ExtraBlue

February 2016

I'm about to turn 30 and decide what better way to celebrate than to solo a big wall. I assemble some gear and drive down to Zion. I figure C1 isn't too hard and I can just go slow and sort things out. 

I hike into Moonlight Buttress, fording the river twice, and am setting up the anchor for my solo when I realize the rock is wet. I can pull a cam out of the crack easily. So I hike back across the river and ponder life in the back of my truck. 

I get up late with the dawn and go check out Touchstone, a route I know nothing about. It's dry.  I get up the first pitch and am starting the second C2 pitch. There's a pink tricam that'll go half in, I commit to it hoping for better gear. It's the best I can find. I'm tired. Days behind. I bail. The big vision quest transcendent message is clear. Spend time with people you care about. Happy Birthday. 

2016/2017

I go down with Jason. One of us leads P1. Jason with offsets and aliens cruzes P2 and I teach myself how to clean an aid traverse on jumars in the moment. I remember being scared. Jason runs out of gear after the crux and back cleans long run outs. 

We fix a rope or something and are heading down when Jackson Marvel shows up in a one piece pizza slice pajama suit. He's aggressively asking how long our fixed ropes will be up because he wants to free it all. It's awkward. We say fuck it and head back to SLC. 

February 2025

I finish my master's degree and just want to relax. Something casual. Sandstone under the fingers. Desert light. Not Katahdin. Not north facing ice in Quebec. Fly to SLC and meet my caving best friend. Aid is like caving right?

Night before the flight I think I'm having a heart attack and go to the ER. They diagnose a panic attack so I head home and catch my flight. My GERD goes nuclear in the airport. Over the next week I'll lose over ten pounds and eat a bowl of rice a day.

Weather in SLC is shit so Adam and I drive down to Zion. We'll practice aid on the wall. We get in late, and spend a while getting Adam up P1. He high steps. He places cams. He does the thing. But aid is slow. 

For some reason we go over to Organasm to practice more. I start leading when rockfall from next to the touchstone descent gully wipes out the road. I finish the pitch. Don't think I've got enough gear for the second and we wait for the rangers to get us through. Day four of the stomach issues. We hike up to Ataxia tower. I'm not feeling it. The patina scares me. The tick on my pants is massive. We go for a hike. I get through to my doctor and double my meds. 

The road is opened and we head back to Touchstone. Adam leads the bolt ladder but is mentally shot. There's no exposure in the blackness of the pit. I lead the rest of the pitch and stare at P2. I'm feeling the stoke. Adam asks to mock lead P1. A couple hours later it's late in the day and time to head down. We've got 50 hours until my flight. We head down and drive back to SLC by only dirt roads. We climb in the gym before going to the airport. Adam's been crushing 12s inside. Turns out they're 9s in my gym. Maybe sending him up the 5.6 R wouldnt have worked. 

I get home and weigh in at 192, 16lbs less. 

November 2025

On a failed Baker trip a couple years ago we stayed with my partners friend Levi coming out of the mountain. He's a former VT climber and I text him out of the blue and ask if he's coming back for the climbing fest. He's not but has a week off at Thanksgiving. Aid trip? 

He picks me up at the airport in Vegas and we drive to the Arizona/Utah border. I've been travelling through Canada and pass out. We wake up to light rain and drive into the park. Sort gear. Get to the wall. It's wet. No chance of Disco Inferno. But Levi sees moonlight and gets stoked. Day two we repeat. It's not that much drier. A party of three that was going for Lunacy gets there behind us. They have the gear and claim to have done lots of walls in Yosemite. We let them pass they. They climb to the crack and think it's damp. But they tag a rope for us. They promise to be on the 7am shuttle the next day. We plan on giving them a couple hours and then heading up. 

While racking at 8:45 we see one of them coming back from the bathroom. By noon we still aren't on the wall. 

Gear laid out below the first anchor waiting when one of them yells “you mind if I take a piss here?” “Ugh can you not?” For the rest of the trip whenever one of us is directly above the other we shout down “I'm going to pee okay.”

2pm. I feel tired already. Stoke is empty. I start jugging and then haul. 

3:15 pm the tricam pops but catches itself. I'm shook. I come down but it's holding. I reset mentally but fuck this is the “easy” section. I can't lead this before dark (4:30). I bail. We start setting up the ledge and finish by headlamp. 

