Tatooine: Rock Pirates, Yelp reviews, and fat boy's with clarinets

It is five pm on Monday, November 11. 

Twenty four hours ago, five pm on Sunday, November 10, I was enveloped in a different episode of the desert golden hour. The red talus glowed one thousand feet below mine, and for a few moments it was the desert and I and the line between us had never been more blurred. Twelve rhythmic rope lengths of climbing brought us to this perch. Dane and I had moved efficiently all day, not in a rush but consistently moving upward. We shared the difficulty (sustained climbing), the uncertainty (will this hold crumble?), and the joy (it held!) that cultivates from this rich soil. It was the kind of climbing day you dream about; idyllic: Beautiful climbing, a great friend, and a magnificent setting. I could feel the energy we shared through the rope; a determined duo paddling a rowboat through the rolling waves of a sandstone ocean. According to the topo, the twelfth pitch was the last big wave for our rowboat to manage.

“Dance the dance tomorrow.”

Mason’s text was my mantra all day. Dance the dance. Dance the dance. It reminded me to move on the mountain with a soft step that sent out a little ripple, ripe with intention.

  I felt connected to my partner and the mountain I was dancing with. Dane and I exchanged a hearty fist bump and I rowed us right into the wave, trying my best not to blink. As soon as I pulled on the first hold, a cramp zoomed through my arm and down my oblique. My muscles screamed with the wrench of the cramp but they didn’t scream for me to let go. My physical fatigue may have had a shot if it was just I, but it was no match for the intertwination of the situation. Dane thwarted the fatigue’s coup with each encouraging word from his dehydrated voice. The desert massaged my muscles with a warm updraft and its pastel hues. The golden hour, a golden partner; to be so fortunate to be in their company not only inspired but demanded a golden effort. I couldn’t bear the thought of climbing this high and giving up. Falling would be okay, but falling with anything left in the tank is a hard thing for me to justify when inspiration runs high. Isn’t it better to trip over your own feet than to go sit down cause you don’t know the steps?

       I let out a lone power scream and threw to a hand jam that marked the end of the hard climbing. A maniacal “YAR” roared from the depths of my soul and I raced ahead of my cramping muscles to the belay. I enjoyed the company of a curious mouse as I belayed Dane. Soon, another hearty “YAR” bounced off of Kinesava's flanks; Dane’s left hand was locked into the mountain. Our rowboat was intact after the wave, and its splash was rather refreshing. Two rock pirates paddling to nowhere like madmen. Two big, toothy grins turned red by the setting sun.

Sometime later, with the desert now turned into a blurry navy blue by the light of the full moon, I studied the movement of the rope with my headlamp. I couldn’t see Dane, he was in the depths of Mt. Kinesava around a corner in a hallway-like chimney. All I could do was study and react. Sometimes the rope would move away from me, and then back toward me. Other times it would move rapidly away from me. Other times it wouldn’t move for a long time. I shouted encouragement into the chimney during these times, and I hoped Dane was okay.  Sometime later, his headlamp popped onto the summit and he shouted into the blue “I’m alive!”. His chuckles of relief warmed me as he shouted I was on belay, and I began my toprope jaunt through the scene of his lead walkabout. It was a maze. The rope went into the chimney, up a hand crack, and then shot straight out of the chimney and seemingly into the thousands of feet of air surrounding the upper headwall of Kinesava’s south face. I hollered at Dane, inquiring about this confusing scene, and he instructed me to follow the chimney to the air and then turn left into a hidden amphitheatre of loose rock. Dane would later name the amphitheatre “The Cave of Sorrow”. 

