Beyond the Picnic Tables
South of Madras, there is a rather insignificant hill that is homogenous to the plethora of dry farmland that covers central Oregon. After double digit hours in a car, the hills blend and the trees pass on a familiarity to each other as they blur past. But not this hill. This hill was the final opaque medium before the promised land. After Liam announced that we could see “it” over the hill, my grogginess left my body and was replaced with eager anticipation. I could see this theme was unanimous with my three friends in the car. The hill ended, and what came next was a view that no internet research can prepare for, and a feeling of excitement that only an individual at the headwaters of total freedom can feel. The volcanic tuff shot out of the Crooked River; the formations are grand, and unique, like a collection of an artists’ best work (Not you, jesus). My hair that Liam would later cut in a city park in Bend flew in the wind and my nose took in all the American freedom it could handle.
Smith Rock, Oregon.
The homies.
Two weeks.
SPRING BREAK BITCHES!!!!!
I just passed the hill, and am discussing with Luke how I sum this trip up in a piece that isn’t so long only my Grandma will read it (Lynn, you’re a legend!) but paints the picture of this trip in the vivid colours that it deserves. The last two weeks were eye opening and a glimpse into the lifestyle that I envision myself living for some time to come. My time in Smith Rock legitimized climbing as a lifelong pursuit. I now know that I am not someone who climbs, I am a climber. The happiness and freedom are just too fulfilling to even consider doing anything else. The last two weeks have been incredibly full. Full of power screams, terrifying falls, apple pipes, sunsets, and magical moments where the universe is stripped down to the howling laughter of a friend, or the howling wind and the air beneath a smeary foothold that finally doesn’t pop. It is all absolute gold.
The beauty of having extended time doing solely what you love is that the days both blend and stick out at the same time. The day of the week never enters your mind, and life begins to roll like a mountain stream, slowing down in eddy’s when the time is right, and moving swiftly at others. The water is always cold, the views are always beautiful. Of course however, there are moments that stuck out. These are the moments that are embedded and now, as a mosaic with all of the other magic moments, inspire everything that I do. Reiterating, each second was cherished, but these are the seconds that seemed to last forever, and were gone before I knew it. Nothing gold can stay, but the dirt is always rich if you keep digging.
Our trip was full of characters, and the story cannot be told without the characters being unveiled. Luke Dean is a thrift shop connoisseur, plans his outfits for the crag, and is the most driven person I have ever met. Ben Freeman is the pride of Nanton, Alberta. A lover of man spreading, he’s a goofy guy that pulls hard and takes lots of photos. Liam Haigh eats tons of kale, climbs with a certain elegance, and is a friend that became a total friggin bestie on the trip. Later, we were joined by the Martino brothers. Tyson and Kyle are good at pushing each others buttons and even better at climbing. Tyson has become a close friend thanks to our mutual love for Enya and his pure excitement about being alive. Kyle is a firefighter in training and earned the nickname Maguyver after sewing my Uggs and taping his phone to a pair of binoculars because telephoto lenses are far too expensive. We were also joined by Luke’s cousin Easton and his hilarious Californian slang. Our crew was rag tag to say the least. While some nights we were a bit of a mess thanks to cranberry juice and oregano, each morning began with a walk into the park during which our psyche would bounce off of each other, snowballing and culminating with each conversation. I’m proud of the friends I went to Smith Rock with for the sole reason that I know that we did not leave anything down there. It is special to be apart of a collective that is committed to pouring themselves into something and I am forever grateful.
The following is a collection of beautiful moments that have now turned to memories, forever engrained in my mush brain.