My ab is aching/cramping. I'm miserable. I haven't slept. Mentally I'm bad. Not being able to help with the set up of the foreign ledge much didn't help. I'll check my watch. If it's before midnight I'm going to wake Levi, rap down, and just walk the road until dawn. It's 11:59. I stay. I finish my book. I try to switch harnesses. That makes it worse. I switch back at 2am. A cold wind right into my sleeping bag awakens me at 3am. I'll get about 45 min of sleep. 

I'm miserable. I rap down and try to stretch my side as Levi packs up. Breathing hurts. My PT was wrong, this trip did irritate my abductor.

Two gals from Colorado show up as Levi comes down. They new to aid. They're going to fix a rope and be on the first bus the next day. 

We get a hotel. Eight hours of sleep in a bed cures me and recovers the stoke. We leave the ledge and haul bag. We're going to either fix the first two pitches or climb the gals' fixed rope. We're on the second bus with them. They tag our rope to the 1.5 anchors and then free/aid up. We jug and follow them. Levi ditches his aid gear then proceeds to improvise it all to get through P2/3. He fires into P4 but it's long. we think it's like 30 meters. It's 50 meters. Our turn around conversation time was 3:00. I jug to him at 3:30. We rap. Almost get the rope stuck. The rope soloist MSU student says the crux on P2 is right off the anchor. That's nice to hear. Back to the hotel.

Harry Harlow was a scientist who worked with monkeys studying love and depression. In one experiment he took newborn monkeys and placed them in a cage with a robot mother. This cloth covered contraption fed the babies, acted as much like a mother as could be modeled, and also at random intervals shot out a metal rod that hit the babies. This experiment simulated abusive relationships between parents and children. One of the results Harlow discovered is that when compared to the control monkeys being raised by a real monkey mom, the “abused” children worked much harder to find affection in their robotic parent than the actual children did. Harlow surmised that these monkeys were internalizing the pain delivered randomly to them, and trying harder to build a relationship with their placebo parent.

I thought of these experiments last night at The Front. Cathryn had just bought a membership, and I came with to do a bit of bouldering. The scars over my elbows are long healed. And, I hoped that for the first time in six years I might be able to climb until my muscles hurt. No tendonitis. No cubital tunnel. Just the good pain of a workout.

On the second problem the pain seared through my shoulder and I had to walk it off. I’d crashed my bike a month previously and with a sore shoulder stayed off climbing for weeks. But it was back. And again I couldn’t climb. I could watch the other gym members having a normal pump. Feeling a burn I can barely remember. And I thought of Harlow. For the last decade, I’ve spent most of my life dedicated to this sport. I’ve had surgeries. I’ve spent hours walking alone up foreign paths to solo. Physical Therapy. Electrophoresis. Massage. Nerve Glides. I’ve spent more time on those activities than climbing.

But. Then I get up early and I grab my tools. Solo some rinky-dink hidden piece of hard water. And I smile. The robotic mother of climbing lets slip an iota of joy and it all becomes worthwhile. The cycle starts, I stare at the healthy climbers and google for a new PT. Skiing will never do this to me. It will welcome me with open arms. The excer-genie in my room ready for a classic workout whenever I take it off the shelf. But I don’t want its love. I don’t need to succeed at the sport that found me, raised me, and will always be there for me. I want the other one. The one I can’t quite grasp, the sport that’s always out of reach. Even if it isn’t actually the healthy activity all the trainers say it is.

The car crash wasn’t as scary as the conversations with the insurance. And walking back into work, wool sweater soaked from sleet, fingers red from phone calls, didn’t settle the adrenal stomach ache.

Stare. Stare. Maybe a glimmer of focus? Gone.

It was a bad day. But I had tickets to a slideshow. While I was bailing and fumbling on the Kahiltna, two climbers had got it done on the Denali Diamond.

In the mingle I meet the eye of a famous climber. A legend. We’ve met a couple times, do the awkward look of pseudo recognition, so I introduce myself.

He remembers that week spent at the Piolet d'Or. He was a kind athlete shepherding a few lost journalists around. And he says, “That piece you wrote five years ago. That was some of the best coverage of the Piolet. I really appreciated it.”

Hidden Another Day On Ice

“You again?” It was Martin, the Quebecer I’d racked next to in the Smuggs’ parking lot every weekend of the winter.

Aaron and I kick up the gulley. Hard breaths remind us of the need to train. Under the perfect sun our shadows mock us. Standing still as we catch our breath, efficiently moving as we sweat.

