Winter in the Asylum

WINTER IN THE ASYLUM March, 1996 ...a story of the first ascent of "Spike Hairdoo" on Castle Rock Spire The inmates: Bruce Bindner and Eric Coomer Bruce begins his story: Tons of gear threatened to overflow the parking lot at Hospital Rock in Sequoia National Park, California. We sat dejected on the asphalt. I sipped a beer and wondered how it could all fit into the two tiny Dana Astralplane packs that would be our homes, kitchens, suitcases, and trash bins for the next five days. As the mounds of equipment slowly disappeared, the packs assumed astronomical mass. An incredible amount of equipment, fuel, food... Eric interrupts Just a minute here. Bruce's "incredible amount of food" measured out at, to be generous, 500 calories a day apiece. We barely had enough fuel to melt water to drink..... As for equipment, Bruce didn't even have an ice axe for the approach, which turned out to be a crux of the climb. Nevertheless, our packs weighed in at about 90 pounds apiece, as we abandoned snowshoes and ski poles to the back of the truck, hoping they would not be needed. Bruce The approach to this spire was particularly delightful this time. A full day brought us to the base of the ice gully leading up to the spire. We completed this hike fairly unscathed... Eric ....with most of our shin-skin intact, and only one tick bite between the two of us. Next morning, out came the crampons, helmets, ice axe and Bruce's ice hammer... postholing through avalanche debris, naively thankful that "the avalanche" had come through before we got there. After a full day of steep snow climbing up the shadowed gully we were at a stance below a powder- infested cliff. Bruce pointed upward. "We go there." Bruce From the stance a long but fairly uneventful pitch of chest-deep, avalanche-prone snow and steep rock brought us to our high camp. Eric Ha! easy for you to say! Long? yeah, like diving off the Golden Gate Bridge is "going for a dip." And as for uneventful, YOU weren't hit by an avalanche when you jugged up the fourth class headwall with a 90-pound pack. Then I found that the "fixed" line I was jugging was anchored to Brutus, bracing his feet against a snowbank..... Bruce I was the closest thing I could find to a deadman. And besides, I was backed up by a #2.5 friend..... Eric ...which was set behind a loose flake held in place by six inches of snow! Bruce ummmm... can we move on? Anyway, by the time we got a bivy ledge carved out of the precipice and finally ferried the last of the gear, it was dark. Eric I was completely gripped. There I was on my first backcountry climb, with a deviate madman who seemed perfectly at home and happy in a situation which was already way outside the realm of sanity. Next morning, we started up the route (if you don't count the 2,000 foot ice chute and headwall from the previous day, as a part of the climb.) "Brutus of Wyde" flew up the first two offwidth pitches, grunting, squealing and thrashing his way to a narrow stance. Our arrangement was that he would lead the Wyde cracks, and I would lead the difficult aid. Upon reaching the second belay, I realized that I had been royally suckered. Above was one of the most terrifying sections of rock I had ever gazed upon. And no road map. You really need a road map for these things, to find the right offramp... Bruce Coomer led another forty feet that day, slowed as much by fear and uncertainty as by the incredibly difficult thin nailing, hooking, and drilling. When I reached the hanging belay, I figured that our 200-foot rope should get us back to the notch with room to spare. The day was drawing to a close. As I slid down our line toward the notch, I realized how unique a rappel this would be. One hundred feet below me, a tower rose from the main arete, separated by a gap of about 15 feet. Reaching the level of the tower, I pushed off from the wall, and pendulumed outward into air, across the gap, to grab the top of this formation. Straddling its knife-edge, I coiled and cast the remaining rope another hundred feet down the other side of the tower, into the notch that we had left 10 hours ago. Eric We reached the ice in the notch with a whopping three feet of rope left over. Bruce Another starlit evening. Cramped on our snow-ledge chopped into a near-vertical slope, we tied to rock anchors in case the whole locale decided to avalanche into the darkness. Above, the terrifying south arete of Castle Rock Spire blotted out the milky way, a knife- thrust of blackness deeper than the night itself. "Loose Cannon Coomer" muttered and puttered in a pool of headlamp, like a mad scientist. He swilled Sapporo Beer imported from Tokyo, and occasionally erupted into a fit of maniacal laughter, alternating with dismal sobbing. Mumbling through mouths-full of dinner, he burrowed into his bivy sack and babbled about ANYTHING except tomorrow's commute up fixed lines, into the fray. The soft whirr of the hanging stove faded into the rumbling of avalanches, as the fuel bottle froze into uselessness. I fumbled a matchbook and rewarmed the butane canister, carving away another chunk of our bivy ledge and stuffing it into the pot: tomorrow's water supply. Elvis' "Jailhouse Rock" blared from the radio as I stood, gazed intently at nothing in particular in the darkness, did a few demented dance steps at the edge of the abyss, giggled and sobbed a bit myself, and settled down for the night, the crashing of icefall and hissing of snowslides singing us a macabre lullaby. Eric Sub-freezing pre-dawn: We gulp espresso and choke down Cliff Bars, loath to leave the warm cocoons and wing into the day. All too soon, Brutus is again dangling from bolts at the hanging station atop pitch three, as I rock on a skyhook 15 feet above and try to drill a purchase into the blankness. Each blow of the hammer threatens to recoil me off my skyhook placement and