billcoe Posted July 3, 2008 Posted July 3, 2008 No, not Fuck. Everyone says Fuck all the time. Its a common Adjective, noun adjectives adverb in addition to being an expletive used by 3 and 4 year olds anymore. Fear. You cannot admit to "Fear" in public. Especially if you are a guy. Women can pull it off on occasion, but not guys. "I have fear". Shit, I just said it out loud and admitted to it. Thinking of the Towering Black Hulk that will be this weekends objective remains in the recesses of my mind. Fear of the unknown and the unknowable lingers in a fuzzy haze with undefined borders and in unmarked territory....lingering yet unstoppably overwhelming. My stomach is churning and queasy: a non-stop knarly nagging ache that is constant yet at the same time an undercurrent of my mentality that will neither rise to the top of my intellect so as to be dealt with, nor go away. A brief reconnaissance from the top down to the visible Lions Head still 280' off the deck last fall left me with some unanswered questions and dreams in the back recesses of the cobwebs inside my skull. I pull the feeling up to examine it, and cannot get a full conceptual grasp of why it is there. *I "get" the fragment and grasp that it is something about heading up to Cathedral Formation and going where no human being has ever been before. Perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. *I also mentally "get" that the proposed method of protection I am looking at, epoxy and stainless threaded U-bolts is not something I have any experience with outside of a few books and published reports from other continents. We won't be climbing it even if we can get all this work done. The stuff has to cure, true, but we are waiting for another person who needs to be here for this. So we'd like to get the U-bolts in, but even so, won't be "climbing." I also "get" that although I had wanted to test a few wedge anchors in this strange unfamiliar Breccia/silica/Andesite nodule rock that makes up the Cathedral Formation: I didn't. How strong this stuff is - is total conjecture at this point. If the nodules are firm, and in some spots they are not, are the underlying slabs truly fully attached to the main cliff? I also mentally "get" that at @ 300' high and with a few slight overhangs, getting down may be problematical as well as getting up. Getting stuck or a cut rope could be one of the issues mixed in the cobwebs back behind the thalamus somewhere. Yet the unspeakable "F" word remains and the guts continue their slow twist as I move onto the daily pressing issues at work and get on with my work....perhaps this weekend will eliminate these issues. I know I must go on anyway and confront these ideas of unmuttered fears that have also been my dreams all winter long: while I waited for my destiny and my dreams to thaw out and re-appear.... as Wayne so eloquently spoke it on Waynes World "Oh yes, she MUST be mine". ........Oh yes!..... The weekends recon started out interesting. Thought it was suppose to be hotter than hell every 4th of July? Getting to the top took most o the day. Carrying 4 ropes to fix the hike at the top of the cliff and the rap to the top was slow and heavy work. Carrying a shovel and digging the approach steps. Having the Lil Dawg, a Bosch 36V and all that hardware was less than helpful for good balance as well. We finally get the first anchors and have a 1/2 and 3/4 rope lengths left. I rap the 1/2 a rope and the highlight was having a softball sized rock slam into my left foot from probably 50' above as I'm hanging in space. After working my non-existent abs, I am able - after 10 min of kicking back and forth on the overhang, to marginally catch a projection with a sling and pull myself into the rock. The holes for the next anchor get drilled and filled faster than I had been able to get back on rock and Kyle comes down (seen here on the 2nd or 3rd rap depending on how you count. We're still 160-170 feet off the deck in this pic with another overhanging rap to go). The next pitch over hangs as well. Nor does the rope reach the ground. The rope not reaching earth is disturbing as one cannot see how far that is from 160' above it. I rap first anyway holding our breaths that its close to the earth down there then off the end just as a single toe is touching and collapse in a heap, the expanded rope, relieved of my weight, springs back up 15-20 feet. Whew. The additional consideration is that the landing zone is real steep, a roll down this slope most likely ends out of sight with a death plunge off a cliff. Scary. I hope KS's skinny butt pulls the rope down far enough, so I go out to grab the end of it for a fireman's belay and also help get him grounded and it works out OK for him as well. Another Whew. 2X worse than the Monkey Face raps, back to back, with a R rated ground landing for a finale. That night, at @3am it starts lightly raining and wakes my exposed and tired assed face up. I crawl out of the bivi bag and both legs cramp....bad. After the cramps work out and I pee, decide not to crawl back in the bag and risk the cramps again, so I go car camping and dive in the car to sleep. With the days light showing mist and light rain on occasion, we choose to hump up some hardware to the top, and mindful of the rain and our fear, to not try the climb on toprope and workout the moves, rests, and clips for the route today. Thus we leave the drill, caulking gun and epoxy so as to reduce the weight by @ 20+ lbs. The stainless u-bolts we elect to carry to leave on top and reduce our next load up there might have been 20lbs by themselves. We carry shovels so as to dig little steps to reduce the sliding and fall off the slope potential which is everywhere. Carrying full packs while shoveling on a steep hillside: that's something not to be missed for sure. Make it to the top, leave our stainless U-bolts and do rappels like normal people, it's still scary but with less weight and knowing that it goes, much relieved and more relaxed than the previous day. The nuts still get sucked into the body, but they're not up in the throat like yesterday. That was so bad ya would have had to rub your Adams apple region to masturbate. Yeah, probably that bad. And a route gradually is getting brought to life. 300' or so of amazing nubbins and rock dancing will be commencing soon. It's still F*ing overhanging and scary. The 2 5 gallon buckets easily seen with Binoculars are not visible in this pic, nor are our ropes on top, as the distance is too great, but the Lions Head is right under the tree leaf there. For scale, the Doug Firs are pretty much full sized trees on top. We had left a sling around the one on top right of the cliff. Some of the fear of the unknown is displaced with knowledge that it can be. Exhausted, and with the mountain weather still looking iffy, we chose not to stay for the 3rd day and head home early. Kyle for some more climbing at Beacon, I take a rest day hike with the family and the Jack Russell rescue pups Hank the Dog and Sadie the Trailer Park Floozie. The relief of escaping the pressure and fear evident in my face. Edited by Bill several times after July 5th part 1 of 29 installments.... Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted July 3, 2008 Posted July 3, 2008 No, not Fuck. Fear. "I have fear". Shit, I just said it out loud and admitted to it. part 1 of 9 installments.... you need to have hope. hope for change. Quote
KaskadskyjKozak Posted July 3, 2008 Posted July 3, 2008 suspend disbelief. ignore any doubts, any fears. jump into the pool. don't worry, it's full of water. really. have hope. Quote
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