is like art in that some people see it as offensive, whereas others might find bias or spin beautiful.

A crusty old professor on YouTube named Leon Hunsaker has a video called "The Legendary Floods of 1861 & 1962 "that presents the measurable records and describes what will happen, to some extent, to a modern California should the pattern repeat.

Imagine every dam in the state overflowing and the rivers flowing at four times flood level. Imagine around one million submerged homes around the states and map-changing mudslides.

The Great Flood of California occurred after several years of above-average rain, similar to what we are experiencing now. In 1862, with the ground wholly saturated from previous rains, a subsequent and more enormous storm dumped over ten feet of rain. 

This storm was so massive that Big Bear mining communities were under thirty feet of snow, and some people were trapped for six months. Then, spring came. The enormous snowpack met with a heat wave, and the floods raged for weeks when they melted rapidly.

People lost their lives by the thousands, and entire communities were washed away. 

This was before the vast floodplain of the Central Valley was populated, before Mission Valley was built, and its floodwaters were long forgotten.

If this same combination of events happens, and we get the now overdue arc storm in the next year or two ( it could actually still happen this year ), the headlines will be screaming about man-made climate disaster, but the real story is lack of civil planning and engineering and a state that was parceled out by land speculators who ruthlessly marketed some small towns like Joshua Tree as a tropical paradise. Literally, charlatans would stick oranges to the spines of a Joshua Tree, take a photo, and market it to speculators back east as land with fruit orchards.

The book Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner describes these wild marketing gimmicks and how Los Angeles was sold and built before any water plan was made, creating aging curiosities like the California aqueduct ( where thousands of miles of open canals allow millions of gallons of water to evaporate from The Colorado River ) and The Owens River project, which supplied water and power to Los Angeles.

In recent years, municipal water departments have lamented leaky irrigation. Our culture was sold on green grass and tropical plants, and many are just stuck there, even though they are wrong for our environment ( related to the general lack of civic planning and engineering ). 

It's related because right now, all over San Diego, people are running their irrigation and over-watering saturated soil that can barely breathe ` because it is wet clay.

The intersectionality of cleptomatic state politicians, historical shysterism of land speculators, aging homes, bad construction standards and practices, and current weather events are a significant headache for many San Diegans. 

Headaches and nuisances are far different from tragedies. A flooded home is a nuisance, but large-scale loss of life and property is a tragedy.

That people in positions of power will exploit and benefit from the tragedy is a guarantee almost as certain as the looming disaster our state faces. They don't want any of us to type "The Great Flood Of California "into a search engine because it would make us wonder why they haven't done anything to prepare for the obvious, and it would knock the wind out of their gasbags when they try to assign blame to man-made climate change, which is natural of course, settled science and all but verboten to talk about.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Desert

Do Not Enter Thunder Canyon Cave

About an hour east of downtown San Diego, there is one of southern Californias greatest adventures, possible in a days outing.

 I don't think of myself as an " adrenaline junky ", but my sport does have an obituary type section in many online forums and groups. 

To be deeply involved in something, it is usually inevitable to lose most perspective about the value of, or motivations behind the things we do. Especially inherently risky things like rock climbing and caving. Why do I do this? Is this sane, or healthy? 

  Waiting my turn at the start of he cave, I found myself thinking about taking my son through. " Oh, hell no. " The Rational Voice says, internally. I look in to the black hole that is the entrance, and it feels something like a tomb. It's way too dangerous to allow my children to enter. And as I wait The Rational Voice asks me, " if it's too dangerous for them, what am I doing here? "

It's a good question, and one of the many questions that get asked and answered in Thunder Canyon Cave, each time I go through.

After the epic rains of 2022/2023 we decided to explore the infamous Thunder Canyon Cave.  On several of our previous trips through when it's dry we were curious about the water that had sculpted these passages. Following the drainage down from its intersection with an old road that leads to an abandoned ranch, we learned soon how the cave got its name. The homesteads or ranch that is near the illusive cave lays on the edge of a slope that drops down to the open desert leading out to the Salton Sea, and I used to imagine that the discovery of the cave was made by children playing near the ranch. We now know that it got its name because when it is in " peak flow " the sound of the water flowing thunders up the canyon. Thunder Canyon Cave has a reputation for being an extremely dangerous place. As I descend the rope in to the cave, now roaring with water, mud splashes all over my chest and my jacket gets caught in my rope. I am temporarily stuck hanging over a pool of water of unknown depth about fifty feet below. It occurs to me that my hands are getting cold and my that inner voice says calmy; " you could die here. Don't mess up. " 

Luckily, I am right over the lip of the first drop, within reach of my friend Bobby, who is going last through.

I am grateful to be close to him, that I can get an assist. I shine my headlight up and shout in as calm a voice as I could shout.

" Bobby, I got a situation here. "

He peers down, quickly asses the said situation and grabs my hand to pull me up, just enough, to unstick my jacket from the belay device. "

The Rational Voice is reprimanding; " What would have happened if he wasn't there? In my mind that ' what if ' plays out in a flash in my imagination: I would try and unstick my jacket from the device that provides friction as you descend the rope. This device, called a belay device, has sucked my rain jacket in to itself, in a death grip. As I do this, my hand would slip and I would to fall in to the dark abyss, bouncing off walls and landing in a pile of gore at the bottom of the vertical shaft. 

All of this a very real possibility, if mistakes are made.

 The part of my brain that is in a constant state of self analyzation, realizes that I don't feel fear, and it seems curious somehow, given the  absurdity of the circumstances. 

I unstick my jacket, but now there is a large hole in it, and as I descend down the rope on rappel the wet and muddy rope is being wrung out like a dirty rag, spraying my face and chest with gritty water. I leave my friend above. He will follow when I am off the rope.

At the bottom, the normally flat room is flooded with three feet of water and a six inch fountain of water is  shooting out the wall and free falling twenty feet. It is surreal. This normally dry desert talus cave is exploding with rain water that has filtered down from the gullies and normally dry river beds.

 My friend Michael has already plunged through the waterfall and I can hearing him shouting whoops of joy, so I go. I have trusted my friends with my life, literally. On El Capitan in Yosemite, other wild adventures like climbing San Diego famous local climbing routes like Meteor, in the dark,  but, there has been nothing remotely close to what we are doing now, in terms of intensity. In terms of the unknowns and risks, it's way beyond what most climbing offers.

