This is a story about gratitude, fear, adventure, death, life, and an odyssey that has been the cumulative experience of my life; a moment in which I have drastically changed. This is my human experience thus far, told through the tale of the megadream and the super reality of climbing The North Howser Tower via All Along The Watchtower.
*
I'm lying in my tent listening to "No Hard Feelings" by The Avett Brothers, and am going through a mental list of every person that I love in this world; I picture them smiling and tell them I love them. Every now and then David's feet hit my shoulder as he tosses and turns in his own ritual. There are no more rest days. No more "warm up" routes. The feet hitting my shoulder every now and then belong to a friend that I trust deeply.
Man, am I grateful to be in here with someone as awesome as David. David Tan is a west coast local and one of the most just-for-fun bonecrushing climbers that I have ever known. He combines nonchalance and laser focus. I realized that despite seeing each other all over North America and casually climbing together a fair bit that we didn't actually know each other deeply at all. This can go either way of course, and it made me nervous. Luck would have it that David be about the best partner and friend that anyone could ask for when spending two weeks in close quarters and wild places. We pushed each other, weren't afraid to disagree, and mostly just laughed a lot and looked out for each other.
At 3 am, about six hours from now, we will begin the action of climbing a "dream route": All Along The Watchtower, up the remote and mighty West Face of North Howser Tower. I try to block out the doubt and the fear and the thoughts of my mortality with the smiles of the people that I love. I try to tell myself that great moments come from great opportunity. Eventually it works, and I drift off into a short and shallow sleep.
The alarm comes too early. Neither of us are ready. I almost press the snooze button, but don't. I force myself up. David remains buried under his sleeping bag. As quietly as I can, I scurry over to the backpack rack, grab our food bag, and hear the calming sound of a stove whirring as I spark a lighter and begin to make coffee. David rolls over and tells me he didn't sleep well. I greet his concern with a tired nod. I am preoccupied with doing an inventory of the packed bag beside us, making sure we didn't forget anything; on our first day in the Bugs, we forgot a pair of climbing shoes and thought we forgot a second belay device when going to climb Sunshine Crack. It wasn't a big deal and we enjoyed a day of climbing on Energy Crisis instead, going back for Sunshine the next day. On the Watchtower, there is literally no going back to camp if you forget something; the approach includes four double rope rappels into a basin below the west face of North Howser. Once the ropes are pulled, you are committed. So, I busied myself with anxious inventory as David woke and smiled with instant coffee in his hands. Two breakfasts, eight Clif bars, three gel blocks, rack, ropes, climbing shoes, the stove once we're done cooking this breakfast, protein powder, Carl's ashes. It turns out that protein powder and the ashes of your friend look very similar, and I did a double thought to make sure the protein powder was in with the breakfast, and Carl's ashes were zipped into the pouch at the top of Alfred, our haul bag.
*
I know he would find this funny. It has been a year and a half since his death. I've had the remainder of his ashes in my possession since a sunny June day last year when his girlfriend Sophie gave them to me in a mason jar. It is a fucking trip to have your friends girlfriend pass you what remains of your friend in a mason jar.
Carl and I hiked into the Bugaboos two years ago with the shared dream of climbing All Along The Watchtower. We weren't even close to ready for it, a fact he knew better than eighteen year old I, and we lucked out by getting smacked down by a tent-collapsing blizzard that allowed us for risk free reflection. We mostly sat in a cave and drank whiskey. He encouraged me to nurture my stoke with experience, and assured me that one day. Maybe next year, maybe the year after, we would climb All Along The Watchtower. The raw beauty of the dream remained, but it wasn't time for it to become our reality. I ripped the topo out of the guidebook and pinned it to the ceiling of my minivan. It was an innocent but grand dream that became more and more wild with every step I took toward it. Then, Carl, my dream sharer, died ice climbing on Christmas Day of 2018.
