Today is
auspicious for two reasons. First, my 82
and 81 year old parents leave for a two-week trip to Spain and Morocco to
celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. You can’t choose your parents, but if you
could, I would choose mine. Always
supportive, never judgmental, there to help anyone in need. I am in awe of their lifelong commitment and
friendship with each other. They have
certainly weathered tough times along the way, but are still devoted to each
other and happy.
Second, as
all WSU alumni know well, it is Outdoor Intercourse Day. Babe and I don’t celebrate it! Hard to believe, given the proclivities of
the protagonists in this here blog. We
are back in our campground at Cochise Stronghold after just failing to climb What’s My Line, and don’t have the
energy for much besides going to bed.
Enroute to
Cochise Stronghold we stopped off at another one of my favorite places: Granite
Mountain in Prescott, Arizona.
Travelling there through the desert from J-Tree I get passed by a new
BMW. It has been several months since
I’ve been passed on the open road so I kick it up to 120 mph to keep pace. In these cars that is nothing more than a
moderate cruising speed as they have been designed and built for the
autobahn. More than once I have been
travelling at those speeds in Germany and Switzerland only to get passed like I
was standing still. Nevertheless, it
proves to be a little exciting as we catch some major air over a dip in the
undulating road thanks to the large gear box on top of the car. We end up shooting the shit with the guys in
the BMW when we get stopped for road construction. It is clear that the driver is a kindred
spirit and we follow them for another few miles around 90 mph as neither of us
are not interested in going airborne again at that speed.
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| Agave Cactus |
Our primary
reason for going to Prescott was to attend the memorial service of Bob
Williams, Jon’s brother. Bob was the
Principal at the middle school in town, and the outpouring of love from the
community was impressive. He was also an
outstanding musician, the father of three and a lifelong outdoorsman known for
his philosophy, “we must agree to disagree, agreeably.” Hundreds of people, including former
students, teachers, musicians and friends were there to support the
family. Jon and his siblings had already
lost their father and mother, so the death of their oldest brother took a heavy
toll on all of them. I have known the
Williams for 35 years, and they are the type of family that is the bedrock of
any society. Like my own extended
family, they are extremely close to each other and readily embrace new
friends. We were all Williams during the
memorial service which was devoid of any religious overtones, but filled with
music as one person and group after another got up to sing tribute.
I meet up
with fellow Bandito Dave (Roscoe) Hodson and his wife Dee at the service. It has been decades since we last saw each
other, but that doesn’t seem to matter at all.
Roscoe and Dee are the same people I knew before, and it is great to
catch up. They have raised two girls to
my two boys. Dave and I first climbed El
Capitan together back in 1978. Neither
of us had any right being on that wall given our experience, but we persevered
despite running out of water in the blistering heat. The day before starting up the wall we
watched three climbers fall to their death from our perch atop Middle Cathedral
across the meadow from El Cap. They were
retreating from the Nose route when they dropped their haul bag and it
over-stressed one of the two bolt anchors that happened to have a cracked
hanger. The three had clipped around,
instead of through, a chain connecting the bolts. So when one of the hangers broke they all
just slid off the end and plummeted 1,000 feet to the ground. Gruesome, and an intimidating reminder of
what we were about to face. Dave and I
reminisce about getting back to the Valley floor after four days of being on
the wall and running into the great Jim Bridwell (famous Yosemite big wall
climber) who patted us on the back. The
picture below is from the top of that climb.
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| Top of El Cap - 1978 |
Babe and I
both left the memorial with a renewed commitment to the singular importance
that family plays in the stability of society.
For my part, I am extremely lucky.
I am close to not only my immediate family, nephews and nieces; but also
with my aunts, uncles, cousins and their children. Babe, on the other hand, has a sister that
she doesn’t speak with and a son that still won’t talk to her after her
divorce. To make matters worse; he
prevents her from seeing her only grandchild.
Life is too short for all of that nonsense.
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| Granite Mountain |
Granite
Mountain was one of the places I learned to climb. It is a spectacular granite cliff about 600
feet high and ½ mile long that is sacred to me and anyone who has had the
privilege of climbing there. The rock
rivals that of Yosemite, but it requires a good hump to hike up to the
climbing. This keeps it from being popular
with all but the locals and those in the know.