One of the realizations that I've made as an adult about some of these things, is that despite what the so-called Risk Takers and Adrenaline Junkies say about our own wild outings there comes a point in all these Adventures where you have to say to yourself, I might very well die here, but I'm going to do it anyway. I have that thought as I'm there, alone, now sixty feet underground looking at a wall of water I must pass through: " This is fucking insane. I might die. " 

This voice is not shrill and panicked.  It is the overtly calm and perhaps deadpan voice of the pilot of a 747 informing the passengers not to worry about that engine that has smoke trailing out behind the airplane. 

I plunge through the water fall and begin the mad scramble that goes down, up and around dozens of twists and turns, some places I am doing moderate rock climbing, with no rope, others I am removing my tiny backpack to squeeze through almost impassable cracks and fissures, now thundering with surprisingly warm rain water.  

All thoughts of staying dry are gone. I am instantly soaked and now its a race to the exit because to reverse our path now means to ascend a wet rope through a water spray sixty feet up. We have the equipment and experience to climb the rope, but its difficult, and so far the cave is passable and so we move as quickly as we can forward in to a wild and wet labyrinth.

At one point the four of us pause at another rope drop. This room is named The Cathedral Room and it is by far the largest internal space inside of Thunder Canyon perhaps 80 feet from the floor to the roof above.  It is not lost on us that this roof is composed of giant sized granite boulders wedged in place by each other. Bobby brings up a filter, like an aquarium. He casually mentions that when a filter gets clogged it can suddenly become unclogged and release a giant amount of debris.

We then all visualize a flash flood inside of the cave and I at least, contemplate drowning. 

I am third in line in a four party team. My primary climbing partner Michael and his girl friend  Kelly are moving fast, now far enough down the winding path that I am alone waiting for Bobby to descend the wet rope from the entrance. I am at the end of a fifty foot corridor right before a sharp turn, far enough away from the others that for a moment it is both silent and, when I turn off my headlight , utterly pitch dark. 

I wait in the  cave, marveling at my surroundings and  our passage roaring with water under my feet.

Instantly, The Rational Voice strikes up a conversation: " You know, this must be what the grave is like. In fact, this probably will be your grave. " Well, I answer, I certainly could be. I'm not gonna mess up. The mental chatter is quiet for a few moments. and then my friend catches up. 

We go on, around, down.

In thinking about how to tell the story of Thunder Canyon Cave, I found it hard to explain the motivations to go repeatedly to a place that is well known to be extraordinarily dangerous. Yet, surely that must be part of the story. Why? Was I dropped on my head as a child?

As it turns out, yes I was.

In fact, in searching for a voice for this story I kept thinking about those of us who do dangerous sports for fun. It turns out that there are common things amongst risk takers. The primary pattern I noticed was that many of the people doing the most outrageous things, like climbing giant cliffs without ropes, have written about suffering depression and concussions. There seems to be a part of the brain that can get shut off when you suffer brain injury. The medical term is " slow brain bleed ", and the short description is that if you get dropped on your head, you can have a slow seepage of blood and fluid in the skull that does things like cause depression, kill normal fear reactions and make you have mild bi-polar like symptoms.

My buddies are all bold. We have shared many adventures, and all of us have been knocked unconscious at least once. I am NOT speaking for them or as to their motivations, all I know is that in 5th grade I cracked my head open in a snow sledding accident. I've always been a little edgy and have what some say is an unusual calm demeanor in high stress situations. 

One of the things people say about Alex Honnold, the famous rock climber is that he's very robotic and I think, and again I cannot speak for him, but along with the ability to not feel normal fears, there's the ability to not feel normal things. This can can have complicating implication on a person's life and relationships.

People have inhabited the area around McCain Valley, in the In-Ko Pah mountain for approximately 10,000 years, but there is no way any of those ancient Americans would have been through these passages, because Thunder Canyon is a climbers cave. On my first trip through, I came across things I mistook for petrified wood. They look like thick tree roots, but they are stone. Water has carved a path through this talus field and made a real cave. Deep inside there is the cave equivalent of a summit register, where mountaineers leave their names and date of ascent. The book is in a bottle with a lid hanging from a string. At the time it was hard to imagine water in the cave enough to make that book wet. I would come to find out later that no parts of the cave would be safe from the water that literally thunders through it after rainy years. Inside the register are names and dates of other people who have passed through. My name is in there at least six times, and each time I go through I feel the sense of an enormous passage of time. I also sense doom. At the bottom of the cave there is often the remains of snakes and tarantulas that get trapped in there. They are perhaps lured by the smell of water in the desert to the eternal darkness where they die.

Thunder Canyon Cave is a tomb, but this time though the cave is flushed clean of all the bodies.

 During summer trips to the cave we usually go at night. The hike in is through a sandy trail, downhill going in and a long uphill slog going out. At night the desert is teeming with insect and animal activity, and inside Thunder Canyon Cave its the same: at night there are bats and many more large spiders. We always go through in at least a group of three, and if one of the party has never been through, they are usually asked to lead the way, because its exciting for them and fun for us to watch the fear on their faces as they try and find the right way. There are now some painted arrows on the walls, placed there by the rescue teams who have had to hoist hapless parties stuck deep inside. Even with the arrows there are a plethora of dead ends and risky drops offs and leading through, even after a half dozen times or more you have to be careful about not going the wrong way. Going the wrong way just means going back to find the correct way, not doom. " Unless you fall, or make a mistake at the wrong time ", The Rational Voice points out.

I imagine my headlight dying, and the voices of my friends getting farther away. In some passages, if you were to botch the job of making your way through, and slip and fall, you might get stuck in such a way as your body would not be retrievable. So, you don't fall. Much like the movie Free Solo, where Alex Honnold is gripping the rock face and facing certain death if one thing should go wrong, the passage through is that stark: you CANNOT make a mistake. Yet mistakes happen, and The Voice describes in great detail in  a mind movie the variety of ways I could die inside Thunder Canyon Cave.