A month ago this climb had started with a fist thick drip. Now it’s an apron we swing up. Aaron moves well and I follow through the alpine dreamscape. Steep snow for side stepped rests, and flowing ice to warm the blood.

We climb. We breath hard, but it is effortless. Not fearless, but totally lacking fear. Smooth. Loving.

The ice is boy-child blue. We pull the ropes out and gather screws. “I’m too tired to lead.” Aaron says clipping screws to my harness. “You’re strong.” I say, clipping more screws into his clipper.

Back and forth the screws go until I accept.

The sun blazes. My black R1 burns as my energy flees into layered capilene. My hands ache. My calfs cramp and the rope hangs, frozen, between me and an out of sight screw. I swing past the bulge. My tool ricochets back. Stone. I reach and drag through the snow towards the ice. Dark water bleeds into the gash my axes creates. Something holds and I kick high. Coiled. Condensed. Squatting on my steel frontpoints I inhale. Stand. Swing. Shake.

The end comes. A dead end of frozen mud and fracturing stone. A ring iron bleeds rust from a loose crack. I plug screws at knee level.

Belay On.

Aaron looks above. “Scrambley” he says. I remember climbing out a parallel gulley, but I don’t know if this one goes. We’re drilling a thread when Martin passes us. Heading into the turf. So, it goes.

The rope curls up, over the steep ice and twists revealing a knot in the end. Aaron fumes. I don’t want to solo that high. We hike. My brain is off, Aaron feels at fault. Thin ropes. Coils. It happens. We hike higher. I lay panting as Aaron raps, cleans, (and I’m envious) as he climbs back up with the second rope. It’s been a long day. The sun is gone. We’re stripped. Sore. Tired. Past fun. Into happy.

Ice Climbing Easy climbing alone

All up the road my thoughts hammer. The headphones plane my mood, but beneath their surface the depths are in turmoil.

And my legs are still tired even after a twenty-four hour climbing hiatus.

The snow is above my ankles. It’d be a good day to ski but the reward seems less. Little ventured little gained. I’m not even sure I won’t turn back.

But I turn off the road.

I love the view of kicked steps. Ascending through steep winter. Then the chores. Harness buckles and crampons.

The first step is nothing. The second isn’t much either. The snow above the step deepens. Steepens. The slush below increases and mid step my tool slips.

That hasn’t happened in a while.

Dial it back. Focus.

Now the fun starts. I haven’t climbed much ice but I’m 30m up the gulley. A fall would start the snow sliding and send me over ten and fifteen foot steps. It would hurt.

I reach the first rap anchor. Fresh tat on a young tree, and leave my backpack. The rope drags off a gear loop. I don’t like it. Without it I feel freer, with a rope (even a useless one) I’m mitigating a risk. I could back down. There might be a V-thread tool in the pack. I don’t want it. A screw is enough. I wont. I will not, back off.

Without the pack I feel stronger, more flexible, and more exposed. Like a protective shell the pack keeps my shoulders squared, traditional movements for traditional ice. Now I can flex, twist, and reach. It’s not reassuring.

Another step. Frontpoints stem to stone and I clear snow before I swing.

My glasses are fogging. I take a look up. Frost covers the stone. I look back and down.

Fogged glasses go into a pocket.  I wipe snow from a beautiful ledge at eye level. Then my tools are stacked. Too close together. The only ice flows orange from a seam. I don’t kick. I rest my front points on the thin ice and push. Easing my full weight down onto the steel. They press, bite, and I stand. My axes are at chest level. I pant. Without my glasses I’m placing my feet by feel, blurred white and gray could be stone, ice, or snow. Rhythmic pumps of blood beat into my fists. Step onto that ledge. Stand, carefully. Step higher. And lean. I can breathe. My shoulders press against the rock behind me. I’m safe in this position. Blurred white shows the end of the climb. Now it starts. I try to press my tool into ice above me. The other seems to stick in ice, or moss, or dirt, or wood. It’s enough to let me step onto a striation of schist. Again.

I’m coming out of the chimney’s safety. With my shoulders clear I hunch into the climb. One foot spreads wide. Steel smears a free hanging blob, committing my balance to a six inch ice chunk. The other frontpoints caress stone.

I’m up.

I’m over.

Hold it together. You’re not done yet. Hook a tree. Step. Step. I collapse into the snow. My breath, released, carries an adrenal shake with each repetition.

