HikingLog 11019

HikingLog 11019

Just got back from FC. Yesterday I got absolutely nothing done - I just sat at my C-shaped desk before a fire all day. Then I got highly motivated, threw three bags together and rushed us out of the house. We just had time to pick up a fresh potroast dinner from Shari's, ate it at Papa and 'Netty's. We were on a schedule, six-thirty pronto. We got outta there as soon as we could bolt down the roast, and hit the road. We were the only ones at Feathers lot this brilliantly clear Autumn night. The moon was low and full, and I saw an owl pass me nearly silently, like a phantom. I had seen a vague shape and heard the hushed jets of air, and then it was past. The sage brush was then dark and still. I felt it portended tha I would place my pro wisely: we were goin' trad tomorrow.

Last night I had a dream that I read through all the most recent LogDate and notes to Paul, trying to draw some themes together. When opened some of them up, I could barely believe it was my writing! It was old and I vaguely recalled vast waves of emotion desperately trying to be expressed, as though by breaking the chains around them. I started editing, but realized I couldn't change the words I had written. Sometimes the chains looked like iron and sometimes like gold. But what was most important for my thoughts to get through onto the paper was their determination, fortutude, luck. Have I molded my voice after my vision, 'As a good man should?' I wondered? I closed the file and immediately woke up.

We didn't even bother to put up the tent but [laid] out in the Denali. It froze overnight and we were up before sun even touched the opposite bank of the Coulee. We slipped through a narrow chink in the basalt column of Feathers and entered the wide amphitheater of Agathla Towers lot. We selected the first sport and crack combination on the left, and fell into line like a brace of Dana's sailors. It was a new route for us. But like the doughty souls that we aim to be, we climbed first and asked questions later. The first three bolts looked tough, then it got rougher and easier past that. I brought our favorite rope for cold weather: double 8's.

Tami attempted first and fell back after two moves. Then I made a go of it. The cliff felt vertical, like I was leaning back. The rock was cold and my fingers ached and my forearms were cramped. I got to the first bolt and came down. On my next attempt I placed the rope through the second bolt. Tami belayed me perfectly. When I came off the rock, she cinched the rope to her back and let herself be thrown to the wall. Then she put her foot on the wall, high as her hips, and braced herself. "When I felt the rope burning through my hands,"she told me later, "I just stepped on the rope and ground it into the dirt to stop you." On my most valiant effort, I reached the third and crucial bolt but got only one of the ropes through. After that I tried, but laid back each time and never got past it. But I had achieved what I had intended. I now had a top rope for the crack next to it. By this time we were each pained and our joints crabbed like old ladies. I started up the feeling-like-backwards crag. It was narrow and chossy. When I got to the first secure crevice I could use an anchor, I placed it. But never got even a second one in.

We made it back to town by noon and I did nothing at all the rest of the day.