We are moving fast. Normally we will spent two hours or more exploring the cave, but now we are just racing. Speed is safety, they say in the mountains. Haste also makes waste. I caution the team to keep their bodies away from the rock walls whenever possible because the rock leeches the warmth out of your body quickly. We pass the second rope drop, now in the largest room. It is a surreal scene. I am reminded of an absurd adventure scenario scene in a " B " movie, where everything is chaos all at once. There is a waterfall flowing from the cave wall. We must run through a drenching shower or turn back. Kelly is through the cave for the first time, she beung least experienced of the team at goimng through has a brief moment of concern when Bobby and I consult our maps. We are not lost, just trying to see on the map where the waterfall is marked. She mistakes our curiosity for confusion  about which way to go and becomes visibly distressed.

This increases the sense of urgency and we increase the pace. The Rational Voice says, " You know, we don't know if she CAN climb back up this rope, through a mist of water, and if she losses her cool and starts to freak we are going to be stuck in here...forever. " That means we are now committed and must go forward. And we do. My imagination briefly plays out the scene of the four of us in there, forever. Our remains perhaps found many years later, perhaps not.

None of that happens.  She performed remarkably well.

I realize what this is. This imagination is irrational fear. 

Rational fear keeps you alive: it is wise to be afraid of falling from heights. It is not wise to imagine your equipment breaking or being stuck for ten thousand years. Irrational fear though, is what causes panic. The ability to separate rational fears from irrational fears is a byproduct of many years spent rock climbing. The rational fear is that if we are too slow or get stuck that we could all die of hyperthermia. The irrational fear is that we are lost inside the cave,

As I am moving towards the final and most dangerous passage, I am speaking calm words of encouragement to myself and anyone in earshot. Panic is contagious, and once given voice it can blossom like a poison flower. " We are almost out, " my friend tells her. " this is the last bit. All easy from here. " I absorb this too. I've been here before. Why?

He goes through. She goes through. Bobby who had pulled me up when my jacket was stuck goes in and I am alone again, about thirty five feet from the rest of our team

The final section is called " The Dread Chimney ".

Its been the scene of near fatal mishaps involving full on rescue. Its a twenty five foot section that starts about 18" wide and quickly pinches down to a slot so narrow that you cannot turn your head. My climbing helmet is a tight fit. You start in, then must invert sideways and slither across a wobbly wood plank. Twisting or getting your feet tangled will quickly have you stuck, exhausted and rapidly dying of hypothermia. It can be 110 degrees outside Thunder Canyon Cave, but the rock walls are about 73 degrees which brings death as mathematically certain as gash in the Titanic brought her sinking. 

Before I start in I pass through the small back packs we carry that contain extra lights, food and extra vital equipment. If you are in a cave with one belay device, and you drop it, you will put yourself and your entire team in grave danger. So we pack redundancy: if you cannot survive without it bring two or three.

I pause and look back. The team is waiting for me, but I want to enjoy the absurdity of the moment, so I turn my headlight off and do the first half of The Dread Chimney in a darkness as deep as the grave. This has the desired effect and my heart races.

The darkness makes me feel something more like  fear, what I think it is other people must feel, and I turn the light back on and execute the crux section without dying. " This time, " The Rational Voice says. " You get to live, this time. But maybe not the next time..."

We can now feel warmer air in the cave as we near the end, and the thundering sound of the water raging through the cave is more distant. We point these things out to our friend and she leaves her nervousness behind. In my imagination, I see myself down there with the other creatures who did not make it out. In the dark.

Previous trips through I noticed things  I mistook for petrified wood in places coming out of the cave walls. How could tree roots be so deep inside the cave? Going through now the flooded cave the answer was revealed; the things I thought were ancient wood turned to stone were in fact the paths of the flowing water. The water leaves minerals on the rock where it flows so that, when old enough, it forms travertine flowstone that look like  tree roots or branches.

On these previous trips I had given no thought as to why I did this. I was aware that I was asking myself, " why? ", but I never thought to answer. 

We all look at Thunder Canyon Cave as a privilege. Yet, the reality is that doing this is inherently and seriously dangerous. Telling this story made me examine myself and my motivations and come to some truths. Part of what I learned was brought on by reading about other adventure athletes, people who climb without ropes, examining why they did it because I didn't understand why I do it. I learned that many of them eventually take one risk too many. Some fail to solve their problems by taking these risks, so they take their own lives. Most don't seem to have read about brain injuries and how they can re-wire the brain.  How it may be these brain injuries that make our minds so full of dark mental chatter that sometimes, we obsess about the grave, or take risks that seem reckless to other ' normal ' people. I learned that I do these things that are really hard and dangerous because they make every day problems seem tame and simple. Not because I want to get hurt. But because the mental chatter is still there and it has to be tamed. The adrenaline is a strange reminder that we are alive and the near death experiences that come with things like Thunder Canyon Cave or rock climbing remind people with this problem that we really do want to live.

Thunder Canyon Cave makes us feel alive and charged with energy.   Despite the many twists and turns inside the cave you exit very close to where you start.  The same question at the end as it was at the beginning: " Why am I here ? "

Now at least, we know how it got its name.

I have not been back since then. There is a sense that I can never top that experience. Not in climbing or caving.  

Exploring the labyrinths of my mind further might be the best reason to go back. 

 DISCLAIMER 

If one tries to research about Thunder Canyon cave, all they will find is horror stories about people getting stuck. There is the very real possibility that getting stuck or even slightly injured will mean death. I would say that the vast majority of people entering Thunder Canyon Cave are unqualified to be there. Meaning they would be unable to reverse course should they be unable or unwilling to go forward. To reverse your path through the cave means you must have the equipment and experience to climb a rope up vertical shafts. Any mention of this place must come with a strongly worded warning: Thunder Canyon Cave is a technical cave, not meant for hikers or tourists. Entering the cave comes with extreme risk in the best of conditions. It involves sections where you must rappel down a rope, where mistakes can easily cost you your life and accidents put your entire team in danger. Rescue will be hours away, and if you are stuck in there, you likely will die of hypothermia before help can come. There are multiple ways in to and out of Thunder Canyon Cave, and its rude to ask where it is. You have to be invited. Searching online for Thunder Canyon Cave yields only stories of near death experiences by people who have been rescued. Its not that the caving community is territorial, like surfers are said to be, its that we want access protected, so we discourage inexperienced climbers from going in there and regularly pack out any trash we find.

This publication and the author disavow any mishaps you may bring upon yourselves or your friends.