Rig the rappel. Snap a pic. Collect the pack. I’m glissading down. It would be a great day to ski. The snow lays quiet, flat, consolidated, like my thoughts. Time for a coffee.

Thin Ice Makes You Stronger Watching a friend grow.

Aaron and I’ve known each other since we were three. We’ve been ice climbing for five years. And despite all of that Aaron hasn’t figured out what I mean when I say, “You can totally lead this.”

I don’t mean that I think you CAN lead the pitch when I say this. I mean that I think the pitch looks iffy, and you need some encouragement in the form of a blatant lie. So I say, “No problem, you’ve totally got this,” when I’m not even sure I have it. It’s a preamble for calling it a day, and hiking over to Jeff’s Slide for some easy soloing.

Hidden Gulley is usually WI3 and good for group solos. This was not.

But Aaron needed to practice leading so, “You totally have this.” And we racked.

He stepped up. Kicked. Shattered the icicle, but could stand on the fracture’s edge. One foot hold. Hooked an inch thick drip and stood tall. One placement. The first swing wavered, the second swing wavered, the pick shook, but Aaron pulled on it.

“That’s rock” I said as his frontpoints scrapped another swatch of schist clear of snice. It was an unneeded comment. But that foot didn’t matter. He let it hang as he hip-checked and pulled on a sheer of ice. Surgical kicking and a long swing had him through and the limp rope dangled down. He kept moving.

The shout comes and I shake out. The rope comes tight and now I’m tapping delicately. Through the icicle to a tied off screw, some bulges to a fidgety nut, up to where he’d had to tie the ropes together, the lack of pro echoing into his feeding münter.

It’s liberating to step over gear, and yard on tools above the deck. But it’s just as good to see your partner grow. To see skill and confidence proved in clean leading through challenging terrain. To be able to trade the mantle of leader cleanly makes the rope stronger, the sum becomes greater than the total of the parts. I love this game.

GRAFFITIING YOUR INSTAGRAM HANDLE IN THE WOODS IS NOT COOL Welcome to the outdoors, try not to mess it up. 

Cathryn and I just got back from a cool little hike up Breakneck Ridge overlooking the Hudson river. Beautiful hike. Perfect amount of fresh air for two people fighting colds.  But we saw something ridiculous. At the top of the ridge Sharpied onto the stone was a nice piece of graffiti saying "Tag Your Instagram Handle - Keep It Going" and then a list of handles. 

Seriously?

California Ice

February 2008

We pulled off the road as the truck approached. The frozen track had space for most of a vehicle, not two.

"California?" I asked.

The driver of the truck nodded and sipped his beer. “It’s a good climb, but it’s bulletproof right now. Probably will be even harder tomorrow.”

We nodded our thanks and continued on. The wind whipped the tent into the Subaru and our snores kept each other awake.

Paul (for a while I’d thought he was Pole) had a thick British accent and was spending a year studying Engineering in Montana.

I was finishing college and eager to climb. California Ice, named for the nationality of the first ascensionists, (Formerly called Broken Leg Falls after the first attempt.) rears up four thick pitches from a narrow gulley to the summits of the surrounding peaks. It’s big. Even by Big Sky standards.

What I remember of the climb are three things. A lingering sense of failure. The beauty of the approach. And hoping zealotly that Paul’s feet held as I stared straight into his crampons.

We awoke in the dark and began the hike. Breaking off the trail onto a stream that meandered down the mountainside. On the descent we’d make twelve full length rappels down, but coming up we found playful ice bouldering with three to ten foot bulges endlessly repeating. It was unlike any other approach we’d done and we ate it up.

The climb was big. Really big. Big in a way you only understand when you see the biggest climb of your life and realize it’s only the bottom half.

Biners were flipped. I won the first lead. Screwing over Paul when thirty meters up I plugged a hanging belay at the WI3/4 line. Paul took it.

Ice shattered under the first four swings of every placement. Hanging directly under Paul, I watched his crampons skratter and skate on the steely ice, hoping he held on. He forced a screw in. WI4, a grade denoting vertical ice with few rests, was the limit of our abilities, and at 9,000 feet in hard conditions we were flailing. I’d burned up the lower less difficult section and assumed Paul would climb at a similar speed. He placed a screw and hung. And again. We were aiding. I froze in my harness.

Paul froze above. It seemed impossible. We rappelled.

For a long time I was ashamed. This climb seemed to cap a season of routine V-Threads and escapes. Now I look back at the season and see myself, young, dumb and continually pushing my limits every weekend.

