Climbing Therapy

Sorry, yes another climbing post. With the lack of other things to do this time of year rock (plastic) climbing and winter mountaineering (and it’s subsets – snowshoeing/hiking) are about all there is to do right now.  A few nights ago, when my buddy was hanging on a route, waiting out a stiff forearm pump so he could work out a sequence, I had a brief conversation with this girl that was brand new to rock climbing. She was there with, what I presume, was her boyfriend, or given that the gym is near BYU it could have even been her husband. He had walked off to find a new route and she started asking me questions about rock climbing. How long I had been at it, strength and form, etc. I encouraged her to keep at it and both form and strength would come around.  She seemed encouraged, thanked me, and walked away with her slightly irritated boyfriend.

I realized at that point that I had gone to the gym in kind of a bad mood and wasn’t in a bad mood anymore. Not because of the conversation, but because of climbing. When you’re working a hard route, gritting out a sequence of small holds, it’s impossible to think about anything but the route and not falling, even on a top rope.  Climbing is very therapeutic. There are a lot of things out there that people find to be their own brand of therapy. Climbing happens to be a very good one for me.

There is one particular 5.10d route that I’m working at The Quarry. It starts out jogging to the left a bit on an overhanging wall, up onto a vertical wall on thin-ish holds, until the crux sequence with a big undercling movement to some big jugs above the roof.  I haven’t quite made it to the crux, just working the sequence to the hold right below it. When I made it to my high point on Saturday I had literally sprinted up the wall to get there, knowing that there was no place to rest or chalk up, and my fingers don’t have the strength to dawdle on those small holds. I made a diving grab for a decent hold and (because of poor foot hold choices) just missed it. I was left swinging out above everyone. My heart was racing and it felt good.

My own physical weight is more than enough to haul up a route, I can’t possibly carry any mental or emotional baggage up as well. If it’s a tough route I don’t think you have a choice. Everything but your harness, shoes and chalk bag stays on the deck. Fighting to move through thin holds to get to the next jug is a pointless endeavor in the scope of the existence we lead here on Earth. But, in terms of mental, and to some degree physical health, it’s incredibly helpful. By the time I walked out the door to my car that night I didn’t care about whatever it was that had put me in the bad mood, it just didn’t seem to matter.

I enjoy climbing. I like the mental and physical test that it provides. I can push myself through physical pain and the mental fear to accomplish new things. It’s fun to work on new skills. Focusing on using my feet better, maybe back step or drop-knee to make better use of a good stance. Ultimately, it’s the opportunity to forget the cares of the world for a few hours that I like the best. I don’t think it’s running away from life’s problems, it’s providing a fresh perspective. Put your day/week through a few hours of fun, fear and pain then deal with whatever is important enough to stick around afterward. 

Mt. Timpanogos - Redemption...almost

Last year my friend Rick and I made an attempt at climbing Mt. Timpanogos (Timp) via Everest Ridge on the West face. We planned on an overnighter, but never made it to our intended camp site on the Timp- Big Baldy saddle. We bumped up against heavy trees/brush, a large spring, and deep snow on the Battle Creek (North) side of Big Baldy.

Ever since then the massif that is Timp has been looking down at me, taunting me. Timp is a beautiful mountain and Everest Ridge is an awesome route running up the middle of the West face from Big Baldy to a point about .38 mile south of the summit. After a couple of weeks of heavy storms, heat, and massive avalanche danger everything finally settled down and Rick and I made our attempt.

We decided on a single day push from the bottom of Dry Canyon on the South side of Big Baldy. With snowshoes strapped to our packs we left the trailhead at around 5:20am. The temps were cold enough to keep the snow pretty solid until we got to near the saddle (~8000 ft.) where the snow was deeper and less consolidated. We moved up a prominent low angle ridge to the base of Everest Ridge where things got pretty steep. After a 100 yards we stashed our snowshoes next to a small band of rocks and switched to crampons and ice axes.