DO NOT ENTER THUNDER CANYON CAVE

The Great Sweat Lodge In The Sky

" With certain misgivings, we started moving our climbing gear, food and water to the top of the third class buttress from which the climbing would begin. " ---Warren Harding

The Nose of El Capitan, Grade VI, 5.8 C2

Michael Memmel and Alex Barlow high up on The Nose

I never set out to be a rock climber: I was one of those kids who would climb any tree or brick surface. I thought I was afraid of heights. Who isn't? I would still climb everything.

When one first lays eyes on Yosemite, it can be overwhelming. The walls are so big that it creates an optical illusion when you are close to them.  I recall times looking up at a section of the climb when we were on it, thinking it was only fifty feet or so that we had to cover, when in reality it was closer to two hundred feet. 

When you first stand in the meadow looking up at El Capitan its hard to imagine that it is almost taller than three of our former World Trade Centers stacked end on end. It is two and a half miles wide. You can see people up there, but they appear as tiny specs of color with no definition of limbs. Just tiny dots that are people.

My first reaction to seeing those specks of color and movement and realizing that there were people up there was to want to know how such a thing could even be possible. I observed the other people in the meadow looking up at the climbers and speaking of them as being  elite persons somehow. They were watching them  like people watch rock stars on a stage. I was getting to the age where becoming a working musician, a " rock star " if you will, was becoming less likely. Here then, was a chance to be a rock star of a different sort, and I wanted to be that with all my being.

So I began to buy books on how to do it, starting with " Mountaineering, The Freedom Of The Hills ". It showed drawings of rope configuration and men climbing using a method called " Direct Aid " where you'd use various hooks, pitons and other exotic tools with intriguing names like B.A.T. hooks. That B.A.T. was an acronym for " basically absurd technology " made it somehow more appealing  as the whole idea was absurd.  I had always been sort of a class clown and wanna-be rock star, so the swashbuckling nature of some of our pioneers like Warren Harding and John Bachar struck a chord in my soul and I knew I had found my tribe, at least on paper. The problem was that in 1994 there wasn't this cool tool called the internet where you could easily connect with people and go out and do cool stuff. There were no willing partners that would consider standing on hooks and sleeping on a giant cliff that I could find, so I started learning about rope soloing and that led me to the story of Charlie Porter and his solo first ascent of the route " The Zodiac " on El Capitan.

Soloing a big wall first ascent was the coolest thing I could imagine. Surely, I thought, these men and women must be the strongest people on Earth.

By chance one day at a practice crag in Big Bear California I bumped in to a slightly older climber who was there to do the same thing: practice rope solo big wall climbing. Once we figured out that we two had come to practice one of the most obscure forms of climbing there is we struck a quick friendship and more or less decided then and there that we would climb El Capitan together.

Or, at least, try.

I had, by that point, two other Yosemite big wall climbs behind me. I had done the usual ante up routes: The West Face of The Leaning Tower and the South Face of Washington Column, so I considered myself ready. Moreover, I had a Fish Products haul bag, a handful of pitons and a specialized piece of equipment called a " Wall Hauler " that was used to move heavy loads up the wall. ( more on that particular tool later in  this  story ). We picked the " easiest " way we could see in the guide book and began attempting The Triple Direct in the spring of 1996.

We started by going up a " pitch " or two. Then a bit higher, until we knew we could get to the first place to sleep ( aka bivy ) in one days climbing, then decided we would launch. Once we started up, we quickly found out that the climbing was harder than expected, and surprisingly, the thought of going down, or retreating was  more  terrifying than going up. So, we kept going, and eventually made it to the top.

I didn't know what I didn't know, and had I known I might have spent another ten years " learning the ropes " before attempting such a serious climb as El Capitan. But, there I was. I was not ( and am not ) a particularly gifted climber. I was sort of high strung ( still working on that ) and naturally bold, or careless about my life ( the lines blur when gazing at bravery or suicidal thoughts in the murky corridors of ones brains ) so when it came time to throw down, I did and, somehow I made it. But, it wasn't " fun ". It was five days of sun up to sun down labor, with a constant adrenaline rush, as if a grand piano had just crashed out of the sky right next to you, every minute of every day, all day long. I recall getting in to a state of mind that I imagined what a shaman on a serious peyote trip must be like: days of extreme effort with little food clean you out and reduce you to a sort of feral state, and you in that hour  find out what you really are made of. The survival instincts on a big wall are such that you are performing at a level not really possible in a " safe " environment. 

As a young man, I was more afraid in some situations than the circumstances warranted, and not experienced enough to be afraid enough about things like loose, balanced rocks. So I was gripped by an irrational fear about things such as solid gear failing and then horror movie jump scare afflicted by pulling on or touching loose rock that will actually kill you. I thought I would have a better experience as a mature person with a lifetimes worth of hard knocks, and that was part of my motivation for doing it again.

I've tried to explain it over the years but it fails me. It's like, climbers are more like front line soldiers than anything else. We willingly march in to danger and put our lives in to the hands of our buddies. Also, the ratings up there don't mean the same as they do down here. 5.8 is basically a beginners grade, but try it with thirty pounds of equipment and tangled up in slings and suddenly 5.8 rock climbing is serious business. Also, there is no easy way to climb a big wall, and every pitch will force you to climb your best and smartest, even if the book says it has no " mandatory free " climbing.

The bond Steve and I developed up there was powerful. We had to rely on each other and encourage each other as the reality is, if you are fool enough to find yourself on The Big Stone, in that vast theatre of doom, there is nobody who will get you out of it but your self and the buddy standing in his slings next to you.

Years passed, and the memory began to fade. The lines around my eyes got deeper, the joint pains more constant and acute. I began  to realize that my existence had  a shelf life with a expiration date that was now becoming more close than I liked . Certain parts of my life were broken. I was a drunk and I once again found myself casually contemplating my own doom.

I thought that the process of getting in shape for El Capitan and being reborn sober was a path to reconciliation with my wife. That was an uncertainty for sure, but staying stuck where I was meant certain doom and ruin.

I recognized a midlife crisis had taken grip on me. " Is this all my life is to be? " 

I believed that by learning again that I was capable of great deeds and undergoing great change I had an opportunity to gain mastery of not the rock, but my very life and all the things that are the most important. 