       I followed the rope through The Cave of Sorrow, finding no protection to clean, and having to look quite hard for rock to hold that wouldn’t turn to dust.  It felt good to mantel out of that strange hidden world and back into the blurry navy blue, now showing hints of its daylight appearance due to Dane’s headlamp. I joined my friend at the summit. Dane’s route finding and boldness were bewildering, inspiring, and frankly, confusing. A great gift of the mountains is their demand of growth in exchange for play; and another, watching your friends soar when they didn’t even know they could fly. Great Dane rose to the occasion. He didn’t ask for the final pitch to be easier or less scary, he asked for himself to be more rugged and bold; he controlled what he could and didn’t fret what he couldn’t. The Great Dane followed his nose well. We laughed and hugged. We exchanged big, toothy grins, this time turned a glaring white from our headlamps. The pirates continued their paddling, hugging each other when reaching a contrived point in the ocean. Their eyes gleamed with the reflection of gold, but couldn’t they see there was nothing but waves and ocean and each other? 

"Yar." 

   It is five pm on Monday, November 11. 

Twelve hours ago, five am on Monday, November 10,  I was drowsily down climbing a section of easy fifth class terrain to Dane’s coaching. In his hands were the fifteen metres of rope remaining post-chop after our ropes got stuck for the fourth time. Tied around me in a very, very secure backpack coil was the intact, albeit severely kinked seventy metres of our other rope. The down climbing was thankfully straightforward, and I complimented Dane on his dim headlamp route finding; a child of the mountains following his nose. We rigged another rappel and his figure became blurry once again in the light of the full moon.

It is five pm on Monday, November 11. (Actually, it is now 10:24 on Tuesday, November 12th, and that has less rhythm and romance to it. I’ll repeat “five pm on Monday November 11 a few more times, and it might even be the 13th, or the 14th when I write again. I am a bad, bad boy and I cannot be stopped!)

It is five pm on Monday, November 11. 

Nineteen hours ago, ten pm on Sunday November 10, Dane and I were pulling the rope on our fourth rappel of the evening. This was the same place that hosted our immersion of the magic of the evening redness. The true ground was still a thousand feet for so below ours, slowly becoming closer and closer with each descent and pull of the ropes. I’ve always liked rappelling, it has its own flavour of adventure to it. I pulled a little harder on the resistant rope, and it wouldn’t budge. A little flick, and another pull. Not a budge. A thoughtful “hmm” was met with a worried “what”, and both the “hmm” and the “what” really meant were “bear down motherfucker this is going to be a long night”. The flavour of adventure was tasted in its fullest. All. Night. Long. 

       “It was pretty dehydrating, a little stressful, and thick with mystery, but honestly it tasted          pretty good. Recommending to my friends and excited for more.” 

       -Yelp review on our  all night descent 

It began with setting up a mechanical advantage to be able to pull the ropes with more force. When that didn’t work, I put Dane on belay on one side as he ascended the other. He thought he freed them, and I did too. The rope was budging little by little with our two to one pulley system. We did a strange dance of squatting, standing, jumping, and kicking off the wall trying to put our weight into the system. Inch by inch, squat by squat, it slowly wormed its way up the wall. Our efforts took the rope’s end thirty or so feet above us until it stopped budging. Alas, the glorious easy pull remained elusive. It was my turn to ascend the ropes and investigate the situation. First, I re climbed the beginning of the twelfth pitch, this time feeling more terrified of the mountain than connected to it - or perhaps that is just a more difficult to digest form of connection, it is certainly a hearty form of connection. Dane’s shouts of encouragement were very, very sincere once again. I got to the rope and ascended it back to the ledge where my mouse friend lived. He must’ve been sleeping; I hope our stuck ropes didn’t keep him up. Our issue was obvious and our attempted solution of pulling really really hard and bouncing and bouncing had only made it worse: the ropes were wrapped around each other thirty or forty times, creating so much friction they would not pull. Wrap by wrap, I unwound them, and they pulled freely. Once again, the rock pirates found themselves “YAR”ing  at more ocean and waves like it was buried treasure. Their oars were wet again, paddling toward more ocean and waves as fast as their cramping arms would allow. 