It was fantastic working our way up the ridge, watching the valley floor and Baldy drop below us. Most of the going was pretty steep, but stable crusty snow. A few stretches of post holing kept the heart rate up and made us extra grateful for the solid stuff. At one point, I think around 10,500 ft., there is a narrow, rocky ridge, that made the going a little interesting, and did a good job of breaking up the stretches of snow and post holing.

Rick and I finally made it to the cliff band, often referred to as the Step. We opted to traverse to the right (South) on a pretty steep slope. We got about halfway through the first section, after I slipped a couple of times and Rick admitting that his leg injury wasn't doing so well, we decided that we probably ought to cut it short and turn around.

Our high point was at around 11,300 ft. We dropped down a hundred or so to a place where we could glissade down the chute. There was a large crack across the face so we stayed far to the left so as to not tempt the avalanche gods. Just as we were about to start our slide down four college students, who were coming down from the summit stopped to watch. They had never heard of glissading down this section and were intrigued with not having to climb down the entire ridge.

After watching Rick and I they got enough courage to give it a try themselves. After that they were hooked and provided us with some ready made glissade tracks to follow down much of the mountain. After a lot of glissading and walking we made it to the cliff band where we had stowed the snowshoes. Only we were about 500 yards to the South. What proceeded was the worst period of post holing and swimming in waist deep snow that I've ever had. It was pretty late in the day and the snow was pretty soft and slushy. It took an hour or two (I really have no idea how long, but it felt like an eternity) until I was below the spot where I could finally see our snowshoes. Only problem, I had about a hundred yards to go strait up a 45 degree slope. At times I was literally moving on all fours, just trying to stay as near the top of the snow as I could.  I was about 30 ft. from the snowshoes and nearly gave up when I realized that 30 ft. was about a year in post holing years. Eventually I made it and after some trouble finally made it down to the bottom where Rick was wringing out his socks. He had followed me part of the way but had to give up when his leg injury started some serious nagging.

As is usually the case with me, once the climbing is done I get a strong mental urge to just get down to the car. The problem is that my knees don't like the quick pounding descent, so I'm forced to stop now and then to give them a break. 

Though Rick and I still didn't summit, I feel much more satisfied with this effort than last year when we were turned back so early. Timp still looks down on me, but its nice to look back near the summit to see just how close we got. I'll definitely have another go at it. Each time I learn some new lessons. Next time, if the weather is going to be warm, start much earlier in the morning and stow the snowshoes in a spot that I'll pass by on the way down. 

Buckley Mountain - Awesome Mountain You've Never Heard Of

2:30 AM Saturday morning, the alarm goes off.  I dragged myself out of bed expecting to have a fairly mellow day climbing 9502 ft. Buckley Mountain. The Utah Climbing Club was scheduled to do Loafer Mountain and Santaquin Peak but extreme avalanche conditions forced a chance to smaller, less exotic, Buckley Mountain. Buckley Mountain sits right at the Provo – Springville border. Buckley, along with Y-Mountain and others are the shorter peaks that sit in front of the taller more well-known peaks like Provo, Cascade, Timpanogos, etc. I haven’t yet met anyone that has ever heard of Buckley mountain or paid any attention to it, despite the fact that it sits right there in front of everyone that lives in or drives around Provo.

My snowshoes and ice axe were already strapped to my pack. I just had to cram some oatmeal down my gullet and put some Carbo-Pro and Nuun in my water bottles. When I hopped in my truck the local radio station KRCL was playing late-80’s/early 90’s hip hop. All the stuff I listened to in Jr. high and early years of high school:  Humpty Dance, Buffalo Stance, Mama Said Knock You Out. It was a good morning.  This was my first outing with the Utah Climbing Club so I popped into the Mountain Works climbing shop to meet everyone else. Everyone looked as bedraggled as I felt. We drove in a procession to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail head in south Provo. We headed south on the trail for a few minutes then turned and headed strait up the mountain. It was a steep grassy slope with no trail in the dark for about 1000 ft. until we got to a ridge saddle and turned north to where we topped out on Toad Rock. Toad Rock, apparently looks like a toad when viewed from some angle, but I couldn’t see it. We were hoping to head north off of Toad rock to the ridge connecting us to the route for Buckley, but a 50 ft. drop off a cliff turned us back.