Last summer, mason jar packed, I hiked into the Bugaboos with a friend to try the Watchtower and spread Carl's ashes on the summit. The stars didn't align and an attempt never came to fruition. Afterward, Carl's ashes sat in my glove box and accompanied me to many, many beautiful places that he never got to visit. There were many times where I wanted romanticize a place, take them out of the mason jar, spread them, and be done with it; glacier point, overlooking the Yosemite Valley that he never got to climb in; the many sun-kissed buttresses of Indian Creek, where he never got to see the sun dip between the six shooters and put sandy ear-to-ear grins on everyone’s faces at the crag. But every time I almost did, I knew it wasn't the right place. I knew that spreading them anywhere else would've been partly at least out of the fear of what it would take to go to the right place. The right place is, of course, North Howser Tower. All Along The Watchtower and the dream of climbing it remained innocent and grand, but the dream also grew a branch that wove its way through my process of grieving.
So after a year of having my buddy's ashes in my minivan, the sting is less sharp, and I am able to laugh at almost mixing his remains into our oatmeal and spreading vanilla protein powder on the summit of North Howser.
***
Three am before the biggest adventure of your life is both lethargic and frantic. My mind thought of valid reasons to go back to bed and my hands went through the motions of the morning before I could tell them otherwise. Everything is packed. Crampons are on. So it begins.
David and I are still both groggy and don't say much besides concern about the snow conditions and how they are much, much softer than when we were on the glacier two days prior en route to the South Howser Tower. We quickly ascended the staircase of bootpack cut into the Bugaboo-Snowpatch col. For the second time in three days we watched the sunrise over the Canadian Rockies and fill the Columbia Valley with orange hues. As the day progresses, action takes the place of "what if"s in my mind, and I feel calmer. The glacier is so consumingly beautiful, and the soft snow makes the descent down the Pigeon-Howser Col a fast glissade. In the East Creek Basin we are surrounded by a cirque of beautiful granite walls; turrets protecting a roadless valley that drains west into another roadless valley. As we neared the rappels I became increasingly nervous about the remainder of the approach. After four rappels comes a scurry across a feature called The Seventh Rifle Gully, a rockfall prone terrain trap that drains much of the west face. As we walked past the East Creek Campground we heard a rockfall somewhere. I jumped and hastily insisted on continuing and getting to the rappels as early as possible. David called out my irrational concerns, "that I can't be jumping at every rockfall." But he agrees that the sooner we are across the gully the better, and we move on, past the Beckey-Chouinard and across the snow beneath the Central Howser.
Going up and over and around so many landmarks makes the approach sound like a nursery rhyme to me. Anxious tension built as we neared the rappels. At some point, David said, "I think we should definitely go to the rappels, but I am far from being totally committed to them." I feel the same way, and feel guilty about feeling the same way. I wonder if I'll come back next year if we turn around.
David gets to the first rappel station before me; the guy is a wizard in his approach shoes. Now, we can see what we are getting ourselves into, what this dream really entails. There is no more romanticizing or simply going along with a plan that sounds good. Two bolts and two ropes and three thousand feet of rock are screaming at us, asking us if this really is what we want. Beside the rappels is a nice bivy cave. I don't know how someone could spend a night here. Never before have I spent time in a place whose energy is defined by so much voluntary tension. I feel sick.
David says it: "If we don't thread these ropes right now I don't know if I can do this. Fuck. Fuck. We are fucking rapping into fucking El Cap!"
In the words of Canadian Rockies legend John Lauchlan, "Once you commit, there can be no hesitation." It is 7:50 am. We have lots of time before the gully becomes dangerous and through conversation we realize that despite the fact that both of us are shitting our pants, and there is a voice in both of our heads screaming how bad of an idea this is, it is something that we both want to do. The next thing I know the ropes are threaded through my belay device and I am descending into a quiet and powerful world. David comes down. "Here we go buddy," he says, and pulls the rope.
Four rappels later I find myself scurrying across the Seventh Rifle Gully, running through craters in the snow made by rockfall toward the base of the route. It reminds me of running up the stairs after turning the lights off in the basement. It all feels surreal, to be at the base of ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER! Now on the rock, David's anxiety dissipated and we began the only way there was to go: up. Our plan was to make it to the bivi ledges below the fork of another route, Armageddon, seven long pitches up according to the topo. This went according to plan with the alpine exceptions of getting off route, and the wet crack. Lord, the wet crack.