smash double boots into Brutus' face. He keeps telling me, "Set a bolt!" Sh*t, I'll be lucky if I can get a d*mned bat-hook in before I ping, let alone a rivet. A bolt is out of the question. Sunlight brushes the arete with soft morning gold as I finally set the bat hook and, whimpering, begin to quarry the next placement. Bruce A moaning stream of expletives and invectives spews forth from the Cannon's foaming mouth. This deviation from his usual crooning incantations reveals that all is not well. Replacing a drill bit mid-hole, the new bit is now jammed. An eternity later (still balanced on the self-same bathook) he finally sets a rivet and gingerly lowers off, completely wasted, a mindless zombie husk of his former self. Eric Bruce's turn. With the solid rivet to work from, he plays Mr. Spineless and immediately sets a 3/8" sport bolt. Half a day later he, too, zombies-out above a string of hook, rivet, copperhead and bolt placements. But the blank section has been bearded. Bruce As an energetic Eric, fully recharged by a boring belay session, blasts up the featureless, I find within my numb soul a spark of renewed hope. Maybe, just possibly, we have a chance of reaching the summit. Our last chance. Running low on food, fuel, and bivy ledge, tomorrow we will have to head out. Out through the death gully, where we now watch ice blocks the size of Buicks tumbling headlights-over-taillights, shattering the walls of the gully with piercing shrapnel. Constant freight-train avalanches of heavy wet snow roar through the chute, filling it wall-to-wall with an unstoppable, rushing white death. Loose Cannon Coomer is on a roll. Above me, the flip- side of His Royal Madness sings, cackles, and smashes pins and copperheads. Completely in his element, he slithers and squirms up the wall on hooks, tied-off Lost Arrows and the luck of the criminally insane. The sun sweeps across the sky. "Off Belay!" As at last I start jumarring this pitch-from-hell, I am grimly aware of how far out on a limb we have confidently pranced. Every pin on this pitch is tied off. Barely-usable copperheads clean from the crack with a single, gentle tug. Eric Another pitch like this one will shut us down. But the ledge where I anchor the belay has possible free climbing above, and the lengthening shadow of Castle Rock Spire across the gully shows lower angle rock near the summit. With this small encouragement, I call down to Brutus that I'll dig his free-climbing shoes out of the pack. Bruce As I arrive at the belay, my hope fades. Above, blank overhanging walls bar upward progress. To the left are discontinuous aid cracks, more of the same time- gobbling technical flared seams that ate most of our day. The only other option is a decaying ramp of flakes leading out to the arete on the right, grinning at me like broken teeth in a lopsided mouth. Eric must be off the deep end if he thinks I can climb this. I start the walk. Once on the arete, prospects are even more grim. A smooth, near-vertical face drops away into afternoon shadows, a stomach-wrenching gulf of exposure. Hopeless. As I turn away, a set of thin edges out on the face catches my eye. Maybe. "Watch me. I'm gonna go for it!" "How does it look?" (glazed expression) "Bad. Scary." Eric With these encouraging words, Bruce disappears around the corner, the rope trickling out in small, tentative tugs. The sun has plummeted well toward the horizon. We're doomed. I continue to pay out rope, the sun continues to drop. Suddenly Brutus' foolish, grinning face appears 50 feet directly overhead, above the top of the overhanging, blank wall. "looks like the next part will go" he says, "I'm not sure. I think there's a crack. Watch me!" With that the head disappears again, leaving me alone in my solitary world hundreds of feet up an unclimbed route on a spire no one ever visits. How the h*ll am I supposed to watch him, I muse. He doesn't even exist, except as a sporadic movement of the rope. Occasional garbled commands echo off the granite towers below. I respond appropriately: "WHAT??" garble, garble. Hmmph. Glad we cleared that up. Bruce Somehow it all fits together. Heel hook here, mantle there, above big air. Whack in a baby angle while dangling from fading fingers; the exposure eating away at my soul; distant roar of avalanches far below through the gully we must descend; the last grains of sunlight dribbling through the hourglass of our day. Above, a crack catapults me forty feet to a huge horn. Somewhere in here Eric calls "Halfway!" Climb on. Protection fades. Daylight fades. I call for slack, hear "what?", call again, yard with both hands in the middle of 5.8 face, rope in teeth and now its only 5.4 unprotected slabs up to an unfamiliar, unusual place where there is no more rock, no more avalanche chutes, no more climbing above, nothing but the deep blue sky. As Eric and I stand at last on the summit, the sun sinks into the western rim of the world, then vanishes. Eric "Bye-bye." Bruce The rappels were fairly routine.... Eric ....Us forgetting the haul line as I downclimbed to the first rap station, and Brutus' blind rope-toss in the darkness hitting me in the face; Bruce telling me what signals we would use if the ropes dead-ended in the middle of nowhere; one of our 1/4" anchors at the hanging changeover spalling out of the rock.... Bruce ...but backed up by a better, 3/8" bolt! [smile.] It was what some of my partners fondly refer to, as a "night fight." Eric Camp. More Elvis on the radio. As the avalanches blast down the gully, Brutus says, "We have to go down tomorrow....." (duh. we've done the climb, we're out of food, we have just enough fuel to heat the last cup of coffee and brew a teabag we found in the summit register...) "...Because this is our last beer..." With that, Bruce pulls one more can of Sapporo out of his pack. Winter in the Asylum. Life is good. END