During one of my earliest leads up a multi-pitch trad route, Magnolia Thunder Pussy, my partner Chip
Norton and I were passed by the famous Henry Barber who flew by without a rope
up the 400 foot climb. You can be sure
that made quite an impression on me, immediately redefining what reasonable
limits were and prompting my own soloing career (climbing technical routes
without the benefit of a rope or protection).
Despite the
fact that they are no longer an endangered species, Granite Mountain is now
closed most of the year to “protect” the Peregrine falcons who nest there. A well run scientific study on the subject
clearly proved that you only need to protect the immediate area where the
falcons are nesting. The overzealous
ranger that oversees this cliff has decided to close the whole cliff to
climbing, however, despite the evidence to the contrary. With her logic, you would close the cities of
Phoenix and New York which have peregrines nesting in buildings downtown. I read the signs at the entrance to the
wilderness area and learn that peregrines were “first discovered at Granite
Mountain in 1991.” But I saw them nest
there every year from 1975 to 1988. All
of us that were climbing there at the time simply stayed away from the 2-3
routes under their nests to avoid upsetting them. That worked fine with no regulation.
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| Wishful Thinking |
Babe and I
hike the 2.5 miles up the trail with climbing gear and a rope in our
packs. We are determined to climb there
anyway, despite the ban but mindful of the signs that warn climbers of a $5,000
fine and encourage hikers to report climbers with a toll free number. The climber’s trail which constitutes the
last half of the hike has seen little use, so I spend time chopping away
branches and prickly pear cactus which impede the way. Unfortunately, the cliff is in full view from
miles around and we run into a number of hikers. We decide it is not worth the risk to climb
there, but is worth the time to work with the Access Fund to help restore
climbing access to this natural treasure.
Having previously climbed virtually everything on the wall, I show Babe
some of my favorite routes and where I once captured a coral snake (“red on
yellow, dangerous fellow”). I had put
the beautiful creature in my water bottle with the intent of bringing it home
as a pet when I learned from one of climbing partners that not even the zoos
are successful at keeping this reclusive creature alive in captivity. I let it go.
It is
killing me to walk up to one stellar route after another and not climb it. Running my fingers over the rock it feels
like I am getting pulled up the cliff.
This is too much to bear, so we go sit at base of the wall in an area
known as the Front Porch that looks out for miles over the rugged landscape and
watch the sun sink into the west before starting down. It is a magical moment.
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| Looking out the Front Porch |
Back to the
present. Cochise Stronghold is where Cochise,
the famous Chiricahua Apache Indian chief, was born and hid out after raiding
the Americans and Mexicans in the mid-1800’s.
It is located in the southeast corner of Arizona near the Mexican and
New Mexico borders. You don’t end up
here by accident; it is off the beaten path.
One of the closest towns is Tombstone, Arizona (“The Town that Refuses
to Die”, but should) where Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday had the famous shootout
at the OK Corral. This country is wild,
remote and rarely visited. It is among
my favorite places in the world; a climbing Mecca of large granite domes with
excellent rock. Last night with a waning
moon, the stars were unbelievable thanks to the lack of light pollution. This is rugged country and we are mindful of
snakes, scorpions, bears and mountain lions.
Once again we are without cell or internet coverage for days, making it
is difficult to blog but we don’t miss it.
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| Off the beaten path |
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| Cowboy's Glove, Cochise Stronghold |
I can count
on my fingers the number of climbs I have backed off of in my life, and none of
them were moderate ones like What’s My
Line. The route winds a few hundred
feet up a steep, improbable face that is covered with large chickenheads
(dinner plate like protrusions formed by the unequal erosion of rock) that starts
with a wild pendulum on to the face. It is
a great route that I have done twice previously, once with my son Colin who was
12-years old at the time. But Babe was
off her game and we were moving slowly up the rock after hiking several miles
up a steep wilderness trail, then wandering our way up a strenuous chimney and
off-width approach to begin the climb.
