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.