I decided that I would seek that shaman state again. I thought of El Capitan as a sort of " Great Sweat Lodge In The Sky " where I could go to be renewed. I knew through the process, should I chose to accept the mission, that I would become fit again. Maybe more appealing to my spouse. Or even, maybe it was  a potentially  cool way to end it all and people would say, " he died doing what he loved " or something like, " he played stupid games so he won a stupid prize ".

Either way, I was becoming desperate, because my natural proclivity for depression was taking over and it was beginning to feel like existing was painful. Certain events in my life made me realize that I had drank enough, so I quit. No rehab. No drama.  Sometime before I got sober, I met a guy named Michael Memmel. I had made a post on Facebook about having a miracle snake oil cure for climbing rubber, a shoe renewing product, and the only person to respond was Mike. With his size 14 feet  climbing shoes were hard to come by. What I was doing, in a weird way, was fishing for a climbing partner who was better than me. I knew I wanted to climb El Capitan again, but I knew better than to be the best free climber on the team. He saw my piles of gear and suggested we climb together. I recall saying that my goal was to climb El Capitan and that I was developing a practice route at a nearby abandoned rock quarry. He was game and showed up to practice.  He was  clearly putting in more work than my other prosective partners.

Michael struck me as having sort of a strong will with, at least, narcissistic leanings. He was super careful ( aka anal ) with ropes and gear, doing somethings overkill, not having experience enough to do other things that I had learned to be mandatory ( such as ALWAYS using a multidirectional anchor as the first piece off the belay ) but he was blessed with a quick wit, endless energy and was pretty fun to hang out with. We got up The Prow of Washington Column together, during grim heat and smoke conditions and I developed trust in him.

It was his idea to do The Nose of El Capitan.

" I am not a good enough free climber, " I told him when he made the suggestion. He assured me that he could climb 5.10 and would do all the free climbing. I knew what he didn't know about free climbing up there, but, all the pieces seemed to be in place and he was putting in the work practicing and showing himself to be much better ( and twelve years younger ) at free climbing than me. I knew that, because of his strong will and previous experience together, that some things he was just going to have to learn for himself . He was simply not open to hearing certain things, and at the same time he was thinking of things I was not, so I begin to recognize that these mechanical skills he had and somewhat selfish tendencies he had also  made for a great, determined climbing partner.

We agreed on a date and plan.

Mike says goodbye to his family before the trip.

Day 1

I picked up Mike at his place in Ramona at about 6 p.m. 

We drive until I am about to fall asleep then I pull over. We 'sleep' in the truck seats. I find enough comfort to get an hour or two of good sleep. I dream of voices high above shouting " slack! " and of a gargoyle with a mans face sitting at a place called The Glowering Spot. 

The Ghost of " Batso " at The Glowering Spot, perhaps.

We arrived in Yosemite to find, despite a new permit system for overnight climbers, that a giant crowd was on our intended path. There were teams at every belay, teams going up this start, that start, coming down, going up, waiting, passing, taking forever or moving fast and one curious portaledge camp set up five hundred feet above at a place called Sickle Ledge that did not appear to move for the three days it took us to get started. We decided that the only logical plan of attack was to get on the route and not come down until we were done: to take our place in the conga line and do the dance. That meant taking what seemed like a giant amount of water and food and doing what every body else was not  doing, which was to start from the ground and take our stuff with us. It was such a sight with  all the teams, with some particular morons who dropped both large rocks and their haul bags. that a Facebook post was made and we found ourselves in the picture with great hilarity.  That was after hiking 4-5 loads of food and water to the base, sorting gear and packing up, and patiently waiting for hours at a time for the line to progress. It occurs to me that it was a rather grotesque scene, like the crowds on Everest. But even the rangers told us that if we wanted to climb The Nose we " better get on it . "

I reassured Michael again that the crowds woud thin out dramatically by the  halfway point, as the bottom part of the route was complicated and involved multiple pendulums and a dreaded chimney section that does involve easy yet unprotected climbing for enough distance to eat you should you fall.

The sight of not one but two giant haul bags at the top of the starting buttress was no doubt met with snickers. But, we waited out the bailers and failers, and let the sailors sail.  We saw times range from seven days on the wall for a successful team to five days by a team forced to retreat from El Cap Tower, to some maniacs doing the whole wall in five hours. 

For some reason the first one hundred and eighty feet of The Nose do not count, even though it would be a nasty sight if you fell before the start. Right as we got to the top of the starting buttress near disaster struck. As, we were carrying an abusive amount of water our load was extremely heavy, so we had agreed to use a robust mechanical advantage of 4-1 on our hauling system. It worked great, moving the 350+ pound load up the wall with enough strength to not feel the haul bags catch on stuff like trees and rocks. It pulled the bags so hard that the rope coreshot and the sheath failed,  right as the bags neared the belay. I glanced down at tourists around the base, looking up at where Free Solo and The Dawn Wall were filmed, wondering if they knew how close little Jonny was to doom down there, maybe eating a Pb&J, at risk of becoming pulverized. I quickly slapped an emergency sling to back the giant load up and Micheal, showing the first of his mechanical art skills, repositioned the inverted rope catch of our haul to a place on the rope where the sheath was not exposed, cheating death for the second time so far. ( The driving to and from the climbing is usually as dangerous as the climbing, so I mean, we cheated death once by just being there. Twice by sparing the innocent tourons* below. )

Core exposed on haul line, day 1
Tourons below. * ( touron is a combination of the words tourist and moron ) 

We headed back to Curry Village, too late to get a rope, but early enough in a different era of my life to get drunk one last time before committing to the vertical abyss. We settled for hot food and showers before heading back up our fixed lines the next morning, both of us not drinking any alcohol whatsoever. 

As a younger man, I may have kept good records as to who led what parts of the climb, but its all a blur now. We went to sleep to return the next day with my 70 meter sport climbing rope as the new lead line and we'd use Mikes lead rope as the haul line. What sleep I had  was again filled with the sounds of clanging iron and climbers shouting to each other.

 Day 2

We led up to a new high point. The sport rope was extra stretchy to ascend, bouncing me up and down with its dynamic nature. I imagine  rough edges cutting the sheath of my rope and exposing the core again. In my minds eye,  I see myself falling to bounce off the rock below, I hear a wet snapping of bones and there is a splash of color as my body impacts the ground below in front of Little Jonny and his Pb&J. I imagine Little Jonny doesn't react much, even though he has some blood and brain goo on his forehead, as he's probably been desensitized by violent video games, but his parents though....they'd be  mortified.