Waves Through The Rope- Voyage of the Beans
As Luke danced through the last pitch of “Voyage Of The Cowdog”, I was jubilant, and inspired by his composure. Last August, I was on the other end of the rope when Luke had a full on panic attempt during an attempt at a big multi pitch in the Bow Valley. It was a different person belaying me up to the perch that marked the end of the route. Not only was it evident with his trademark climbing style: Like a precise ballroom dance that still has a splash of artistry dusted on top of it. I could see it in his eyes, and hear it in his voice. The fear wasn’t gone, we all know that it never leaves. But it was dealt with differently. Rather than be the kid waiting in the car, Luke knocked on fear’s door and put a steaming pile of shit on the porch. There was no cowardice when facing the catacombs of his mind. It was the most inspiring and magical 5.9 of my life. The summit gave us views of our playground for the next sixteen days. We were eager to get back to the ground simply so we could find more rock to climb. The tone for the trip was set.
Some random 5.10 crack
The first time I laid eyes on this line I had no idea of the warmup grade, and found myself inspired. Climbing for the sake of climbing at its finest. At times the crack was scary, and jamming my hands, fists, fingers, and feet into a crack felt foreign. But beneath the mystery of technique was the mystique of the movement. Falling into the rhythm of crack climbing is like swirling into a whirlpool. At first it is slow. The ground remains close, and the moves feel odd and painful. But in the blink of eye the pain of the jams is a reminder of security rather than a hinderance, and torquing your feet is propelling you upward in a metronomic rhythm. I got some weird looks for whooping and hollering my way up and down my warm up, and that is a shame. Lately, I have found myself getting more and more of a kick out of every single route that I do. My love for climbing is no longer select or hardened to the classics or my projects, but instead it is fluid and shines through with each time that I touch stone. The sheer joy I got out of this route was a microcosm of the trip and climbing itself. The whooping and hollering was broken up sporadically by my raving of how “all I want to do is crack climb”, and that “Im definitely going to the creek (Indian Creek, Utah) now.” Follow joy! It is going down in October, and yes, I AM yelling timber! This route threw gas on my bonfire of happiness and cracked a spark of inspirations. I am now supplied with a faint light on the horizon that I can use as a bearing of exploration, the rest is unknown, the way it should be.
Wow!
The title of this one comes from the prophet Owen Wilson, and is a short story of developing friendship and ridiculousness. Liam and I had climbed together a little before the trip, but our relationship was mostly joking around at the gym and giving each other the odd belay. While driving through Spokane, I told Liam that I was excited to climb together more and become better friends on the trip. The epic days that followed blew my expectations out of the water. It began on the classic route “Monkey Space.” We sort of roped up but mostly simul solo’d up easy ground to the start of the route, our only protection being a cam Liam placed that promptly fell out of the rock as I was climbing up to it, and one bolt for a belay at the top. The route itself started on a ledge already quite high on the Monkey Face and traversed into quite an infamous cave, before climbing out of the mouth of the monkey, and onto the sought after tag of the summit of the larger than life formation. Liam and I were jazzed, and got a little bit of friendly teasing from another party for only having one helmet between the two of us. We reckoned the second would use the helmet, and the leader would don my mom’s denim Nike hat for both fashion and protection from the sun. I was on the sharp end for the traverse and nervously moved off the ledge. My climbing became more fluid as I settled in. The movement was spectacular; Core intensive delicate traversing among spaced out bolts. The climbing was glorious and the trickier section ended in a bulge to pull over with an oddly placed bolt. I totally messed up the sequencing of clipping the bolt, almost blew the bolt, and then blew my onsight of this moderate. The negative energy I felt hanging on the rope faded instantaneously when I looked across at my smiling friend, down at all the air below my feet, and I took in a breath. To be upset at not sending this route, or to be gratified to be up here enjoying a genuine experience? Disappointment just means you care. I chose to feel it, and then let it pass. The smile on my face was an easy one to put on, and it didn’t leave for much of the rest of the route. Liam and I were mystified by the cave at the top of the traverse pitch. Due to the overhanging nature of the Monkey Face it feels like a living room up in the sky with a green screen backdrop of high desert and dormant volcanoes. Surreal is a complete understatement. We spent a lot of time in there, trying our best to soak up each moment. Liam led us out of the cave and onto the summit, and soon we were on top of the Monkey Face. There were tourists across the gap, only a rope length away physically but they might as well have been on Neptune. Liam and I were elated, completely jazzed on the surreal becoming very, very, real. I have said earlier, and continue to stand by that this feeling of pure lightness can only be felt climbing, and more specifically climbing with good people. The tourists took photos, and I went to take a video of Liam celebrating. Like the man bun monk he is, quietly he stated, “We’ve got it up here, forever.” At this, I paused, laughed, and respected his wishes. He was right, as with much of my writing at times it seems futile because nothing will replace the act of doing. If you want to know what it is like to climb Monkey Space with an amazing friend, then grab an amazing friend and climb Monkey Space. Liam and I found out quickly that we work well together on the rope. I am always thought provoked by our conversations and moved by his insight. The nail in the friendship coffin came when he waded through rattlesnake company to retrieve my pack after I almost got bit, “because you don’t have health insurance, and I do.”
