Mt. Hayden

We came to the Grand Canyon to climb Mt. Hayden.  Along with What’s My Line at Cochise Stronghold and Snake Dike in Yosemite, Mt. Hayden is one of the destination routes I had planned on climbing with Babe.  Looking out from its perch atop the Hermit Shale in the Big Ditch, Mt. Hayden has one of the premier summits in the world.

Mt. Hayden from Pt. Imperial

On the way here we stopped to watch the solar eclipse at the Vermillion Cliffs.  This was supposed to be the viewing epicenter in the US.  In truth, the eclipse was rather anti-climactic even from our stunning location.  We didn’t have the eye protection needed to view the sun directly, and it was still too bright because of the annular ring to visually determine when the full eclipse had taken place.  Although the light around us was incredible and kinda weird, the real experience came from feeling the cooling and heating that took place in a very short period of time as the moon came and went.  It also became much quieter, as any bird or insect life around us went silent.

But after four days of camping out on the North Rim we have yet to think about climbing.  Unlike the South Rim that typically swarms with tourists, the North Rim of the Canyon gets relatively little traffic and is much more laid back.  Both of us are as relaxed and more tuned into the earth than we have ever been in our lives.  Babe thinks it’s Thursday, I think it’s Saturday, and neither of us cares enough to find out who is right.  I have been spending my time trying to figure out what birds are flitting around our camp by using the remarkable Guide To Birds by David Sibley.  The book is a unique juxtaposition of art and science that captivates even a non-birder like me.  I am able to identify the American Goldfinch, Western Tanager and Fox Sparrow, in addition to the ubiquitous ravens and robins.  We see a wild buffalo and hundreds of ravens hunting moles or feeding on dead deer.  The N. Rim ratchets us all the way down to where our biggest decision of the day is whether or not we should drink whiskey for breakfast.

Roughing it

Angel's Window

Leaving our campsite

It has been extremely windy for several days, blowing steadily at 25 mph with frequent gusts to 40 mph.  Days are in the low 70’s, night’s right at freezing.  Excellent weather for hanging out and staring over the edge of the Canyon, but not ideal for climbing.  The forecast calls for the winds to take it up a notch or two, so we decide that it is time to climb Hayden the next day.

Chip Norton and I had reminisced about climbing in the Canyon a few days earlier over dinner at Stan’s house.  Seeing Chip has been one of the highlights of the trip; we climbed so many routes together in our formative climbing years.  Chip is as stoic as they get, so it was hard to grasp the depth of pain he still felt over the mental illness and suicide of his only child.  Hard to fathom any other pain so great.  Like most parents, if I only had one wish remaining it would be to die before my kids.  But Chip is living proof that life does go on, and it was fun to remember doing the first ascent of Buddha Temple in the Canyon together with LB.  As is the case with most Canyon climbs, the crux is the approach, and Chip reminds me of all the shenanigans we went through just to get to the climb: 28 hours of busting our asses. 

Reconnoitering the approach

Mt. Hayden is no different, even if it has the shortest approach in the Canyon.  Like most desert sandstone climbs it is characterized by loose friable rock, long runouts, poor protection and convoluted route finding.  Add to that a horrendous approach and you have the makings of an adventure.  I know we are in for a long day and make sure we get to bed early with full stomachs.  Tomorrow will entail some suffering.

We wake up at 5:30 the next morning, have a quick breakfast of yogurt, a muffin and banana and begin the odyssey to the climb by hopping over the railing at Pt. Imperial around 7:40 AM.  After picking our way down through a cliff band of rock we find ourselves in a very steep gully that has been denuded of life by a recent forest fire.  The gully is essentially ash and sand littered with unstable boulders.  Babe slides down most of if, about ½ mile, on her butt.  This concerns me of course, since I am a big fan of that butt.  I use my hiking poles to more or less ski down on the soles of my shoes, trying hard not to wreck one of my reconstructed knees or ankle.  We take turns going down so as not to crush each other if we dislodge one of the many large, loose rocks.  At the bottom, we find an old 100 ft. fixed rope that helps us go down an even steeper section hand over hand like Batman.  Both of us suffer rope burns on our hands, drawing blood and leaving blisters.

Now the real fun begins as we have to bushwhack a mile through one of the nastiest plants on the earth, New Mexico Locust.  It features inch long, needle sharp spears, that scratch, pierce and often imbed themselves into the flesh.  On this approach they grow into nearly impenetrable hedges, complicated further by numerous downed trees and new oak growth.  We quickly lose any semblance of a trail, and are scratched from neck to ankles fighting through this nastiness before we reach the Hermit Shale where the vegetation mostly disappears.  A bit more slogging uphill brings us to the base of the climb.