The wet crack began with a "5.10 bouldery move" on the topo. I built a nest of a couple of small cams and an RP to protect the belay, and after some deliberation, committed. Because what else was there to do? Rap off our entire rack and walk the unknown distance around the massif back to the glacier? The holds had a small babbling brook running over them, but I slipped through unscathed, following a corner only graded at 5.7. The babbling brook on the 5.10 pitch came from a torrent running down the 5.7 corner. We did it in two pitches, and David ran out of rope on his lead, resulting in simul climbing situationally insecure terrain for some time. These are the parts that I do not want to overromannticize; waiting on two handjams in running water, getting soaked, wondering if David was okay 70 metres above. The rope would come tight, and with absolute trust in each other we would continue. This moment felt like dodging punches from a superior opponent in the ring; full survival mode, ducking, weaving and dodging the knockout punch. Tied together we held on tight to the wet hand jams of our life and avoided disaster.
The stream took us to the bivy ledges, and we arrived a few hours before darkness. Our gear had time to dry and our weary hearts had time to rediscover their courage through hot food and mountain vistas. We laid down our rope, half of a thermarest, and our sleeping bag, and settled in. We watched the sun set with full hearts. I couldn't believe where I was, and felt grateful to be there with David. The quiet mountains lulled us into a decent rest given where we were and what we were there with, and we would need it. Day two is the big one, the day that dreams are made of. A couple of pitches on a dyke feature lead to the “Left facing corner, to infinity and beyond”, according to the topo. With food in our bellies and no need for an early start on a west face, I think I can speak for both of us and say that the apprehension and nervousness was mostly exchanged for peace with our level of commitment and an intention to soak up the experience. After all, great moments come from great opportunity, and great is not always good or easy.
Morning came. We didn't anticipate the cold temperatures stopping the stream and had no water source and had to spend time melting snow. I led the first pitch while David tended to this task. He greeted me at the belay with the news that we were out of gas. We had a long time to go before we stopped, and there would be no hot meal awaiting us this time. At least we had water, and a radical corner system ahead.
The corner was surreal. No ledges or natural breaks, just one big, clean corner zooming skyward. Thirty metres at a time, David and I swung leads, placing small gear and doing insecure moves. Despite the inspiration of the situation, it was very difficult to climb calmly in such wilderness. The uninhabited valley was so far beneath our feet and whatever friends were climbing on the glacier to our east were separated from us by a massive granite massif. One move at a time we tried our best to dance in our intense solitude. I lacked grace and even composure, but thirty shaky, wild metres at a time, always ending at a hanging belay, we both freeclimbed our way through the corner to the roof. It was a dream come true. Not a dance of flow or mastery of the terrain the way that I had dreamed it, for this mountain was too big and its energy too powerful for me to be a master of its terrain. Instead, it was a humble practice of grit. With every strange stemming move, every painful shallow footjam, every look at the valley a thousand feet below my heels, the mountain was asking me questions: What is my true character? Did I want this to be an easy accolade? How am I going to interact with a place of such wilderness? Can I find that quality of wilderness within myself? Or will I be another trying to tame wilderness in a lame farce of ego? What is more of a farce than thinking that for some reason, I could go up such a wild and hard (for me) route and be in total control the entire time? One scary, shakey move at a time, I do believe that our souls danced elegantly as our minds raced with insecurity and our calves shook with exhaustion.