Utah Climbing Club in action

After we dropped down below Toad rock and did a lot of bushwhacking we made it to the ridge and started a meandering traverse upward. Just when I thought we’d start working up through some rocks we cut down across a wide gully and strapped on the snowshoes.  Soon we were headed up, strait up. Luckily the snow had a pretty hard crust so the snowshoe crampons dug in and we worked out way upward. At one point we had to do some small bits of low angle 5^th class rock climbing. I let my poles hang from my wrists as I used my hands and the front points on the snowshoe crampons to climb up the short sections of rock. This was easily the most technical route I’ve ever done in snowshoes.

Summit of Buckley Mountain

Unfortunately the hard crust was not as consistent up higher and much of the going was through several feet of powder snow.  Stepping very gingerly sometimes helped and other times I plunged through the snow with a depressing slide back to my last step. After what seemed like an eternity I finally made it to the top of that section and turned to follow the ridge to the final summit ridge. Before continuing though I figured I’d better get some nourishment in me. I pulled out the peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, which was now nearly frozen. The sandwich turned out to be the tastiest thing I’ve ever taken with me on a hike or backpacking trip. I wished I had made two of them. Oh well. By now the wind was howling pretty hard and the temperature was dropping. I put my thin down jacket on under my softshell and worked up the ridge through deep powder, over rocks and logs and trees. Finally the summit ridge was there. The snow was wind-blown hard and crusty making the last 100 yards pretty easy.  I snapped a couple of quick summit pics then started heading back down before my fingers froze off. Temps on the summit were probably around 0F, colder than anything we’ve had all Winter.

Tricky section to descend

Usually when snowshoeing the descent is pretty easy and fun, this was not. There were all sorts of boulders and rocks hidden under the snow so that if you slipped on your snowshoes you could fall and gash a knee or hip and make the rest of the 4500 ft. trip down very hard. After some time a lot of the tracks had become a narrow powdery gully, perfect for some glissading now that we were past the rocks. The sliding sections were fairly short, but sure helped take off some of the knee strain and add in some fun. 

I connected up with about 4 other people from the club and we decided to head down a gully instead of heading back the way we came. This allowed us to keep on the snowshoes and slide, plunge step down the snow instead of working back up to the high ridge and back down the steep grassy slope to the bottom. Still it took about 3.5 hours to get down the gully and hike the BST back to the trail head.

Black Diamond Epic 45, packed up and ready for
Mount Timpanogos on this weekend

Through the whole ordeal was my trusty new-ish Black Diamond Epic 45 backpack. I bought the pack last Fall specifically for ice climbing and winter mountaineering.  The driving features for winter use are the ice tool pocket and crampon pouch. Instead of the usual ice axe loops that many packs have, the BD Epic has a nice pouch that you tuck the ice picks into from either side, keeping you from ripping up other gear with point parts. The ice tool handles are secured with a simply cord that is snugged up near the lid of the pack. The back of the pack has an extra tough layer of nylon that when coupled with a couple of straps and  a 3 inch strip of nylon make a great pouch that you can stick your crampons in. Making it both easy to retrieve or put them back as you’re moving across varied terrain. So, not only do I not have to dig through my pack to find them, but they aren’t ripping holes in my favorite light down jacket either.

I found out doing this trip that the cinch straps on the side are perfect for strapping snowshoes to the pack. The size is nice and versatile. I’m not an “Ultralight” backpacking kind of guy so an extra  2 oz of fabric doesn’t bother me. This allows the pack to be big enough to stow a 70M rope and ice climbing gear.  I could probably get away with a 30L or 35L for most day trips to the mountains, but cinch it down and you don’t notice the extra material anyway. Black Diamond packs have an awesome hip belt feature that pivots behind the lumbar support. This enables the pack to move more naturally with you as you move. No hip straps shifting around, or stiff body strapped to a pack unable to maneuver normally. I wish my other packs had this feature. All of the other features are well thought out. The shoulder and hip straps are padded nicely and keep the load supported comfortably. The lid has a top pocket where I like to keep food and headlamps. There is also a pocket on the underside of the lid.