I was lucky to grow up climbing in N. Arizona surrounded by granite, basalt and sandstone cliffs.  There is an art to climbing on all three, different for each, but for the unitiated (i.e. Babe), climbing on sandstone can be a terrifying experience.  It requires you to move lightly over the rock as nothing is stable or completely reliable.  Desert spires create an aura akin to mountaineering, keeping you on full alert.  I stress to Babe that it is important to stay balanced, pull down, not out, on the holds and to try and keep at least three points of contact at all times.  Her first two handholds come off in her hands (“down, not out”). 

The route finding is a bit obscure and I am not sure if we are on the 5.8 or 5.9 route, probably both.  None of the moves are particularly difficult, but I find myself doing tricky bouldering moves 40-70 feet above my last (questionable) protection on unreliable rock.  Falling is simply not an option, and I manage to avoid breaking off a hold or knocking down a rock.  This is an acquired skill that comes back to me instantly, but one that will take Babe years to learn.

Near the top

The wind is picking up and by the time we reach the summit it is howling.  We don’t stay long despite the magnificent view and perfectly flat summit block as the shadows are already long in the canyon.  The wind makes the three full-length rappels off the top a bitch, as our ropes get blown into bushes and tied into knots.  Our 7mm second rope, in particular, likes to tie itself in knots at every opportunity.  The first two rappels require quite a bit of time to untangle or reroute the rope below while I’m on rappel, and we hold our breath when we pull the ropes for the next rappel.  Getting the ropes stuck here could be a mini-disaster.  On our way down we encounter a Bandito bolt hanger; nice!

Perfect Summit

Cruise control

Bad Bolt (Bandito hanger)

Now for the hard part: getting back to the car.  As proof that I am capable of learning, I actually brought headlamps with us for the return.  Fortunately, we are able to slog our way back across the thorny obstacle course easier than our original descent and we get to the bottom of the fixed rope before it is fully dark.  Babe is very tired but still game at this point.  That will change.  She is forced to crawl the final ½ mile uphill over the unstable slope on her hands, knees/feet.  About two-thirds of the way up the hill I hear her mutter to herself that she is, “ready for this to be over.”  It is pitch black when she asks me if this climb has reached the level of an “epic” yet.  Since we aren’t lost, there is little imminent chance of serious injury or death and no chance of spending the night in an unforced bivouac; I had to tell her “no.”  LB later referred to it as a mini-epic, but I know epics and this was simply a long, hard day.

It is 9:40 PM when we get back to our lonesome car waiting in the parking lot at Pt. Imperial.  Babe’s first move is to pop three ibuprofen; something I have never seen her do before.  When I ask her what hurts, she responds, “everything.”  We are filthy dirty, literally black from the sweat and ash, not to mention hungry and thirsty.  But our first priority is getting a shower so that we don’t have to crawl back into our tent this dirty.  Fortunately, we find that the doors to the showers at the N. Rim Visitor Center are still open even though the sign says they close at 10 PM.  There is hot water and no one around to give a shit, so we put in our 5 quarters and enjoy 7 minutes of bliss.  It just doesn’t get much better.

We get back to our campsite just before midnight.  We go to bed hungry and wake up hungrier.  On the way to camp we both experience the ultimate joy of climbing.  After a day like today, everything else seems easy.  For the first time this trip, my joy of climbing goes beyond the fun, aesthetic movement over rock, great views and camaraderie.  Mt. Hayden leaves us both spiritually uplifted and connected to the greater universe.  There are no words to describe it, but today’s adventure embodies the essence of why climbing is so consuming and alluring.  I am more in touch with myself and everything around me than when I woke up this morning, and the feelings of awareness and strength will last for several days.  The same is true for Babe.  She is a changed woman and I couldn’t be more impressed by or in love with her.  As a bonus, I can tell her in good faith that we won’t do anything this hard the rest of the trip.  But then, I am known to be optimistic.

We leave early the next morning headed for Moab.  There we will climb in Canyonlands and hike in Arches National Parks.  It is Memorial Day weekend and we pass a tribute in Monticello, Utah to the men and women, including my father, who have served this country during wars.  One of the things I had reinforced at my last job is that those serving in the military are predominantly a first-class bunch.  The idiocy characteristic of much of our foreign policy comes from the political sector, not the military.  I always felt that it was an honor helping to protect our warriors as we did at Massif.

The wind is now howling at 60 mph and the sky is so filled with dust that it looks like what we both imagine to be a nuclear winter.  Dark, surreal movement, eerie noises, foreboding, few signs of human activity.  My car loses a fog light when it gets pelted with stones picked up off the ground by the wind.  Compared to fighting in a war I have trivial concerns, like finding a hotel or campsite this weekend in an outdoor recreation destination like Moab.  But we have just climbed Mt. Hayden, and everything else is a piece of cake

Mt. Hayden from the Hermit Shale