Original Dirt Route

March 4th, 5th, 2010

Route: Original Dirt Route

J.B. Haab and myself are aiming for different lines. Luckily enough for us, the two lines share an origin, reached by four meandering pitches with a wildly vegetated and unroped traverse in the middle. At the base, we pull out the gear. We talk up the route, hyping it. I videotape J.B. He jokes about hearing the crowds rushing up the valley to hop on our grimy climb. We’re calling it the Original Dirt Route. While the name doesn’t quite charm the crag climbers and boulderers and chalk-mark chasing trad climbers, the adventurous demon in our hearts lights up with a warm smile at the name, licking it’s caramel chops and gleaming with guilty anticipation. What does the name mean? It means that there are cracks, yes. Dirty, tree-infested traverses, scrambles, chimneys, and more chimneys. And all of that is worth it to reach our two lines staring down at us from above. Why? We are cats at heart. I am a lion. J.B. is a bobcat. And we’re too curious about the potential of majesty in the form of a queen crack Royal would’ve loved to touch.Anyone watching us from afar would think we were lost on the wall. We’re aiming for the tower, El Hache (the axe), on what we’re calling Cerro Cacique (Mount Chieftain). And yet, at times it seems like we’re heading away from it. But it’s all part of the flight of the bumble bee. You have to do a dance to swoon the tower and show it you mean business, at times taking the long, meandering route.

J.B. and I trade off pitches. By the time we reach our dreamed-about “cracks”, we see the worst-case scenario running smoothly in front of us. The two lines we were most excited about – a splitter-looking diagonal traverse crack and a spidery, lightning-like winding set of curving cracks – were both false shadows of flaring nothings. Thanks be to Poseidon it didn’t rain and thanks to Hephaestus, we still had the fun chimney chiseled out in front of us. The tower’s backside chimney grants us a lovely back up plan. But still, the disappointment is hard to shake. It runs thick like clots magnetized to our hearts that draw closer our centers, slowing our pulses in disbelief. Keeping an eye on the positive and being happy with what we have, we ready ourselves for more chimney variations!The nice thing about climbing things that have never been climbed before is that you are almost guaranteed an experience that teaches you a new lesson, one that you will unlikely be able to forecast or forget. I am usually able to prognosticate my fate, but my magic eight ball didn’t fit in my pack and my shaman powers have been wearing off ever since I stopped believing in their validity. But seriously, being a sage is much less interesting than the path to becoming one. Just ask the Sagittarius J.B. Haab whose birthday lies very close to mine. (J.B., I won’t forget twice, haha!) What I’m getting at here is that not only is climbing first ascents one sure way to learn a lot, but a huge role in my development as a climber and lesson-learner has been the people I have climbed with. J.B. is a role model in general, and his on the wall decision-making and fortitude of mind are exemplary, guiding me through the good times, the bad times, and yes, the ugly times!So what did I learn? Let’s delve into the issue of fixing ropes. For Cochamó, I had a 300 meter static rope. I’d never had a spool of rope before. I can’t tell you how many times I flaked that rope to get the kinks out that were left from being on a spool. But I diverge from the focus of the story. Climbing O.D.R., we empirically learned that some places – and routes – are better for fixing ropes than others. Sometimes it makes more sense to go light and fast than fix ropes. Another major factor when considering fixing ropes is the topography of the rock. We ended up having to cut my rope into three sections of 60-ish meters and one extra portion of 20 meters, which we used for tat. All of this was thanks to abrasions sustained by jugging, or jumaring on the rope. Even fixing it in increments of 90 meters was a lot for a route with so many contours, naturally giving the rope major incisions. Alas, the voluptuous hips of ODR did my rope in, giving birth to four ropes. Anyhow, there are many more lessons learned, these are just a few involving large, fixed ropes that I thought wise to share with the curious faction of readers out there.One of the grandest victories granted to us by ODR was the incredible, holistic view of the more coherent west side of Valle Trinidad. We had a front-row seat in an empty theatre to gaze endlessly at our future projects. And of course the lion and bobcat took great pride – haha – in soaking it all in as the mane event drew nearer.

As annoying as it was having many trees and much vegetation on the route, it did add an excellent benefit. Namely, we didn’t need to put in many fixed belay or rappel stations. Instead, we saved time, bolts, and the original condition of the dirty route by rappelling off of them!The grandeur and scale of this valley’s mountains is stunningly apparent while climbing this route, with the backdrop of the valley floor, Cerro Laguna, and Pared de Gorila. I couldn’t help but feel a little like I’d become a content Major Tom out there. Just with more to look at. And no sardines. But lots of dried, powdered foods and beverages!