After all is said and done. Buckley Mountain should be a tick on everyone’s list. It really was an alpine adventure. It may not have required crampons and an ice axe, but it had just about every other type of terrain you could expect in a mountain trek. Though I may not have paid any attention to Buckley before I know I’ll look up at it from the valley with fondness from now on. 

Muir and Me

Anyone who’s done any rock climbing, mountaineering, or maybe just anything, knows that rather often you fail to accomplish the goal you set out to do. This is certainly the case with rock climbing and mountaineering for me. In cycling, I know enough about myself to set my goals nice and low so that I don’t get disappointed quite as often. The problem with climbing rock and ice is that people have set grades to them. I started climbing 5.6 then moved up to 5.7 on up to 5.10 and so on. The problem is that these grades are so dependent on the experience of the climber that set the grade as well as that person’s personal strengths and even their size. Bigger is not always better either. Sometimes a route, this happens more often indoors, is set by someone much smaller than me (6’3”). The hand and foot holds end up too close to each other, but to far apart to stretch to the next set. So, I get stuck making some tricky moves with my body all cramped up. 

Most mountains don’t have difficulty grades, and if they do the mountain is usually technical enough in nature that you better be fit and knowledgeable before you attempt them. Weather, snow conditions, temperatures, fitness and recovery for the day, all play into success of any venture into the mountains.

If I’m heading out for a new objective usually I’ll have done some research on it, thank you internet. This means if I’m picking a rock route I know what my grade limit is and I’ll choose some fun routes that I think I have a reasonable chance on. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong.

I’m usually upbeat enough and not tied so emotionally to my goals that if I fail I’m not too broken up by it. If that’s the case then I usually just look around at the surrounding mountains, rocks and trees and think how lucky I am that I’m able to spend those few hours in the mountains. My oft repeated statement in these times is “Any time spent in the mountains is a good time.” And it’s the truth. I’ve come to realize that most people seem to feel some kinship with the mountains, so I don’t think it’s just me. While walking up Rock Canyon on our way to Provo Peak my friend Dave exclaimed, “I love the pines,” which was a tad surprising to me only because I’ve said the same thing a number of times. Something about pine trees is so calming and comforting. Dave thinks it’s the majesty of them, so tall and strait. The fragrant green boughs overhead along with the flaky and gnarled bark on the trunks make a pine forest a true joy to walk through.

I’ve been reading a giant 800+ page compilation of the works of John Muir for the last few months. I usually find an hour or two per week to read so it’s slow going. I love the mountains. John Muir loves the mountains like my 6 year old loves chocolate, like Darth Vader loves choking people with the Force, like the programmers that I work with love Mountain Dew; you get the idea. As much as I love the mountains John Muir has opened my eyes further to all the beauty that abounds. This man loves the pines. He also, like me, has an affinity for rock formations and the geologic forces that it took to get them there and in that shape and condition. This especially applies to the great massive grinding force of glaciers. Muir marvels equally at the beauty of the soaring granite peaks as he does the ability for squirrels to clamber around in pine trees eating the nuts and somehow do so without getting any sap or mess on their fur.

The fact that I have three canyons and the Wasatch range within 15 minutes of my driveway is of incredible importance to me. I used to have an office cubicle next to a window that faced Mount Timpanogos and Lone Peak. Often, when I needed a break from staring at a computer screen, I’d swivel my chair a few degrees and trace ridges to the tops of the mountains, looking for new interesting routes to reach those highest peaks. I dream of hiking the canyons and listening to the wind blow through the trees until it sounds like a roaring river. Or, scaling a cliff face straining to hang on to that tiny hold long enough to clip the rope into the next bolt. I may fail to top out, I may fail to summit a peak, but it’s all time spent in the mountains, and that can only be good.