 

Starting up. Pitch 2 or 3.

" Mike! Fuck this! Lets go get a new rope! "

We left our massive load of gear, known in our sport as a " Junk Show " at the rather comical spot of the top of pitch two. No doubt at all, the laughingstock of all the climbers in Yosemite. I look at it as we walk back, yet again, to the truck for another mindless loop around the valley and I feel somewhat embarrassed. Mike isn't. He is on El Capitan in Yosemite, living the dream, hooting and whooping it up to all who whoop or monkey call.

There are no rooms at the inn so we bivy near the base of the route after buying a new static rope for hauling.  What sleep I get, and its always little the night before you blast off on a big climb, is filled again with the sounds of those old climbers. " On belay! " yells one. " Climbing! " responds the other, more distant voice, higher up the wall in my sleep. We feel as if the park service is trying to burn us out. As we make the mindless loop, again, fires burn on both sides of the road, ruining the air quality and throwing yet another bit of chaos ( which we eventually came to call Jingus ) in to our quest. 

We both ask aloud, " what the hell are these idiots thinking?  "We are trying to climb here!"

Controlled burn in Yosemite Valley 

Day 4 

We get to Sickle Ledge and set up our portaledges. We are now committed to the wall and will not come down unless we have to.

Micheal starting the traverse to Sickle Ledge

We now realize that many of the faster parties are skipping much of the climbing by " cheating " by pulling on bits of rope left hanging from bolts to bypass the original difficulties. In a game with no rules, where the ethic is basically that what happens between belays is nobodies business but the climber, this still strikes me as a certain level of bullshit. We are trying to climb the actual route, from the ground, with nothing but a topo map to guide us.

Fellow travelers on the high seas of granite cruise the fixed lines.

 We meet a team of mostly female climbers who were super nice. They were moving faster and with  definitely better fashion style than my climbing partner and I. We exchange hoots and hollers with these fellow travelers and wish each other success. Another team came through,  in stark contrast to the team of ladies,   These guys were rude and obnoxious and climbed in a sloppy style above us that made us nervous that the guy might actually fall on us. We nicknamed him " Doofus Beefcake ".

 He was one of those people that had a good face for comedy as he sorted just looked dumb and not thoughtful about anything.

If people are going to watch you do your thing, dress to impress.

I think right about then was when I began to realize that my partner looked very much like the author of the route: Warren Harding himself.

Warren Harding aka" Batso "

 

Mike Memmel

“With Warren there was no turning around. He had that kind of total dedication that takes you to the top.”

Micheal and I shared a mutual inspiration in the author of the climb. He was a proud visionary. Read about Warren Harding here.  Our time on the climb would require Mike and I to have total dedication that was likely but a shadow of that required to establish this path.

Day 5-- The push from Sickle Ledge to Dolt Tower

We notice a trend. We are using rope buckets to keep everything straight and organized.  It works great on paper and the bucket makers make buckets in all sizes. So, you stack the two hundred foot ropes inside these buckets, and everything is mellow until a certain point is reached where the weight of the rope hanging out of the bag gets to be so much that it begins to pull the rest of the rope out, then you hear this sound that is like a dog dragging its itchy ass across the carpet, and then the rope  jumps  out of the bag and begins to unravel at warp speed forcing you to desperately grab it and restack it  again.  

I'm trying to not curse, so I shout " Jingus H " instead of " Jesus H "

" What is Jingus? " Mike asks.

" Jingus is chaos. Tangles our stuff. First name Cluster, middle name rhymes with duck. Mr. C.F. Jingus to you! " I'm getting flustered as I stack the rope again. I try to mirror Mike's ' can do `attitude and I fix the pitch above Sickle Ledge so we have a new high point in the morning.  Michael seems happy that I am free climbing. Nothing else happens, except I dropped Mikes spare pulley, which sort of makes him tense. He is completely different from me with all his gear marked so it doesn't get mixed up with my stuff. At the end of a climb I dump all my unmarked gear in a pile and let him take what he thinks is his. It's just stuff to me. 

Me leading the pitch above Sickle Ledge, rated 5.9+, or C-whatever.

   Day 6ish

This might be the first of our all nighters. At some point the haul system got jammed and we were faced with being stuck.

 I had led a pitch and was hauling when the rope stopped moving in the pulley. The Full Moon was out and I hear Mr Jingus whisper, " Hey you idiot, you better back those bags up, as your shit is stuck. " I tell Mike what's up but he is still cleaning the pitch below me, and not able to assist just yet. I make a rooky error and I actually open the main carabiner holding our giant junkshow on the wall to place a back up sling. It was hard to open and harder to close. I realize that I just about dropped the haul bags, the now almost one thousand feet, to the ground. One simply does not open a weighted carabiner. But I just did.

A tiny frog hundreds of feet up El Capitan watches the drama unfold with our stuck bags,

" Holy shit Mike! " 

Somewhere in the air behind me, or in that void between my ears I hear Mr. Jingus laughing. He is very amused. We slapped together a new haul system out of spare parts, use a hammer to unjam the doomed Wall Hauler and, six hours later we finish the pitch. The stars fade from the sky  and the sun rises. We are coming in hot to Dolt Tower and decide a rest day is in order.

The post mortem report on our haul system failure showed two fatal problems: our zed chord for the 2-1 was so small in diameter it was ruining the double pully, and the Wall Hauler was not able to handle the side loads caused by our heavy bags needing to be lowered out on the traverses. We feel as if we had handled a potentially dangerous situation smartly and that Mr. C.F. Jingus could go piss up somebody else and their  rope.

Jingused climbing equipment ruined in the cracks

That night I think about the many hundreds of pieces of climbing equipment jammed in to the cracks. In some stretches the cracks have gear very deep inside, so far beyond use its unimaginable how it would get there. If one were to pick El Capitan up and shake it out upside down thousands of pounds of gear and rope would excrete out, abandoned to the worry and financial stress of past climbers.

It occurs to me that all debris of humans is natural. So the stuck gear inside the cracks stands as relics to struggles of others who had gone before, but the trash and empty water bottles left by Doofus Beafcake and his consorts on Dolt Tower could not remain as a testament to modern mans trashy nature. I drank the remaining water stash and took the empties with me, now feeling something closer to scorn for Mr. Beefcake.