One memory that stands out in my time in Cochamó comes from my time in the refugio. Near the end of my four months in the beautiful wilderness, having my heart wrapped around the streams and fingers of friends I thought of as family, Zenon handed me a picture he had drawn for me. It was a man with eight arms, drawn in pencil on a small piece of paper. I was oddly very touched by this. Zen and I had by this time spent many hours – or centuries – together. He had climbed me calling me a mountain. I had chased him as if I was a dragon. We had run away together to Bremen hoping to form a band. We had a simply deep understanding of one another. If he went to adventure in the trees and climb them behind the house/refugio, we’d take turns wearing the helmet and carrying the backpack. We never expected a gift. I could see his heart in my hands when I held that paper with a man with eight waving arms.

“Thanks, Zen! What is it? A man with…[I paused to count the arms] eight arms?”

“No. It’s a man with many arms!”

“Oh! You’re right!” I realized at that moment that Zen had something. He wasn’t a hermit, but he had the vista of the world in front of him. It made so much sense. How many routes were there? How many good days have passed? How many friends have we here? It cut through the counting. Counting wasn’t the point. Appreciating it as mysterious and the magnitude as grandeur was the glamour in it.

I look back now upon Cochamó, the trails and routes, the lovely people, and I see a picture of my time there drawn in pencil on paper perfectly representing the many good times.

Cheers!

Goosebumps

February, 2010Behold: Goosebumps, 5.11a, 150m on Pared Pata de Pato.20 minutes up the talus field. Water with Tang, check. Rack, ropes, bolting kit, check, check and check. Josh, Vishal, clear skies, yups. Tabanos, dang. Looks like we got everything. Who wants to lead? I guess I will. Josh put it well: a rescue that humbled us all. I took lead, alright. What I didn’t expect was to be runout so far above my last piece, thinking it would pull anyways. Groundfall potential, ‘X’, makes me feel fuzzy, not warm.
Needless to say, we end up having discussions and putting in a few bolts. The climb varies a lot pitch to pitch. It has corners, walking a knife-edge rail, cracks, and slab, including a glorious slab traverse: the crux, of course.
Since this route was obviously one that others would like to climb, it became our philosophical duty to toss every last bruising block of loose rock off that route and to scrape every parasitic posse of glossy moss off. That meant loosing the curve on our nut tools, and the bristles on our brushes. What we didn’t expect was to want any of these things once they were gone.
Sitting on the ledge atop pitch 3, Josh was hammering in the bolt with a steady clink, clink. When all of a sudden, the hammerhead flies off the hammer. I thought it was a rock, watching it bounce off the wall and into the thick of the woods. We all laughed in disbelief. That is, until we saw that the bolt wasn’t completely in.
We had to look for loose rocks. But we had just finished watching them all bounce their way down the granite. I walked out on the ledge and near its edge I found one last decent-sized rock. Josh started pounding the rock, hoping that the bolt would be secure before the rock broke apart. It worked – and we’re off! We’re climbing for our lives now, running away from the thwards of angry, homeless ants, rampaging against us because we threw their rock roofs off!
The main tasks in front of us were not climbing this route, because it could be climbed quickly in a number of hours with one 70-meter rope. It was cleaning it and equipping it. I had purchased a cordless Hilti power drill with two batteries for this trip. However, because the refugio did not have electricity at the time, I couldn’t recharge it. So after the batteries were used up, which happened just as we were beginning this route, we had to bolt by hand. Now, usually bolting by hand means that you have a bolt kit with a drill bit, and a handle that makes it comfortable to hold and turn while also hammering. Josh had just sold his. I never had one. I did, however, bring hockey tape, which we used to make a round, sticky bulge on the drill bit, simulating a handle. As you will see in a number of these pictures, we are all bolting by hand, caveman style! This is notably more time-consuming than having a hand-drill or a power drill. On the other hand, it makes the experience more memorable while making drilling with a power drill seem ever so luxurious!
And, appropriately so, Josh coined the name Goosebumps for the route that gave us all shivers and piel de gallina. It’s a double-entendre because I had previously named the feature the route lies on Pared Pata de Pato, or foot of the duck, for its striking resemblance thereto.After cleaning and equipping the route, we went to conquer it. As a finishing touch of good tidings, Cornelius the Condor, who had once swooped by me, almost caressing my harness in Frey, Argentina, did so again. As he careened around the invisible corners of the sky, all three of us stopped climbing and belaying to pay our respects to the King of Patagonia!As first ascensionists who put a lot of time and effort into this route, it was our pleasure to wake up one day to some visitors, a rare occurrence in the newly opened Valle Trinidad. They wanted to climb our freshly scrubbed and beleagueredly bolted route! Josh had a newly written topo replete with drawings and an animated goosebump that he was happy to share with our guests. The two soon struck off up the talus field that we had hiked so many times before. With our monocular, we shared their progress and saw them hesitate at the different cruxes. We shouted victorious congratulations from the Food Rock to our friends. That is, before it was time again for us to suit up and lay siege on our unfinished projects that lay all around us in waiting!