Another rite of passage our partnership went through was our first mini epic. We had enjoyed a day of volume cragging, Liam put down a 5.12 pretty quick and we both got punted off the last move of a blue collar 5.12 stem climb. We decided to finish our day and start our evening by hopping on the easy “Wherever I may roam.” The five pitches were a blur, swinging leads on easy terrain and moving fast. Liam linked the last two pitches and turned the easy sport climb into a runout fiesta that had me laughing into the waxing night. The boys had talked about having a bit of a fiesta back at camp, so we were eager to get back to camp after a long day. The rappel however, was not a fiesta. No muy fiesta. I ran out of rope on a rappel after not having the sides even (middle markers rock!).It was a foolish mistake and if it wasn’t for a bolt that I could heel hook too in order to fix it, it would’ve cost us a couple more hours at the least. With bats flying around and lizards emerging from the stone, the tone was quite heavy, but our spirits remained high. Even higher when we got even lower, I may add. We reached the ground with the only issue being that it was now completely dark and the fear that the boys might already be hammered back at camp and we would have catching up to do. Catching up is always a dangerous game as more often than not, you find yourself in the lead. We jaunted back around to the frontside of the park and to the bridge, where we saw headlights coming on. Thinking it was the rangers and wanting to avoid a ticket for being in the park at night, we hid in the bushes near the top of the hill, and watched a spectacle emerge on one of the walls down in the park. The angle of the lights we were hiding from had set up a massive, fifty metre tall shadow show on the walls of volcanic tuff. It looked like a cult, sitting in a circle, moving around every now and then. My imagination raced. “What the hell is going on up there?” We decided we couldn’t sit forever and would have to make a break for it. We began to move, the headlights started to move toward us. I grimaced at first, my exhausted mind making me nervous. Voices followed. Familiar voices… the boys!!!! With beers!!! Hell yes!!!!
Sunshine Dihedral
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” The amount of h’s on that are not hyperbolic and I feel properly represent my fear/power/ohmygodimgonnadie scream right before I took the fall of my life on Sunshine Dihedral. I knew my gear at the bottom wasn’t great but that I had bomber gear below me. That belief was questioned for a split second as one of my pieces ripped out of the wall. Before my next piece caught me, there was one moment of accepted fate. It is hard to explain, because the time in the air is so brief, but your mind seems to have all the time in the world to question every decision ever leading up to that point in your life. It brought me satisfaction that my mind was at a sort of panicked peace when the piece gave me more peace and prevented me from hitting the ground and scarring my friends. I called it a “liberation burn”. I had pushed through my fear, tried hard, and accepted the consequences of committing. Unfortunately, this time that consequence was almost hitting the ground, but next time that consequence could be sending the route. Balance is always a difficult thing to find. The balance between pushing yourself and pushing yourself too far is no exception. The Sunshine Dihedral was a good scope and look into my climbing. The direction I want to go is difficult traditional climbing, but I also have to remind myself that there is a lack of experience that simply cannot be replaced by just trying hard. A base is so important, and currently my mental state is above my physical state. I also know that this is an easy fix, or at the least much easier than if the situation was flipped. Muscles can be trained and technique can be learned. Training the mind is much more fickle, something that I, and every climber struggle against each time we rope up. I wasn’t inspired by the movement on Sunshine the way I wanted to be, and chose to look elsewhere for climbs to focus on. Nonetheless, I didn’t leave empty handed from the flaring corner. I confirmed to myself the direction of climbing I want to pursue, and now know that by combining the undying fire of psyche within the soul, the value of volume, a great diet of quinoa, lentils, and the odd donut cause I am just such a bad boy, that I will climb my dream routes. I may never learn how to fix run on sentences, but I will climb my dream routes. I will climb hard.