 Day 7

Sickle to Dolt Tower.

This day begin with what would become a trend which was sort of starting late. We had been up late dealing with the hall bag the night before, and so we were very tired. Plus, some fast-moving guys from Chile came through playing some interesting reggae, so we watched them move through. They were very professional and fast. I joked with them in what little Spanish I know.

Organized climbing gear on Dolt Tower.

Dolt Tower is a very large flat platform where two people can comfortably set up their camp, which for us involved hanging beds called Portaledges. We were now approximately 1,000 feet above the valley floor and the fires had lit some tall pine trees which burned throughout the night like candles from the trunk to the top of the tree. That was the last of the smoke for us as the fire burning was over.

Thunder clouds on the way to El Cap Tower

At some point we moved to the next higher ledge, moving from a slow pace to an " oh-my-God-hurry "pace as thunderclouds rolled in and it threatened rain.  It's called El Cap Tower. The Texas flake sits right above, looking like forty feet tall ( more like one hundred and fifty ) and the infamous King Swing above after the fun and easy Boot Flake pitch. We are now feeling like terrestrial astronauts, way up high in space, and at the same time looking like coal miners with our headlamps, helmets and dirty faces. I get to lead the Boot Flake and get the replica of the famous picture of Mike lying on top of the Texas Chimney.

2/3rds of the way with Mike lounging on the top of the Texas Flake.

Our next push may involve a long day and a hanging camp that is very hard to set up and tear down so for the second time on the climb, words are exchanged. At some point in a thing like this you are yelling at each other, and it usually involves having to hurry or having to wait. We reset after a tough day and somehow, this exchange creates a new dialog between us and we move up a better team for it. Perhaps we just feared the rage we had momentarily invoked in each other, and so tried to keep that in the bag.

The stretch from El Cap Tower to The Grey Bands involves the last of the pendulums and traverses, which are time consuming and complicated. You have to lower the heavy bags out to a plumb line with the haul point above, clean the gear the leader left, usually go down and unstick the bags, and you end up at a windy spot in the middle of broken rock with no good place to stand or unpack. The later it gets the longer things take as the energy is diminished. We keep thinking we'd have time to eat and consume water, but more often than not we were climbing hungry and pressed for time. 

It was my turn to lead and it was almost full dark. I look to the sky, expectant to see a moon glow rising over the Cathedral Peaks, but that will not be for another two hours, so I set out. The topo calls for a long lead on my pitch 15, finishing with an innocent looking lower out to a ledge where we expected to be able to set up our camp. The ratings suggest an easy passage but in the dark, it gets confusing as to which way to go. Usually you follow the cracks, and this is the case, but its dark and I can't see the next placement without getting way up high, which is physically taxing. 

I pause in the middle of my lead and consult a paper topo map. 

Pitch 15 detail

I see a set of bolts, and the tired part of me wants to stop there. Mr. Jingus suggests this is a great idea. " Look, you dumbfuck, you are supposed to go left. You don't know what you are doing or where you are going."  I start to move up and left, ( aware that this negative voice might be my own internal voice ) but a large spider steps towards me as if to block my path. " Go right, stupid, " I imagine the itsy bitsy spider saying. I listen. Bugs are buzzing my face, flying up my nose. The unfortunate ones who go for glory inside my mouth are spat out in a ruin of large wings. My nose is dry. I expel unspeakables out each nostril and collect my courage to head up and over some small roofs where a bolt finally awaits me. My water is running low and my throat is dry. I am thinking my climbing harness and clothes are stretching out, as my pants want to fall off, but my feet are screaming as my boots feel like they have shrunk. It turns out I lost sixteen pounds over the course of the climb.

A not-so-itsy-bitsy-spider

At this point both Mike and I are in constant pain. His elbow is swollen. My left knee is singing. Our cuticles and skin have become cracked and bleeding and even touching our selves to scratch an itch causes us to draw a sharp breath and comment something like, " holy shit, everything hurts ". The gear we use to move up seems to catch on everything making every step up a challenge to just stay untangled. Yet, we are far from the top and in the moment of climbing upwards, the leaders pain fades. The belayer may moan below in inescapable agony. The hips hurt from hauling. The thighs are squeezed by our harnesses. The tops of my toes are actually rubbed raw and bleeding, but I don't feel anything when its my turn to climb.

Ouch 

I call for tension and have Mike take my weight on the lead rope. He is far below but our voices carry well now that the wind is still. A Fool Moon now helps light my path and I have him lower me down about thirty feet.  I call for him to stop and I try to use friction to ooze across the wall to the left where I can see a small ledge. I slip and swing back to the right, turning my body to bounce off a left facing corner with my feet and protect my vitals. I realize that I must actually run back and forth in the dark to gain momentum, and worse, I am too low on the rope. I use rope ascenders to climb up five feet and start swinging side to side. A few grabs at an edge and by pulling with all my might I sort of flop over the edge and get to what will be our camp: a six inch wide sloping shelf that was tough to balance on. It was not listed on the topo but felt like free climbing to me and took all my experience and strength and straight up denial about the now almost two thousand feet below my boots to get it done. I sometimes tell myself, " if you fall fifty feet you will die, so what is two thousand feet? " The answer is of course: semper mortis.

We set up camp with the promise of no four a.m. alarm clock from Mikes phone.

Portaledge camp near Eagle Ledge in the Grey Bands

Day 8 The Headwall

We rested a bit and fate had it that after Mike led us to the Great Roof it was dark again, and my turn so I started up in to the famous arch by headlamp. Next is the Pancake Flake, which is easy, as long as you have forty camming devices in the .75 size, which of course you do not, so I move up laboriously having to make a half dozen pieces work for protection. We near Camp 5 and for the first time, getting to the top in one push seems possible. 

Rest day view of The Great Roof.

 

 We are really tired. No choice but to get some rest and start early. I was feeling every one of my 52 years. I had now reached the point in the climb where I had been before, twenty six years ago. As Mike led the Changing Corners pitch I was able to give precise beta on what size gear to use and when he would find it and where to cut right. Even though the climb goes over literally thousands of moves, many of them were burned in to my mind from 1996, to the point where I could have organized the protection gear to be used in close order.