Climbing Is Hard.

And that's where the fun comes in.

Babtist Draw

"Just follow the road until it becomes a Jeep trail, then drive that to the end."

The Park Ranger believed he’d given us clear directions. But an hour later the road ended and became seven Jeep trails.

We took the path more traveled.

Hours of nothing but heat and the San Rafael Swell surrounded us. Despite years spent outside in the mountains, on glaciers, climbing cliffs, we felt a rancor like no other from the landscape. No water but our few gallons. No shelter but the car. No cell service. No landscape really but an inhospitable alkaline plain. If something should happen to our rental Hyundai would anyone find us?

Cathryn drove deeper into the desert, negotiating slick and sharp rock. Eventually the faint tire tracks faded and we saw the edge of the plateau. Stop. Pack up. Unfold the print out. Hike down into the canyons. Of course we followed the trail. Of course we tried to memorize landmarks in the scrub and sandstone. But an hour later we were lost. The trail we’d followed clearly didn’t lead into a canyon. It lead west, not north and east. We’d driven all morning for a canyon and gotten a hike through scrub. If we had to hike back to the car we could quit the side hilling and hike along the dry stream bed.

The walls rose. The stream bed was looking canyonish. The walls blocked the sun.

But we weren’t total idiots wandering into canyons. Since we’d left the car Cathryn’s phone had been tracking our GPS location. And the recent our path seemed to resemble the map. We were either about to encounter a 80 foot rappel or we were lost.

The walls narrowed to claustrophobia and the floor dropped away fifteen feet. Was this something that could be chimneyed? Or should we rap?

Could we climb out? We had to stand single file. Cathryn took the rope from my pack and passed it over my head to me. The sky was a fracture of blue. Narrow and dark. I slung a sloping stone. Don’t pull up! And rapped down. Below the chockstone the space opened creating a brief free hang.

I had to walk forward to allow Cathryn space.

We cut the rope and left seventeen feet hanging. If we had to return in the dark it would aid us. We continued, removing our packs and turning sidewise.

You have to see it. The crevasses in the earth where man should not tread. They are special and ancient and indescribable.

It opened. Yawned. Spit us out to an 80 foot rappel off bolts. We’d found our route. We weren’t lost. The beauty could be savored without fear.

It was amazing with the flavor of Indiana Jones. Beautiful. We laughed and stared. Then our feet got tired. Then we realized that the directions we had wouldn’t lead us to the car.

We left the trail. Hiking straight up a a mesa. The entire landscape looked identical. We could run and stay in place visually. But we had GPS.

The car is on the next plateau. Then the next. Our arrow moving slowly towards the end of its tail. The sun set in sync with the failing batteries. We ran. Straight down a Mesa and up the next one. Gallantly I ran past Cathryn. With 2% battery and a dark sky we could find each other by voice, but not the car. Sprinting up the near vertical sandstone I ran up. Up as you only can when your footsteps collapse below you and momentum is all that keeps you upright. In physics we trust. Airplane mode, snap it off, take a bearing, snap it on and sprint. Sprint like your high school runner self with a full climbers’ pack.

Ouroboros complete.

This Porch Is An Ice Climbing Porch

Weekend DIY Climbing Project

I’d been doing pull-ups on the I-Beam supporting the roof of the deck to get in climbing shape. But I’m not strong enough to traverse the beam while free hanging. Hanging a sheet of plywood vertically seemed the easiest way to make a makeshift climbing wall. (I may work in a climbing gym, but they won’t let me play with tools there.) Then Aaron Mulkey posted this —> http://www.coldfear.com/build-wall-ice-climbing-training/ The ladder, like the pros use.

This weekend, I had the unique experience of driving Dad to the hardware store (usually the driver and project manager roles are reversed). In true Lane fashion we carefully diagramed out potential designs on paper. Both clearly understanding the blueprints, as we carefully sketched them, in the truck, while driving.

$42 of wood later the ladder only awaited some father and (not really) son work. Then came the hardest part of the whole process, securing it to the truck.

White Zombie

Pete, I owe you.

Finally, I swing a tool. I’m a few body lengths up and have been “climbing” for 45 minutes. Bolts have allowed this progression and now it’s time to transition from rock to ice. Right arm leads, followed by right foot. For a second I’m split, half on rock with bolts below, half on ice with a flow above. I finish the transition to ice, move, and grab a borrowed ice screw.

