panic attack

  Between all the election jibber-jabber, the slow growing economy, and the Chinese taking over, an interesting article came along by Kate Bolick in The Atlantic. Probably a lot of you have already read All the Single Ladies, but if you haven't, definitely worth the read.  It's a long piece, but very well researched.

So why am I talking about this?

This is from the first few paragraphs of the article:

In 2001, when I was 28, I broke up with my boyfriend. Allan and I had been together for three years, and there was no good reason to end things. He was (and remains) an exceptional person, intelligent, good-looking, loyal, kind. My friends, many of whom were married or in marriage-track relationships, were bewildered. I was bewildered. To account for my behavior, all I had were two intangible yet undeniable convictions: something was missing; I wasn’t ready to settle down.

...On good days, I felt secure that I’d done the right thing. Learning to be alone would make me a better person, and eventually a better partner. On bad days, I feared I would be alone forever. Had I made the biggest mistake of my life? 

Ten years later, I occasionally ask myself the same question. Today I am 39, with too many ex-boyfriends to count and, I am told, two grim-seeming options to face down: either stay single or settle for a “good enough” mate. At this point, certainly, falling in love and getting married may be less a matter of choice than a stroke of wild great luck. A decade ago, luck didn’t even cross my mind. I’d been in love before, and I’d be in love again. This wasn’t hubris so much as naïveté; I’d had serious, long-term boyfriends since my freshman year of high school, and simply couldn’t envision my life any differently. 

I almost hyperventilated after reading the entire article.  That could be me.

Apparently, the unconventional choices in life may have some unconventional endings as well. 

The thought of living in solidarity or in a place where there are a lot of supportive single women also made my hyperventilate.  I can barely live with one other female, let alone a group all nearby.  In recent years as an adult, I have been surrounded by mostly men.  Engineering school, grad school in engineering again, all the older generation acousticians, and of course, all the climbers.  Is this, in someways, also unconventional?

While I was in Yosemite, I met two hard-core female climbers on the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral.  In chatting with one of them, I told her about how little I climbed with other female climbers.  I could tell, that she probably climbs mostly with other female climbers.  She said that it was inspiring to climb with other female climbers, especially strong ones.  I can imagine that climbing with a female partner can create a more supportive role than climbing with a male partner if the male partner is significantly stronger.  I definitely would want to find more female buddies to test it out.  I honestly think that what is important is the personality and less the gender.  But I'll have to find out.

And I digress, always talking about climbing.  Even on a post that was meant to be about something else.

Back to the hyperventilating.

I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE THAT LONG!  WHAT IF IT HAPPENS TO ME?  I screamed through GChat to Reid, who first posted the article up on FB.

Don't worry about it.  It should be inspiring to you.  I don't remember the exact words, but that is basically what he said to me.  He was not amused by my reaction. 

Only after a few weeks, after I've had more time to calm myself down and stop having nightmares, was I able to put some thoughts down for this post.  Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I did think about it for a bit after reading it.  Plus I was busy climbing outside.  Work was a bit chaotic.  All the reasons for not writing another post sooner.

He is right though, what are the chances.  I go to a meat market about twice a week.  Where there are TONS of single men and women wearing very little.  Right?

Don't shit where you eat.  Brian told me today on GChat in reference to dating people from the gym.  

And Brian is right too.  I have eaten my own crap before.  It was pretty terrible.  It was even more terrible when friends of yours feed more of your own crap to you. 

But without some risk, there won't be any reward.  So I'm willing to take a gamble and maybe eat and shit at the same time. 





Stop freaking out, really.

We survived Yosemite! - Part 4

We were heading towards the right side of this big thing...

Following our rest day, Max and I were aiming to do the East Buttress of El Cap.  While this is not a 5-star climb like the other E. Butt we did a few days before, it's an extremely popular route due to the fact that one can summit El Cap in a relatively short free climb.  The climb is 13 pitches, noted as more difficult than the other E. Butt.

Team Biskrem was also aiming for this climb on the same day.  We didn't get to talk to them the night before to plan it out though, so we weren't for sure whether they were going to climb it or  not.  They had gone to Toulemne for two days while we stayed around the valley.

We got up even earlier that day.  I think it was 4:30AM or so, so that we could leave the campsite at 5:00.  Team Weneedananny were getting up early also to climb and be back for baby Autumn at noon.  They dropped us off at the base of our climb and headed over to do Central Pillar of Frenzy.