Tatonka

January 31st-February 11th, February 21st, 2010New Route: Tatonka 5.10a, featuring: Goats, Chickens, and Lizards, 5.6R and El Ciego, 5.11b, RA conquering we did go! First up, Tatonka. The giant slab called and we came. The first 300 meters or so are a calf-aching unroped friction trek.Then there are a few moderate pitches. The route is very a la choose your own adventure. Hence the many variations, some worthy of being featured. Eventually the route comes to an excellently arching hand to finger crack at “The Trad Crag”, which sports three different and interesting two-pitch traditional routes before continuing to the summit!It took us about two weeks in total to finish this route. Why? It's not because I took too many photos while on lead, such as the photo above. The main culprit and suspect for stealing time was that we bolted almost the entire route by hand. Not by hand drill. I mean we took hockey tape and climbing tape and some duct tape and made a small handle for the drill bit, and we hammered that granite with all of our might!
Griping ensued. Laughter followed that. And we took turns. Since I was the one who had purchased the Hilti drill, I felt mostly responsible for our conundrum and may have taken more bolts than the others, but I still feel I owe them one! Luckily, I was able to have them both use the drill and feel the joy of putting in a bolt in 30 seconds as opposed to 30 minutes!In seeking another reason why this route took us so long to complete I look at its many variations. Being climbers through and through, we had no choice but to help ourselves to each and every one of them! Take, for example, the Goats, Chickens, and Lizards 5.6 R variation. These two pitches, pictured below, offer a fun and easy runout way to get from the base of the Trad Crag to the final roped pitch on Tatonka. The name of this route has its own history, too, which makes it that much more enjoyable for anyone who knows the three of us and the story. I don't really want to divulge the story, but let's just say there's a lot of love in the world just from the three of us.Here's a cool picture of a lizard, too. These lizards scampered all over the place in Cochamó and were our pals. They ate tabanos. We killed tabanos and gave them to the lizards. Born buddies, we were!A fortunate result of the many variations and changing contours on the route Tatonka is that the view varies greatly from pitch to pitch. You surmount different sections of rock, eliminating the previous view but gaining another. For starters, marching up 300-500 meters of slab and dike is something I had not previously done unroped. The view and exposure were both highly appreciated.The summit of Cerro Laguna is unequivalently gorgeous. You can hike around the top and play eyewitness to the crimes of beauty committed by each and every adjacent granite-walled valley.Speaking of gaining the summit. I’m from Maine, and having spent over a year in Bariloche, Argentina and Frey. Needless to say, I am comfortable with snow. My Chicago- and Denver-bred Special Ops buddies – if they are, in fact, from where they say they are from – were, however, not so fond of the snow. I distinctly recall seeing them tiptoeing delicately to gain solid rock ground again, where they felt much more at ease to scramble. They practically arrested me for running, sliding, and jumping my way down the snow packs on our descent. I don’t mean to give the impression that I’m reckless, either. I have rules based on observations that govern how fast and where I navigate the snow. I am especially wary, of course, of the areas nearest the edges of the rock where the melting tends to be greatest, and so forth.Rock and snow included, it was all great fun. To take off the ropes and just plunge upwards to an increasing view, as in the Sound of Music, but with more granite and sharper contrasts superimposed, was to revamp my pulse.The scale of grandeur in Cochamó bewilders even the bold. Josh virtuously attacked his variation to Tatonka, “El Ciego” with blind patience. He made noises I had never heard him make before. And he’s a weird noise making robot. The runout was palpable, especially as I dangled in its midst, close to Josh, snapping photos silently, as he stepped directly into his sea of fear. Do robots fear? The determination and strength that Josh hosts within, when put into action is truly a sight to behold and be impressed by. Check out the steep slab and the runout displayed in the following pictures.I forget that Vishal hasn’t been climbing long. The guy’s ripped. And he already has more first ascents than Armstrong has yellow jerseys. But what strikes me even more is that his ratio of climbing first ascents to established climbs is so polarized opposite of most climbers. He barely knows what it’s like to climb without cleaning and bolting. On a big wall. Cragging and bouldering must seem silly to him. Plastic even more so. I can barely imagine what this is doing to his expectations and desires. But he takes it all in stride. He lets us do the choosing. We tried to tell him, “Vish, you get to choose what route we open next,” to which he responded, “Guys, I don’t even know what I’m looking for!”Also, both Vishal and Josh speak Spanish, which is nice for a change: I like having gringo companions with whom we can communicate in Spanish or English, and who can take care of themselves in conversations with locals. Moreover, speaking Spanish is a symptom of a type of traveler who likely likes to adapt, be considerate, and get involved. As a result, we all get a long like keys in a cod, bees in a bod, knees in a nod, or peas in a pod – a spacepod.It seems like just this morning we had mate and cereal with granola and oatmeal, and left our boots and shoes on the bottom part of the giant slab to begin our hike up to climb Cerro Laguna’s Tatonka...