Shenanigans
“Okay Liam, just don’t cut too short. I don’t want to be bald.”
“Relax man, I got you.”
“LIAM!” I
“So, its a little short, and the razor isn’t really cutting anymore.”
It was too early in the morning in a city park in Bend, Oregon to have my good friend cutting my hair. But there we were. Laughing our asses off and making a scene. After washing my long hair in a water fountain that morning, I recruited Liam. Armed with clippers and a precise look in his eyes, he was the man for the job. Unfortunately the tools failed and I had to turn to the pros for a buzzcut. I quickly learned that my hairdresser’s ex husband’s name was Nathaniel, and I tried not to show my fear as she went at my head with scissors and razors. Despite her vengeful eyes, she did a great job and I walked out with a pep in my step, Electric Avenue style. My tattoo that I got in Portland on our last rest day shone in the Oregon sunlight as my sewed Uggs (thanks Kyle) strutted the sidewalk.
Well that was a ridiculous sentence.
Whether it was Tyson screaming a request for an Enya song, or Luke buying out entire thrift stores, our time spent off the rock was completely ridiculous. I cannot speak for my friend, but there was a sense of freedom in the air. A feeling that catalyzed self expression and eccentricity. It was as if we were on a journey, travelling among the rest of the people outside of the climbing community, but not with them, nor apart from them. The sun’s that we travel around are completely different. Climbing is all consuming. It has somewhat of an “it” factor. Not in the sense of special talent, but the fact that there is a certain moment where you transition from a person who climbs, into a climber. The shenanigans of eating off pre-bussed plates, washing hair in fountains, drunkenly buying a lawn chair in Walmart, and creating incredibly close relationships with once random people are all strengthened and validated not by logic or reason, but simply by the joy that the act of climbing brings. The moment is a special visual representation of that.
The Moment
I knew the sequence of the moves, but wasn’t thinking about them. I wasn’t thinking about anything. The hundreds of feet of air below my smeary footholds didn’t exhilarate me or fill my mind with fear. My hands, bruised and battered from weeks of climbing, ceased to hurt. All I could hear was my breathing, and the wind. The wind provided rhythm for my hands and feet to dance up the stone, finally freed to breathe the air after time in the catacombs of my mind. My right hand reached around the corner, and I felt the temperature change of the different faces of rock. I found the pocket, let out a small noise of effort and worked my feet up. My heels stabbed at either side of the fridge like feature of rock, keeping me clung to this delicate balance of rock and air. I reached my right hand back onto the fridge, and yanked on a small, sloping crimp. The smear feet popped, I was airborne, and then I was not. I noticed the pain in my hands, and I was once more exhilarated by the exposure. Luke shouted encouragement at me. I thanked him for the catch. He lowered me and I described what I had felt and began to refer to it as a “magic burn”. It is a moment of incredible presence and focus, and it used to be rare for me. The Backbone and its exposure almost made “magic burns” easy to get into. I’m sure my eyes were as bright as my pink sweater as I relayed the clarity that Luke knew well from personal experience, ending each sentence with something synonymous to “this is all I want to do, this is my life.” Luke’s genuine grin returned with a “me too” and we felt it at that moment. Pure happiness. I am a climber.
Smith Rock was life changing, and as always, my sign off is a thank you to the people that made it so. The homies of Camp 69, the locals that totally made Smith feel like home, the Calgary crew that drove us to Walmart and put up with our goofiness, and of course, the angry man who told us “to take the party back to the picnic tables”. Sorry old man, you cannot kill the vibe, it is immortal.