My foot pops off. Instinct grabs my ice tools, knocking out the partly drilled screw. I hear it tumble down the climb. My partner sees it fall. I reset my foot. I have no more screws. I’ve never lead before.

It was my first lead. Mixed before trad, ice before rock.

I didn’t know the climb’s name or grade. I didn’t know it’s history. I did knew there was a row of bolts that appeared to lead into an ice flow. A baseline of safety to prevent a ground fall. With the benefit of hindsight my plan was to climb White Zombie (M5) with bolted safety then transition to the post pillar portion of Thin Chance (WI4).

Wahnsinn

My belayer froze. I hung and hooked all the bolts. It was scary. It was bad, a butchering. And then there I was, within range of a ground-fall, outclassed, and unable to descend.

Eric, cold and with a better understanding of the situation cut through my fear. “Get to the tree.”

It reassured me. I put my head down and finished the climb.

Grey New England winter slides out of the monotony of the computer screen. I think it's the weekend but the days merge together in the monotone of civilized life. Too much time in a car. Too much time behind a screen.  I'm drowning in the grey sky unreflected by the matching grey keyboard. I'm below the surface and don't realize it.

Reflex kicks in? Muscle memory? I don't realize I'm drowning but something inside me does. Something inside makes me strap on skins and ski up the road.   Warmed up and breathing, I think I've broken the surface. I think I'm filling my lungs, but I'm still trapped under the grey. This is better, but it's not life. I've just found the path out.

Stash the skis. Kick steps. This will fade in memories but now there's no climbing, just steaming lungs, burning calfs, knee deep snow, the struggle up, and fear.  This fear. Not the adrenal hammer blow that shatters nerves and leaves you shaking, but the sucking fear from inside. The fear the drowned have for the sun. The infernal instinct that shouts of impossibilities, weakness, and steepness.  

You're alone. Look how steep it is. You don't know the way. You're weak. You will bail anyway, turn back now. You're not up to this. Go down. Go deeper into the grey. You don't want this. Climbing is stupid.  The grey inside knows my weak points, knows where to strike, but the approach is too long. I've broken trail for an hour, I can't turn back.  

Stop. Eat. Drink. Tie the boots on tight. Harness. Crampons. Tools. The first stretch is a ribbon that breaks the rock band. Obvious. Which is good because I've never climbed this route. Six inches wide and blue it forces me to tip toe. One foot just above the other, tools staggered. Featureless rock on either side.  

Swing.    

It's that simple but it's more beautiful.  

Cock the shoulder. Release. Let the wrist lead. Lock up and a quick tug to test. Satisfaction? Quick release of the fingers. Then grip and pull.   But really just swing.  

Kick.  

Look down. Spot the placement. Tension the arms and release the foot. Step with the toes pointed up. Kick through the step. Listen. Flex the ankle. Center your body and lock the leg in position. Look down at the other foot.  

Kick.

Swing. Kick. Kick. Swing. Swing. Kick. Kick. Kick. Swing. Kick.  

The ribbon opens up into a wide flow. Snow covers the upper section, sluffing from behind a corner.  All the lines are sharp. The colors just shades of white and black, but not grey. There is no horizon. Just sky at my back, ice above, and stone flecked snow below.  

Plunge stepping up snow. This is good. I'm almost at the surface. God damn it's good. The corner comes and I get a look up. Framed by stone  walls, three flows pour down the mountain.  Head down, I swing into the middle flow. More than a pitch of ice echoes under my front points. I don't see it. No. I see it. I register the danger. But I don't fear. I'm passed that. I cling with steel toes. Arcing swings connect with pinpoint accuracy. I've found what I came for.  I'm out of the gray. The blue ice is vibrant. The colorless landscape bleeds life. I'm alive. Noise breaks the silent world. I'm shouting. It feels good. I feel good. I'm happy. I'm out of the grey and under a harsh sun.  

I walk out of work and into David’s car. Forty-five minutes later we’re sorting gear at the base of Ed’s Crack. David’s on his 2nd/3rd trad lead, but this is the climb he’s wanted to lead since he started. We’re about to flip for pitches, when David, red faced, realizes he forgot his shoes. He squeezes into my Millets, and wins both pitches.

The hardest part of the climb is getting into it. Diving in head first gets David a piece, chimneying the outside almost works, but the old fashioned off-width attack gets David up and into fist and hand jams. The hip-jam overhang barely slows him and soon I’m jamming and smearing in running shoes.