Normally, I don’t even rope up for this “4th class” section
of the approach, but in fairness it actually requires technical climbing and I
belay Babe up the 200 feet to the formal beginning of the climb. With the pendulum now staring us in the face,
instinct tells me that this is one of those times where discretion is the better
part of valor, so we rappel off. It
proved to be a wise decision as we get back to our camp just before
sunset. Had we attempted the rest of the
climb we would have been stumbling down a steep, primitive trail at night with
no headlamps or moon. Nevertheless, I have
lots of experience with treacherous descents in the dark after committing
climbs, including the infamous Abracadaver
here in the Stronghold, and don’t like backing off. It is clear that we need a rest day. Mother Nature must agree as we wake up to
rain and a day of thunderstorms.
Rest day my
ass. We didn’t bring rain gear so I find
myself trapped in a tent for much of the day with a 52-year old nympho. That may sound like fun to you young guys,
but I am 4 months shy of 60 and need several hours to reload. I feel like I’m bringing a one-shot derringer
to a gunfight where the other guy is sporting a semi-automatic pistol with 18-round
clips. God didn’t bless women with the
clitoris, the only body part in the animal kingdom designed exclusively for
pleasure, to have it go underutilized.
So like most women, Babe loves sex.
Unlike most women, she is completely uninhibited about that fact. As a result, she enjoys 10-50 orgasms a week
thanks to her extremely attentive boyfriend.
She supplements that by masturbating way more often than you might think. I am in trouble.
After about
two hours I am ready to take a break. “Dear,
would you like me to make you some hot chocolate?” “Honey, would you like a massage?” “Don’t you want to read your book?”
Wishful
thinking. My tongue and fingers still
work so I am on duty whether I like it or not.
Several hours later I crawl out of the tent, exhausted. 13-2; I am clearly outmatched. (Note: my chief editor reports the final
count was 14-2, but who’s counting).
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| A well fed Babe |
Every
morning starts around 5:30 with a cacophony of bird sounds. Mourning
doves coo all around us. Mexican jays
chase each other around our tent, their wings beating loudly as they zoom
through and around the trees somehow avoiding death by branch. Acorn woodpeckers are everywhere, pecking
away and looking for a handout. In our
case they get to lick the water off my stove top. They make me think about Dr. Dave Smith who
figured out why woodpeckers don’t get concussions every time they whack a
tree. He is now developing a device to
prevent concussions in humans.
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| Acorn Woodpecker |
We are
now in full vacation mode. Camping seems
like the perfect way to live, and we take pleasure in the simplest of
conveniences like hot chocolate in the morning, a campfire at night and sipping
whiskey (Crown Royal) in the tent before falling asleep. It has been days since we’ve showered or changed
clothes, but we barely even notice.
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| Camp Life |
We have seen
no other climbers during our time here and I learned a good lesson at the
Stronghold: most of the routes here require two strong climbers. These climbs are serious undertakings in a
wilderness setting. As a relatively
inexperienced climber, Babe hasn’t yet developed some of the skills I take for
granted when climbing here with Stan or Jon: like moving quickly, cruising
without a rope on steep, unprotected ground and having another seasoned
perspective on route finding. This is
hard, wild country.
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| Trapper Dan |
So we spend
our last full day in the Stronghold hiking with our next door and only neighbor
in the campground: Trapper Dan. He is
part unemployed truck driver, part trapper, fulltime outdoorsman, extremely
liberal and looking for a rich woman to take care of him at his ripe old age of
55. On that last count, love doesn’t
seem to enter the equation; Dan expects to satisfy his carnal needs with
supplemental hookups. A great
conversationalist, he is probably bright enough and glib enough to pull that
off. We hike with him eight miles from
the East to West Stronghold. Dan is like
having a biological and historical travel guide; extremely knowledgeable and
full of interesting facts. He is here as an amateur" archeologist and shows us a number of sites with rock art that predates the Apaches. Dan points out
some bear tracks around a water tank, catches a snake and recounts the sex life
of all the various lizards we encounter. Apparently, all whip tail lizards are clones of the mother; there are no
males in the species. Imagine those parties.
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| Rock Art |
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| Lizard Social Event |
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| Beautiful Earless Lizard |
Looking out
across this vast, rugged wilderness it is not hard to imagine the life of an
Apache warrior toying with the U.S. Calvary that is hopelessly trying to catch
you. We leave the Stronghold the next
day, having climbed little but in love with its isolation and beauty.
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| Apache Country |
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| Unemployment Sucks |
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