It was pitch dark, and we progressed up the talus field with our headlamps.  The approach was going to take at least an hour, similar to the approach on Cannon in the Whites.  During our hike, we could see some headlamps on El Cap.  There were people up already, looks like on the Dawn Wall.  Before the sun came up, we heard a loud swooshing noise.  I looked up, and there were two parachutes open right on top of us, heading towards the valley.  They were climbers that BASE jumped on the descent.  Maybe it was Dean Potter?  That would be pretty impressive.

Then suddenly, at dawn, the light gently glows on the side of El Cap that we were heading towards.  The air was still chilly, but it brings hope of some warmth.  It was truly a beautiful and peaceful time of the day.

With the sun filtering into the valley, I started sweating under my layers of clothes.  But at least now I can hike the talus field without using my headlamp.  As I was about to turn off my headlamp, I looked up at the cliff that we were approaching.  It was near the Zodiac climb, and we had to cut more to the right once we hit the bottom of the cliff.  Max was about 50 ft. ahead of me, cutting more towards the right already.

I suddenly heard an unfamiliar low rumble noise.  With sheer luck, I looked up at the right spot on the 3000 ft. tall cliff, and saw a piece of rock the size of a piano (it looked sort of like a roof) peeling off the cliff.  It may actually be bigger than that, because it's hard to judge the size of anything with El Cap in the background.

ROCK!  I shouted, just in time for both Max and I to react and dive to the closest place to hide.  He jumped to a tree, and I hid under a really large boulder.  I seriously didn't know what else to do at that point.  Upon impact to the ground, the rock triggered enough of a shock to the talus field that it sent an avalanche of rocks down the area directly below it.  It kept going down until it hit the flat part of the hike, basically to the parking lot.  Lucky for us, we were not directly under the path of the rock avalanche.  But we could definitely feel the dust from the slide, as well as the earth trembling.

We escaped death by about 50 feet.

Are you guys okay?  A voice asked from above.

It wasn't God - just some dude on the Dawn Wall.  But we were glad that there were other witnesses there in case something did happen to us.

We decided to keep going for the East Buttress climb, but both of us were shocked from the rockfall.
Since that morning, for the rest of the trip we would have PTSD symptoms every time we heard a loud bang, even at the campsite.

By the time we got to the base of the climb, there was unfortunately a line of people.  To be exact, we were party No. 6 or 7.  A bunch of people must have all gotten there within 30 minutes of each other.  There was one party that got there behind us, but after waiting for another hour at the base of the climb, there weren't any more new climbers.

I heard a familiar laugh above from us.  I knew that it was Adrian.  We couldn't see them, but they were somewhere still on the first pitch, one of the harder pitches.   After a bit later, I saw Carlos, leading up a chimney with very little protection.  He moved up slowly and carefully.

Then suddenly, we heard a struggling sound from Carlos.
Then sound of fear as if he was slipping.
Ahhhhh!  He yelled as he took a lead fall down the chimney, with a lot of metal clanking noise along with it.
An extremely discouraging noise to any climber.

If I heard the story right, Carlos was caught by his own backpack and a nut that he placed way way below him.  Lucky guy.

This was around 8AM, an hour after we had gotten to the base of the climb.  We found out that Team Biskrem was Party No. 3, which means that there are still at least two parties between us and them.  And that Carlos was still struggling at the first pitch.

After some discussions with Max, we decided to retreat.  We probably would only get to start climbing at 9AM at the earliest, and there are 13 pitches.  In the best scenario, we would top out at around 5PM or 6PM.  But if there was any chance that we have to wait for a slow party above us, we would definitely top out in the dark.  The guide book made the descent sound really horrific, so we really didn't want to hike down El Cap in the dark.

It was an emotional retreat, considering what we went through earlier that morning.  Later on that day, we went to climb Super Slide.  But both of our hearts were just not there.  It did not satisfy our desire to do a more epic climb.

That night, we heard from Team Biskrem about their day on E. Butt.  It sounded really intense and much harder than the other E. Butt we had done just three days before.  They looked exhausted.

Photo of Carlos by http://www.alexandrebuisse.org/ 

Frustrated with not being able to climb E. Butt, we tried to see what the weather conditions were like for Snake Dike in the next few days.  Chance of thunderstorms, no good.  But do we want to be struck by lightning?  Another disappointment.  We really couldn't think of any other climb with 10+ pitches that was at the same level on such a short notice.

For the remainder of the trip, we continued climbing a few pitches here and there.
We will have to wait for the next trip to do the other E. Butt and Snake Dike.

One week is really not long enough in the valley!