Special Ops

Late January, Early February, 2010Special Ops. That’s who we are. We have nicknames, too, of course. There’s Robot, Token, and Thor. Or, respectively: Josh, Vishal, and myself, previously called out as milkshake. My first interactions with these characters took place in a game of rock bocce ball in the La Junta camping area. I should note that at the time “S” Joe was with them. As was Gary. Gary had the camera and was eating up the experience like a New Yorker eats up bagels and thin crusted, pizza sized pizza slices.

Although every individual had their own characteristics, such as Vishal’s drunken dwarf persona, or Josh’s omniscient yet incapable, the dynamic of the group was also fascinating and, well, dynamic. Let me briefly introduce you to these two pals of mine who taught me many valuable lessons, some of which I am whole-heartedly trying to forget! First up, Joshua Cook. Hailing from Denver/Boulder, Colorado, he stands with a shaved head. He likes his hair short and keeping it short was one of his prerogatives during a rainy week in Puerto Varas. Josh is gutsy. He also cares more than he appears to care at second glance and third inspection, and really he likes big hugs. He wears a big poofy down jacket, which just aids him in begging to be hugged. Actually, come to think of it, so did Vishal. Anyways, he has more stories than zebras have tongues and stripes combined, and can share them in 4D. A part-time helmet decorator, he's been known to carry his own travel kit for making art. I have a suspicion that he needs to release the inner artist every once in a while, else he must submit himself to being taken over by him. But seriously, his writing and art is legit, too legit to give up. Or go unnoticed. Ummm, here he is sitting on Food Rock!
Next up, Vishal Patel. Vishal's from Chicago and on more than one occasion invited me to come visit his family there - whether or not he was present - for some excellent cooking. That's how inviting Vishal is. On the flipside, Vishal is also very accepting. Most of the time Josh and I would have some grande plan or keen scheme that we were working on and before we could even invite Vishal he was on board, as excited about our could-bes and may-bes as we were. Vishal's energy and perspective resonate invisibly with those around him. A tragedy could strike and Vishal would have you reacting constructively before you even opened your mind up to think. Really, I'm still trying to figure him out. His memory is great. His attitude is at altitude for aptitude. And, beyond having a cool uncle, I want to know why and how he came to be this way. Really, there's nothing wrong with Vishal. Better yet, he's exceptional. That's why we called him Token. He was too good to get a weird nickname. Sorry, Vishal. Until you show us what's weird about you, you're stuck with Token. Deal?Back to the story. Soon I was lured into an effort to climb a new route up Cerro Arcoiris. Or so I thought. Of course, before climbing Arcoiris, one must first get to Arcoiris. I spent at least one day with them hiking up streams and little waterfalls, jumping into rivers and pushing through thickets. There was lots of laughter to be had. They sang the milkshake song and I danced. Picnicing in our failed attempt, they shared some luxurious tortilla with me and I cut them salami. After that, I left them to continue trying their luck at that rainbow that didn’t touch down while I went off to follow my own pursuit: opening a trail through Valle Trinidad. It wasn’t until I had it opened and told them of all the gloriously virgin walls of solid granite that they themselves started to hear the sirens a-calling. They came.Our first escapade together in the valley was not a new climb. The three of them were heading up to Cerro Trinidad to try Alendalaca, 9 pitches, 7b (French grading system). We crossed paths halfway down the old Trinidad trail as I hiked down with Tate Shepherd after over a week of serious first ascents and trail pioneering (Read: Riding the Whale, Evolución, New Trail). They asked me if I would join them in the morning and make two pairs rather than one team of three. I was exhausted. My hands were swollen to Hulk size from all of the climbing, sawing, and machete use, and the burning muscle-growing sensation in my legs was so constant that they burned even in my dreams. And yet, their bright smiling eyes reminded me of how great it is to push yourself. The dream must continue. So I said, “Maybe.” Josh laid it down, “No, we need to know if you’re going to join us: yes or no.” “Oh,” I paused, weighing my tired legs in my mind, “Ok. Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” Oops! Tate couldn’t believe I had said ok, which made two of us. Made two of us laugh at me. I worked logistics in my head as we hiked our packs back down to the camping area and refugio.Here are the logistical results: I started hiking back up in the darkness at midnight, arriving in good time, but even more depleted before an intense a.m. climb. My eyes were tired because my headlamp was meager and because I hadn’t slept yet. Joe was in his hammock under the bivy boulder, where I’d left my tent. I crawled in to sleep and dreamt away. Soon I was awoken for the climb. It felt like I hadn’t slept at all.There’s more to the story of this climb than I’m going to tell you. It includes runouts, stellar, scary pitches, a peering condor, a dislocating shoulder on the second pitch, and a bail involving a few lost stoppers and a pair of cold climbers hunkering down as an approaching storm showed us how unprepared we were. Not the most impressed I’ve made myself. But, a very interesting start to some great friendships and a special camaraderie! Happy to be OK, and disgruntled for our silly mistakes, we snap a group photo before hiking back to the Bivy Boulder. It was something like 11 silly p.m. when we got back to eat. What a day. I’m glad the storm didn’t crash down on us while we were on the wall.A storm did indeed come to Cochamó, though. Somehow they convinced me that seafood, a restock mission, and a taste of civilization was just what I needed after two months away in the rainforest. Supermarkets seemed strange, with all their fluorescents and bags and boxes and cartons and jugs that remained even when no one wanted them. So many plastics, I couldn’t imagine more. You could have colored the plastics and had a McDonald’s play place right there in the supermarket. But they were right. I needed more vegetables, dried fruits and variety in my meals. And fresh seafood tasted very good, too.As did a vegetarian sandwich made with homemade mayonnaise by an awesome turban-touting chef with whom I exchanged jokes every late night while we waited for him to make the sandwiches right in front of us. The tempest lasted about a week. We just imagined ourselves stuck in a tent watching waterfalls cruising down the granite walls, and we were happy that we’d come down to town. “S” Joe left us to travel elsewhere. And we were left the three of us, Special Ops, to test our wits on new walls!Tatonka, as you will read, was the first bull to fall to Special Ops’ keen climbing team. We had, however many smaller escapades on the side. Thanks to the can of whoop-ass that Vishal carried in his booming chest, and the never-ending supply of yearning for risk that robot Josh had, our rest days soon fell prey to side adventures. We would go with Josh to Canine Cave and open a single pitch here or there. Rather, Josh would open. Vishal and I would follow, wondering all the while how Josh managed to climb with such a giant pair of, um, vision and commitment.One day, after opening Tatonka and Goosebumps (See: upcoming posts on Tatonka and Goosebumps), the three of us were hiking down the 300m of slab with our harnesses still on. Nearing the bottom, I stopped with Josh to take a look around at our incredible surroundings. Green and granite were everywhere to be seen. One version of paradise sprawled in panorama in front of us. Thus far I had chosen what formations we set off to discover. It was time to share the decision-making reigns. Namely, it was Josh’s turn to pick out where we climbed and which summit we would strive to reach next. Josh looked towards the Tetris wall. He had already made up his mind.This brought us up the same talus field that we knew so well, leading us up past Canine Cave. First we had a struggle of an attempt up a few pitches of a previously tried-and-failed, undocumented route up Pared Tetris, as we were calling it, on Cerro Gorila. We, too, were turned away. Undeterred, we came back and pulled out all of our aces, reaching our third summit together. Blockhead, we named the route, for its many blocks, loose and intact. For all of its inherent risk, the route has some quite enjoyable pitches and it was a lot of fun to switch gears from the time-consuming method of cleaning and bolting to the light and fast style of running up and down leaving only minimal, necessary traces: a few bits of grass pulled out of a crack here, a bit of tat around a tree to rappel, etc. Quick and light…it felt so right!I hope I get to climb/camp with Joshua Cook and Vishal Patel again soon. But wait: there’s more! We had the entire month of February! You didn’t think we merely conquered one wall, did you?! That was just one day!Stay tuned for more on Special Ops’ philosophies, discoveries, and memories.