That first flavour punch brought us to about two AM. It felt good to be moving downward once, and then twice more as the next rappel went off without a hitch aside from a stuck rope that was a mere tease at something more flavourful. Third time is most certainly the charm in the game of character building. It was Dane’s turn to ascend the rope, and this time the appropriate one to ascend was the eight millimetre one and not the nine point nine. I gave him a fist bump, reminded him to have fun, and watched the Great Dane go to work in the darkness above me. I fell asleep in my harness, and dreamt I was in Mason’s cozy van, softly giggling with love and holding her a little tighter. I awoke softly, believing my dream was a reality.

       “I would definitely order the “think you’re in a warm van spooning a soulmate and then           waking up with hundreds of feet of blue air below your now numb legs as your friend is         nervously ascending a skinny, and stuck rope above you.” The flavour was intense!”             -Yelp review from another satisfied visitor

Dane soon reported that the ropes looked fine beside a couple of high friction edges and chicken-head features. The friction was enough that they simply wouldn’t pull. His solution was to throw one of the ropes down to me, and do two single rope rappels (one off a single bolt, big YAR) back down to me with the other. He executed it seamlessly. The prince slayed the dragon and the princess was another rappel! The blue of the sky had the navy of faded denim. Day was slowly approaching. We threw the ropes again, and rappelled to the bivouac ledge on pitch five.

       “The “stuck ropes” just tasted so good that we had to come back for more! Highly                   recommend upgrading to the “chopped ropes”! A little more expensive but so worth it!”         -Yelp review, this is one of those ones where you scroll a little too far. It is deeply rooted in four am insanity.

Dane busied himself with chopping the supremely stuck rope and I rigged another rappel, this time off a tree. It was rhythmic, but not like the smoothness of the climbing which felt like Yanni playing Santorini at the Acropolis. The tune of the ropes getting stuck was more like a fat boy learning to play the clarinet: frantic, confused, and violent without Mal intent. You dance not for the music per se, but for the experience of dancing to a fat kid playing the clarinet. Also, one can always dance the dance and not always choose the music. 

“Nat. You won’t believe this. We have had a stroke of luck!”

“You know Dane, I really do appreciate your commitment to morale. I am excited to see what bullshit you have in store for me.”

“I am not kidding!”

“You’re a great friend Dane. It is nice to be able to joke about this kind of situation.”

“Get down here! I am not kidding!”

I couldn’t believe what I saw. On the anchor of the third pitch, we saw shiny carabiners, a clean sling, and a brand new, unchopped rope tied in a figure-eight on a bight and going to the darkness, and presumably the ground. I thought this was another spooning-in-a-cozy van situation. I rubbed my eyes but it wouldn’t go away. Dane hopped on and shortly after whooped and hollered that he was on the ground. It was five forty five in the morning. I rappelled quickly to him, speaking joyous bullshit in a pseudo German accent that my mountain-man alter ego, Gunter (goon-TAH), sports. It was over. The fat kid had run out of breath and stopped playing his clarinet, and the fat lady was singing. 

The fat lady sounds a little like elevator music when you’ve been on the edge of your seat trying to guess what note is going to come out of that red pudgy face and those committed eyes. That being said, her notes were well received and I’m glad she was able to belt them out. They really do compliment each other; the highs, lows, and random twists of a good mixtape.

Dane and I met our fixed rope heroes at their bivouac near the base of the climb. We thanked them a lot and chatted about the climb as they cooked breakfast and prepared for an ascent of their own. We walked out to the light of a new day and zero concept of time. Our stoke was unwavering throughout the night (admittedly interrupted with outbursts of swearing and tiptoeing the line of entertaining thoughts of “I wish”) and I can say that  both of us thoroughly enjoyed both the day of climbing and the night of descending. It is strange though, that we like that kind of stuff. 

So the two rock pirates returned to land twenty seven hours after setting sail. They seem far too empty handed and dirty for their light faces and big toothy grins. Yet, they go on and on about the treasures they discovered, and discuss where in the ocean the others may lie.

YAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!