The Scaredest I've Ever Been - Twice!!

No *@#$*#!, there I was! One Saturday morning with Jeff Wingo and Mike. None of us had ever climbed the Original Route on Whitesides before and we were using the guidebook to find the base of it. After a long bush- whacking hike we reached the point where we thought we were supposed to rope up and cast off (do you recognize the foreshadowing in that sentence?)

Everyone knows the Original Route by reputation. It's perhaps THE classic Southeastern big wall climb, and a good one to start one's adventure climbing / big wall "career" because it's rated pretty easy (only 5.9 unless you "free" the 11b bolt ladder on one of the upper pitches.

When the terrain at the base matched what the book said, we started looking for the route. Everyone knows that the first pitch (rope length) offers only one piece of protection in 110 feet or so of climbing, and when I looked up I saw an old rusty 1/4" bolt anchor at about 60 feet up. "Looks high," I thought...but then, the first pitch is only 5.7. So we unpack and I rope up.

I start climbing and it's pure friction - no handholds at all! I'm just weighting my feet gingerly to get the most out of the "sticky" rubber shoes and I'm thinking..."this sure doesn't feel like 5.7! I guess I just suck at friction climbing." I mean, after all, I was weaned in the Steep South...where so many climbs are WAY over-hanging thug fests; and chin up power is more important than the fancy footwork I was having to do now on Whitesides.

Well, the climbing just kept getting harder, and at 50+ feet I still had not been offered a single hand hold by the rock god. By now, I was pretty sure we had read the guidebook wrong and that this was no 5.7. Yet there I was, fully committed, completely unprotected from a fall because I wasn't yet at that single bolt. I was pasted on the rock with nothing but the friction of my shoes for security. My calves were burning and there was no way I could have down climbed through all that technical friction work I had just done. So I start praying that God would let me see Susan again. No, really...that's exactly what I did. I was that scared.

But then something happened that defines why alot of people climb. I found out yet again how I deal with a life-threatening situation. Many people get consumed by their fears, and it's only by facing them that we can find out what we're made of in those situations. I had had a few opportunities in my life to manage extreme fear or anxiety and I applied the method I had learned before, in the hope that it would apply to a the situation I was faced with now. I turned the fear into a dialougue. Part of my brain said "Marc, if you fall here it's gonna be real bad for you," and the rest of my brain answered resolutely that "that's why I won't...because it's not allowed here." I invoked the old axiom adopted by mountaineers in the old days when gear was just about unreliable: The leader shall not fall! Then I did what I have learned to do, and turned those butterflies in my stomach inward so I could feed on them for energy. Then I relaxed my mind by singing to myself and pretending there was a top rope attched to me so that I'd relax more and wouldn't over- tense my muscles - which might lead to a fall. Fear, then, is often self-fulfiling, so you have to minimize it.

Ten feet later, I got to clip that old rusty bolt and enjoy the first security of the rope. I hung out there next to that wonderful safety net for a solid ten minutes, I bet. I could retreat here if I were willing to leave gear and be lowered off the bolt, but that's defeat and my ego wouldn't let me do it. I eventually gathered my courage again, and cast off from the bolt. The higher I got above it, though, the less protection it offered. I knew that by the time I reached the safety of the belay ledge above, the bolt would have long since been meaningless again because the height of the ledge above it was high enough that the bolt would not be able to "catch" me before I hit the ground.

The climbing stayed technical, and I balanced and shifted my weight carefully. Looking up, I saw the safety of the ledge above, with a solid pine tree to anchor into. Tantilizingly close, I worked hard to stay focused on the rock in front of me. About 20 feet from the ledge, I finally got the first handhold of the route. It was a big tunnel of a hold that was what we call "sinker." That is, it's easy to grab and hang onto. It was a big break and offered a lot of security. I was well into ground fall - almost 100 feet above the dirt and rocks (talus) on the ground below, but the hand hold made me feel good. I took the opportnity to shake out my burning calves as much as I could while I gathered my courage to cast off yet again from a (relatively) secure position. I only had about 20 feet to go before I'd be home free at the ledge.

When I finally got to sit on the ledge and clip into the tree I was a happy man, with a feeling of having conquered. Yet I was still nagged by how hard this "5.7" pitch had felt. I assumed that I just really sucked at friction climbing - or that I was just not as bold as I wanted to think I could be. What would zen master Arno say if he knew how scared I'd been on this easy pitch? Those were my thoughts as I set up the half ropes to simultaneously bring up Jeff and Mike on a double top belay. Both of them fell more than once, and I knew them to be good climbers. When they did, I couldn't help but think ....

Both my partners marveled at how hard the "5.7" had felt, but that didn't get me off the hook with them for having taken so long. I'm known to be a slothfully slow climber anyway, so this would just become that more ammunition for them. Mike and I had been to Yosemite together and I had used my enduro-man slothy sport climb tactics there too. And then I wondered what Speed King Hans would have told me about movng so slowly. I would have told him of the fear, and he would have said, as he has to me many other other times: "if you're scared, climb faster...why stay in a bad situation any longer than you have to." I still can't process how that works for him, but - of course - it does.

About a month later, I climbed the same route the same way - only this time the rock was wet. My prior ascent gave me more confidence, but I spent the whole pitch just as scared as I had been the first time.

A couple of months later, I'm sitting around a camp fire in Alabama after a photo session with Climbing Magazine's then Photo Editor and writer Jeff Achey. Bob Ordner and a guy named Chris were also there and we start telling war stories. The topic turns to Whitesides and Jeff starts telling us about how he went up to free solo (climb without a rope) the Original Route once, but backed off the 5.9 pitch because he wasn't feeling the love that day, and downclimbed back to the ground.

I was appalled, and asked him increduously "you downclimbed that first pitch!" His response was to say "yea, I  was happy to get to those juggy handholds." I responded with "what hand holds? there's no hand holds on the first pitch!" and even as said it I reminded myself yet again that the pitch is only rated 5.7. Bob chimed in and asked about my route selection, and I told him about the bolt. When I did, all of them erupted into knee-slapping gufaws as they told each other in I-told-you-so tones that that bolt was gonna lure someone to their death someday. The real 5.7 pitch is to the right of there, they told me. And the single piece of protection the pitch offers is a TCU - not a bolt at all.

I still haven't climbed that route the right way, and I still don't know the difficulty rating of the "bolted" pitch I did on those  two occasions. Honestly, I haven't really tried to inquire much...perhaps I'm a little horrifed at myself for being gumby enough not to prep myself with the right information. Or maybe I'm afraid some friction master is going to tell me: "It's no 5.7 all right....I give it solid 5.8!"