When we arrived at the roof pitch marking the end of the major corner with free climbing dreams still alive, I felt a switch begin to flip. I really wanted to free climb this thing. Not for vanity (maybe a little, I'm writing about it after all), but for more of this practice in gritty dancing. The sun was very low in the sky as I climbed an amazing finger crack just below the roof. The wall had a shallow chimney behind the crack, and I stemmed my left foot and back behind me, jamming with my fingers and smearing my other foot. Way off the deck, now more in-tune with the rhythm of this mountain, I felt the tiniest shred of that cherry-on-top elegance that we sometimes get practicing our art. I began the roof nervous, trying to qualm any nervousness that I may actually squeak out a complete free climbing experience. I need not worry though, for soon the holds were obscenely, and now I know classically wet. Without frustration or regret I switched into aid climbing mode. It just wasn't right. It would've been a forced attempt to try to free climb it at that moment and it wouldn't have been true in my listening to the moment on the mountain. I don't know how to explain the peace in which I felt with my effort without sounding spiritually zany: the energy to really try to freeclimb this six metre traverse didn't exist in that moment. My decision wasn’t motivated by fear, or even haste. The holds were soaked, which I'm sure they almost always are, and it wasn't my place to dance at such a high level. In many ways this is exciting, as I now live the rare gift of a dream lived and laced with wonderful raw memory, but also still containing a five metre shred of mystery. And mystery is magic.
Not that aid climbing was fast anyway. Due to my immaturely principled distaste for the act I don't have very much practice at it and was slow. David and his classic nonchalance was comforting to have on the other end of the rope. Perched thousands of feet off the deck, sitting in a harness for the fourth belay in a row, still jamming to reggae and smiling. Watching some jabroni nervously switch from aid to free, and back to aid, he just kept on jamming. “Waaaatch me David,”, and you know what he did? He jammed. All day he had Reggae blasting out of his pocket, and it was clear that he too was settled into the unique rhythm that he was dancing with the mountain. David led the next pitch, in a mix of free and aid, because in his words between laughter, "Man, I just realized at that last belay that right now I just don't give a fuck about free climbing." Normally, this would piss me off. Last winter in Chile I barked at my friend Jaron to come back to the belay after he sat on a cam on a pitch of a route we were climbing. But here, now, I began to realize that even though David and I were sharing an intense experience as human beings, we were also undergoing intense and unique experiences between ourselves and the place.. I know now one of the important aspects of partnership- one in which I've often fallen short: to support your friend in their experience with the mountain, not yours.
He began climbing as the sun was setting, and it was beautifully frantic and fast. In a mix of french free, doing what he does best- moving with incredible speed and confidence, David led sixty metres of the rope up the next corner system. The off-white and grey granite of this massive west face was painted yellowy gold by the sun. We too, by association, shone with golden colours. Two souls, two drops of water in a golden ocean. In that moment, paying out rope for my thriving friend, being swallowed by beautiful light, watching the rest of the valley undergo the same phenomena, I was overcome with emotion. I was so, so happy to be right where I was. I was so happy to be there with David. And at the same time I thought of Carl, and the loss that I thought I had grieved resurfaced in a profound and new way. I felt his presence intensely in a positive and empowering way. I felt so grateful to be trusted by those closer to him to have his ashes with me, and to have the opportunity to see this quest through. I also simply yearned for the original person in which I shared this dream to be there for its fruition. All Along The Watchtower was a teenage dream that I had to mature for before I could experience. Looking at the haul bag and thinking of my friend's ashes, looking up and seeing my friend pouring all of his energy into getting us higher, I felt a moment of coming of age and loss of innocence. In that moment in the golden light of the Bugaboos I wept tears. Not strictly of sadness nor joy nor fear nor elation. I wept tears of the human experience.
I followed the pitch clean, not out of spite or principle, it was just what I wanted to do. While moving, my legs were becoming weak and shaking out of control. We had long run out of water. The exhaustion began to sneak up on me and hit me like a rock. One more pitch to the easy stuff, and it was my lead. Enter the banshee finale of our time on the headwall.
When I asked my dear friend Dane (who had climbed the Watchtower last year) about the route, he gave us amazing and indispensable information. Without him our experience would've been very different. For the last pitch of the headwall though, he just giggled and said "I'll save that one as a surprise. It is awesome." Dane is a power-lifter, ice climber, master of the epic, and 23 going on tough as fucking nails. His innocent and wholesome giggle made me nervous for what was to come. The topo said “5.8 4 inch crack.” I grabbed my number 4 cams and took off into the 5.11 terrain, inching toward the wide flake above and to my right.
