Notes from the Top
Chimneys and a Scary Descent in Red Rocks
64
The Epic We Never Had
I knew we would be in for a big day. But I wasn’t worried about it. Claire was in a similar situation to me, a Canadian female, travelling alone through the desert, living out of a car and looking to improve in all aspects of rock climbing. She had already had some undesirable adventures in Red Rocks: one uncomfortable and late-night rappelling adventure with twisting ropes and mis-communication and another climb that forced her well out of her comfort zone above her gear. She was not sure she was ready to commit to the 13-pitch route, the longest route in Red Rocks National Park, in a party of three.
All considered, I wasn’t sure I was ready for this climb either. We were both from a sport climbing background and the long days were still intimidating. Especially on the twin ropes that Wolfgang, our Austrian companion, had recently presented us with. They seemed little more than cordalette and we had sarcastically been calling them shoelaces at the campfire only nights before. Wolfgang’s was distinctly different from ours, and after multiple long days with the guy, I had learned to accept his silence on multi-pitches, understood what the tugs on the rope meant, and most importantly, I learned how to joke with him.
“Claire, if there is one thing I know, it’s that if there are two people you want to do this with, it’s me and Wolfie,” I said. “I can’t promise you we will have an easy day, and yea we will definitely be walking down in the dark, but I can promise you that it will be worth it.”
The chimneys came all too soon and Claire blazed up the first three pitches, pulling Wolfie and I behind her. I had signed myself up for the crux pitches, all of them. Wolfie asked me at the second belay whether or not I was ready for the sharp end. “If ego has anything to do with it, I guess I am,” I responded. I had gone around telling the world I love chimneys, I had to love them. I may have only led one chimney in my climbing career, but I was the only one willing to give them a shot.
Putting all dignity aside, I hollered, splashed and squirmed. Dropping any sense of grace or technical delicacy. I used my helmet as a cam in parts and improvised strange, uncomfortable positions, trembling my way to the anchors, time and time again.
Once we hit the top of the Elephant’s Trunk, Wolfie was gunning for the sharp end, we still had seven pitches to go. Off he went, placing minimal gear and fighting for daily light. He bound up pitch after pitch linking where he could and impatiently tugging the delirious and giddy versions of myself and Claire up behind him. After watching him desperately throwing for unnecessary dynos without far above gear, I got hostile. “We are not in a rush, take it easy and take your time,” I said.
By the last 200 metres of scrambling, I was running on pure adrenaline, my body was a corpse, animated by a sheer desire to find my way back to my station wagon at the Red Rocks Campground. We were moving together, separated along the length of the ropes. Knowing only that if I fell, I could be pulling my two friends off the mountainside with me, I moved quickly, in time with the pull of the rope in front of me. I turned to look around, behind me, Vegas had finally woken up. We met up on a plateau, gasping for breath and quickly disarming ourselves of ropes and harnesses. It was time to get off the mountain. Checking through our camera we looked for the photo that would read us the description of our route. It read: “For the descent – see page X.” For all the convenience of having a portable camera to bring the topo up with us, none of us had bothered to read about the descent, nor noticed that we didn’t have page pictures we needed to get down.
Cairns became beacons of hope as we continued to march upward towards an
elusive summit. After circumnavigating our way round the peaks what seems like a few times over, we had lost the trail. My feet, hands and attention kept slipping. I told Claire that I was getting drowsy and unstable. She nodded and switched up the weight in the packs. Wolfgang went on a mission to find cairns while we sat and discussed our options, distributing what we had to refuel.
Wolfgang called that he found the trail. Claire and I were skeptical. “Was there a Cairn?” we asked. “There was a rock, so I added two more,” Wolfie said. Too tired to argue that very flawed logic, we ambled down, bum sliding slabs and down climbing chimneys to what we were hoping would be the canyon floor.
We found what seemed to be a trail. At a rest, Wolfgang turned to me and said sarcastically, “So do you still think we shouldn’t have rushed?” I said, “If we had, one of us might be dead.” Taking the time to double-check and clear our heads is how we avoided error, how we stayed safe all day and as unfortunate as a night descent might be, as long as it is accounted for and diligent, it is a far better option then hurrying your team.
After another two hours, we found ourselves on another plateau. “I think we rap here,” said Wolfgang, having found old rap tat. I threw a rock and it splashed. We had somehow found the only deep, natural water in the desert; this could only be a pit of doom. “Fuck that,” I said, frustrated.
We had been in the rocks for 16 hours. “Take me home, girls, I can’t lead anymore,” Wolfgang said. I wandered away and saw a switchback trail with three rocks piled halfway up. In minutes we were there, with a clear view of Las Vegas again. Claire and I traded leads until at the car, scratched from cactuses and tired.
By all stretches of the imagination, this should be deemed an epic. The choices we made were by no means the best, there were ways we could have avoided the gully descent, but we moved knowing what we were getting into, we took responsibility for each member of the team and ourselves, never laying blame or holding back our opinions when decisions needed to be made. It was the longest climb any of us had undertaken, but in that particular company, I would just describe our day as … not an epic.
Lauren Watson is a climber and owner to Ground Up climbing gym in Squamish.