We'll be back, East Buttress.

We survived Yosemite! - Part 3

I swear that I will eventually finish this trip report.  This will be Part 3 of 4 parts. - RM

*  *  *  *  *  *

I woke up the next day with really sore quads.  For some reasons, that is always the first part to go on my body.  It's either the descent or the ascent.   Definitely not from climbing, but climbing 1100 ft. in vertical distance was definitely the longest route that I have ever done.  The other climb that was close to that was Moby Grape on Cannon.  

Max was not affected by the previous day like I was.  He was ready for more adventures.  After some negotiation, I told him that I can climb at most 5 pitches on my rest day, although I did not feel like leading.  Fine by him, since he LOVES to lead all the time anyways.  It's amazing how climbing 5 pitches can be a rest day out here in Yosemite, because everything is so much larger in scale.  That would be like going all the way up to the top of Cathedral in N. Conway!  

Nothing too strenuous, easy day with 5 pitches.  Right?  

Let's go do Central Pillar of Frenzy, it's 5.9 and only 5 pitches.  Said Max.  

I knew that was a 5-star climb, and that Mark Synnott had also recommended that climb when I took the self rescue class.

It was not a rest day climb for me.  Frenzy was probably one of the most strenuous 5.9 I have ever climbed.  Totally Yosemite style, and totally sandbag.  Ask anyone that has tried it.  Especially climbers that are climbing close to their limit at that grade.  

What makes it special, is the first pitch.  It sets the tone for the rest of the climb.  At least two other people that climbed the route has told me that they could not wait to get off the climb.  As much as I enjoyed following it, I also felt somewhat that way.  

So, back to the first pitch...

It's an awkward, somewhat polished dihedral that turns into a bit of a chimney of some sort.  Max went up the climb and got stuck at the crux for a while before figuring out the beta (very unusual for him).  It was just not that fun.  

Then I followed up.  There were already several parties waiting for us to go up, but we got lucky and were party #2.  As I mentioned before, whenever there are parties right behind me, I get somewhat stressed and feel like I need to climb faster.  Either that or I just didn't wake up from my morning coffee yet. 

As I got to the middle portion of the dihedral where there is some semi-chimney, I struggled my way up and tried to wedge my ass on part of the corner.  When I did that, something slipped out of my harness and started tumbling down the climb.

ROCK!  Someone yelled.  But it was not the rock.  It was Max's camera that I forgot to sling onto my harness.  It bounced off he rock and the lens broke into a million pieces.  Max was pissed at my inability to take care of the camera and I was also pretty annoyed that I was not as attentive.  Needless to say, I do not have any photos to put on this entry.  Luckily, Aaron had an extra camera, so Max was able to take more photos after the mass camera destruction.

Don't worry, I bought insurance from Best Buy, so we're good.  He later told me.  It made me feel much better because that camera was relatively new.  I guess he knew that one day, I was going to be that person that drops his camera 50 feet down the cliff.  

I'm not finished yet.  With the dropping, that is.  

After being a bit frazzled from the camera destruction, I fumbled a bit when I was cleaning the pros.  I must have not clipped one of the draws completely back on my harness, and it flew down the cliff (again) as the people below us yell ROCK once again.  Payback time for dropping my No. 1 C3 the day before (not).

I swear, the people below us kept their distance after that.  We didn't really see them until we were on Pitch 3.  

The rest of the climb was amazing.  P2 had a beautiful, sustained thin hand then finger crack.  P3 had a big roof then some insanely large offwidth.  It's one of those pitches that you don't think would be that hard after the BIG roof, but then you go above it and realize that there is a lot more.  

Max ran that pitch OUT.  That's because he is that bad ass, but also because he had already used his best pieces of pro below the roof.  Lucky for him, there was a booty 4 or 5 stuck in the offwidth, and so he was able to clip his rope onto that.  Brian from Team Weneedananny climbed it a few days later and told us that he kept his #4 or #5 and just kept sliding it up.

P4 was a beautiful fist crack.  Also very sustained all the way up.  

P5, like a great symphony, wraps the whole theme of the climb up and has a mixture of everything from the first four pitches.  

The climb had a great view of the El Cap Meadows and the Captain himself.  I was relieved to have finished the climb, and wished that I was less tense than I was.  It was a lot of struggle for me, but definitely worth it.

The following day, we were both tired, and actually took a real rest day and went hiking at the Lower Falls.  

I will come back for you again Central Pillar of Frenzy.  Next time, I know what to expect from you.

to be continued...