I was so, so tired. It was all I could do to stay on on the 5.11. I placed cam after cam after cam in close distance, completely untrusting of my screaming body and working with a mind exhausted from being in the zone for two straight days. Grovelling, I made it to the wide flake. Thank god. 5.8. How hard could it be? I really should know better by now. Every muscle in my body ached and cramped as I let out screams, not of ferocious fight but rather of pain and complete inferiority. At some point I believe I literally begged the Bugaboo granite for mercy. I hung on like a kid on a rollercoaster that really doesn't want to be there: White knuckled, shitting my pants, making it a way bigger deal than it needed to be, but alive, and ready for ice cream.
No ice cream. No water. No food- save premade peanut butter banana wraps that had gone dank in the haul bag. No gas. Just the midnight sky, a long convoluted ridge, and a brother to rely upon. I led another strange vision quest pitch of 5.8 and then totally bonked. David noticed this after trying to have a basic conversation with my wide eyes, and offered that he would lead us up the scrambling for a while. A gentleman and a baller! We stayed roped and settled into the night, keeping our eyes open for a bivy site that Dane told us about.
A distant lightning storm to the south offered no sound and thus no fear, only momentary awe from time to time. The wind was dormant and a meteor shower zoomed its way across the sky above us. Midnight became one, then two, then, sometime around three, we saw some nice flat ledges that David suggested we spend the night on. I stubbornly disagreed and insisted we keep on going until we find a spot with water. Wrong move. He obliged. I can be a real turd sometimes.
Three became four to the tune of the flash of the southern storm and the whimsical travels of meteors overhead. The wind remained calm. We got to a confusing section of ridge with snow and four became four thirty. We got through it and took a peek above the next little bluff to see if we could put the rope away. Our little peek showed us that there was no more terrain to climb, and at five in the morning, my friend David Tan and I stood on top of the summit of North Howser Tower, just as red began to appear in the east.
The summit was calm and the sky clear. We laid out the half-thermarest and our sleeping bag, laid down, listened to The War On Drugs and Eddie Vedder, and enjoyed the scene. For two hours of the most supreme peace I have ever known, we watched the world be beautiful.
I awoke from a nap to a blue sky and a hot sun. David was awake beside me.We knew that it was time to begin our rappels down the east face, and begin our journey home. While he rolled the sleeping bag and organized gear, I quietly walked over to where the summit overlooks the steep west face with a ziploc bag of Carl Hawkins' remains in my pocket. In all the other places which I held these ashes in my hands and thought about scattering them, I just wanted to rid myself of this sadness, of this loss; an act of hastily moving on but not going forward. A part of me didn't ever think I'd actually end up here. Here in this place of ultimate wilderness, a place that was kindred to the spirit of Carl, it was a wonderfully underwhelming act. Handful by handful I released his remains. My eyes were watery and I got a little bit of ash on my jacket. The actual act of scattering ashes is a lot harder than people make it out to be!
There was no ridding of sadness or loss and I now know that this is not the way forward: "Do not let sorrow die for it is the sweetening of every gift." -Cormac McCarthy. It was not what have I rid myself of, but what I gained through this quest: an understanding of peaceful continuity; glimpses into the mysteries of the universe; a deeper understanding of the spirit, and love and life and death. I gained gratitude for the people that are here now and the love we share, and the possibility that there is magic around each corner if we are willing to summon the courage to look.
David and I rappelled, unfreed a stuck rope, drank water, hopped over the bergschrund, and stumbled back to Applebee with our cups very very full. We were greeted by a strong force of community. Hugs, relief that we had returned, congratulations on our adventure; even a note stuck to a borrowed cam read aloud by our friend Rhys as we caught him and another friend, Tony, on their way out of camp. We all shared stories of the last few days' adventures. Everyone was getting it while the getting was good; the joy of weather windows in the mountains! It was overwhelming, humbling, and happy.
And it all began two years ago, with two friends merrily drinking whiskey in a cave in the same camp, dreaming about what it would be like to one day climb All Along The Watchtower.