We discussed the best plan, and I was forced to admit that the best plan was to turn over my defacto position as leader of this expedition to Mike and I asked him to finish the climb by leading the last six pitches. I had been there, done that, and I had little juice left to do it again. I went in to support mode and aside from one snag with our haul bags the rest of the headwall went down without complication. 

With Michael there was no turning around. We had to have that kind of total dedication that takes you to the top. 

Pigs in Space.

The last pitch, the bags swung out away from me, now with the moon in the background. By the time we both had the high point and the bags were up, the sun was rising. I was again broken. I was so tired I could barely move, and the ropes tangled one last time. I just want to lay down but we still had to get our bags up and over the top. 

I look down to try to see other climbers below us, but now they are the dots of color lost in the folding waves of granite.  Below us, instead of above.

We are kings. 

We were quiet. The other climbers on our route far below us now were so small they were but dots of color and spots of light, lost in a ocean of stone now the color of cream soda. With my grey wind jacket and the white ropes  piled on my shoulders I sort of looked like some mythical sea creature with two jutting headlamps for eyes, swimming up out of some deep water. This part of the climb was over and I now stood at the top of the most famous rock climb in the world. What should I feel?

I felt, unlike the first time, like we had legitimately earned it. 

I made it up once before,  but it had felt like luck somehow.  Like I had barely made it, ability wise. I am a better climber now, yet more frail. I did not suffer irrational fear.  I knew when to be cautious and when it was okay to take a fall, and I did once, on terrain many would find easy. It wasn't easy for me.  I got back up and figured it out. 

It felt like Mike and I could endure anything. I could count on him completely, but I did speak to my wife once near the last day, and I may have been somewhat emotional as I described to her my pain and fatigue. 

In this sterile society it is hard to cultivate real relationships. I am confident that Mike and I will always be friends.

The summit selfies are somehow perfect, even though they are blurry.

Getting down off a big climb is the worst.

You are beyond tired,  yet must strap on obscenely heavy loads and march. Then rapell. Then carry over loose rock.  Then hike. 

 I was looking forward to getting back home and taking care of my body and the rest of my life. My marriage and family seemed more important than ever, yet I'd be a liar if some part of me wasn't laying plans for something again. 

It was not about rock climbing. I never set out to be anything. I want to experience what Mike and I experienced up there again some day, maybe. We were riding a dragon on a giant stage and got so far gone physically and emotionally that the average person would never be able to understand, and in getting there discovered that we were made of the right kind of stuff. We came up and did not come down on a massive climb that sees at least 50% of those who attempt it retreat. We both know now that we can endure more pain than most, and can call forth energy from ourselves where the average person would lay down and gladly die.

We are not twenty somethings. We are grown men with families. Both Mike and I feel like congratulations are not what is best. What is best is to hopefully  inspire you to throw yourself at hard things while you still can. Great rewards come at a great cost.

We laugh at those who say something like, " Nope! You'd never see me up there! "

Why?

Because the mountain says no to you.

The last minutes on the wall.

In order to have a perfect climb it has come to my realization that the bills must be paid at home and the spouse and family must be not only content but wanting you to return. The climb must always involve taking care of home and ourselves and our loved ones as much as it involves success and moving upward, and that then, was the big difference between this return to El Capitan and my first time:  I realize that family is the most important thing of all.

The rock and vegetation has changed up there,   and it is not how I remember it, but I could say the same thing about my body.

I don't recall succulents and desert grass growing in the cracks. People think of Yosemite as a forest but that wall definitely feels like a desert wall, and I'm not sure if that was this experience or if it's climate change or whatever. 

My next crux of my lifes climb might be to use these strengths and courage that I've  earned to right the things that are wrong about my life.

We all have our stuff that we carry.

I'm curious as to how it will all turn out.

The Top.

It is one hour past dawn when I finally am on horizontal ground and free myself of the harnesses and slings.

I make a quick meal of freeze dried lasagna and lay down in the blazing sun. I know I am going to sleep, like it or not.  I manage to eat every drop, I cover my face with a sweaty shirt and I'm aware just enough to cover my hands too, so I don't burn in the sun.

I drink some electrolytes and right as I slip away,  Mr. Jingus shows up one last time, except now I believe it may be the spirit of Batso, Warren Harding, himself.

" You guys did good. You made it. I tried to fuck you up a couple of times, but, it was all in good fun. You can go ahead and have a victory beer. In fact, get a whole case. She will never know. "

I look away.

" Semper farcissius? " he asks.

"You bet. Always. "

Back at the road. I leave Mike at the Manure Pile Buttress and slog to my truck. People are gathered in the meadow watching the climbers. 

" You lost ? " one of them asks.

I am almost incoherent.  My attention is divided between them and the lights high above. El Capitan never looks bigger than when you've just got off of it.

" I forget where I parked. "

They sort of laugh, and I walk down the road in an awkward shuffle then I realize that my truck is not responding to my key fob so I turned and Shuffle back the other direction past them and at this point I realize that the people think I'm drunk. 

If only they knew.

I see them looking at me and joke, " I'll figure it out! " and I walk the extra quarter-mile back to my truck. Sure enough,  minutes later a Ranger shows up asking if I'm alright, acting like he wants to search me.

" You are walking kind of funny. "

I sit down in my truck and slowly remove one of my boots and socks. It's a slow, painful process.

The tops of my small toes are rubbed completely raw and I have blisters on the tips of several toes. I would be unable to put on socks again for two days and the ranger did not give me a field sobriety test after seeing my feet.

Thanks Mike!

And to those who wish to be unnamed.

Addendum.

Big Wall Climbing 201

" if it's not clipped in, it's gone. "

Not big wall theory: big wall fact.

Items we dropped included a pulley.  A large rope bucket. A small wall bag. A days supply of food. A package of trail mix. One brass stopper. One nut tool. One carabiner. My haul bag docking chord.

If it's critical,  take two.  We destroyed one complete hauling system.

Not big wall theory: big wall fact.

You have two choices on The Nose: fast and light or heavy and slow.  Those taking four days or so were cruising most 5.10 free climbing.  Those climbing NIAD ( Nose in a day ) are 5.11+ free climbers and usually have done the route six or more times.

You will fail if you do not bring enough water, and other parties WILL slow you down unless you are flying by them.

Not big wall theory: big wall fact.

Two gallons per man per day is realistic consumption.   Every team we saw bail bailed because of water running low.