Half Dome

View from Half Dome

As is often the case when I need to wring from the night as much sleep as possible, I awoke before the alarm.  

But my eyes didn't open.

I lay listening to the early morning bustle of birds going about their bird business in the branches above, and to the slam of a garbage truck’s steel door echoing through the forest, and to the soft voices of families awakening in nearby tent-cabins.  My body was sore.  I could feel the subtle curves of earth below it, as well as the prick of broken leaves that had sneaked into my sleeping bag and marauded my side.  Where my arm and shoulders were not covered, their skin was cool, as were the curls of greasy hair against my forehead.  I was trying to summon myself back into unconsciousness in hopes of becoming rested, but the darkness would not return.

I opened my eyes and, indeed, there was daylight.  It fell down in shafts from the canopy of black oaks and cedars, illuminating a chaotic mess of downed trees, fallen boulders, and enterprising saplings.  The slam of the garbage truck echoed again through the trees; then the truck roared and faded away.  Still I tried, even with my eyes open, to rest, but the buzz of a scouting mosquito bested me.  There is no such thing as a solitary mosquito.

I rose to all fours and craned my neck to see Blair in infantile sleep, a downed tree between us.  He used no pillow and only half a pad to sleep on, meaning his face and legs were well acquainted with dirt.  For the moment, however, his face was obscured by tangled locks of hair.  I fully rose and began pulling on my smudged and holy clothes, sliding on socks that crinkled with yesterday’s  sweat, smelling my own stale body on my shirt.  Blair asked the time in a less than cheerful tone.  “Seven,” said I, to which Blair did not respond.  Suddenly, though,he rose, raking leaves out of his hair and the day began.

We pulled our packs from the bear locker and stuffed down a breakfast of tortillas, bars, cream cheese, and apples, then jogged to catch the already-arrived bus.  Soon, I was following Blair’s quiet form down a dust and manure covered path.  The river ran happily beside us, babbling like a toddler, then veered away while we turned up a narrow, unmarked path--a climber’s trail.

The trail ascended a steep slope called the “Death Slabs”.  Though I don’t know of anyone specific who has died on them, their treacherous qualities at least inspire thoughts of mortality.  They are steep, water-polished ramps layered with scree, sand, and boulders that form a sort of giant, dilapidated stairway to Half Dome.  At each natural terrace, where the trail is intersected by a cliff,  the trail remains passable only with the aid of frayed and tattered climbing ropes.

We picked our way delicately up the scree fields, avoiding the most precarious stones, but occasionally loosing rocks that careened down the cliffs below.  At the cliff bands, we kept our balance with the frayed ropes and greasy, exposed roots.  We talked little, but what conversation surfaced was superficial. Mostly, I breathed and considered the endurance of my legs while Blair listened to Dave Matthew’s voice trickling out of the iPod in his backpack.

When the trail finally met Half Dome’s vast wall of granite, it turned left and wandered along the base.  We passed a full haul bag, capped jauntily with a climber’s helmet, standing watch for the men whose gear it would bear to the brink.  Finally, after clawing our way up tunnels of grasping manzanita, the climber's trail ran headlong into the wall, turned into a climbing route, and zigzagged up the crack systems above us, a landmark in climbing history.

Where the trail met the wall was excavated a small spring--little more than a puddle, but overflowing.  Assorted bags of gear were strewn about the base of the first pitch, along with discarded shoes and clothing.  We could see a team of three (who presumably owned the gear) fiddling with ropes a few hundred feet up.  A line was strung between trees for hanging food.  Errant breezes brought the stench of feces to our noses.

We stripped ourselves of packs and sweat-soaked shirts, taking some moments to eat, drink, and think.  Blair hung our bits of food from the line to prevent tampering by animals, and we sifted through the contents of our packs, pulling from them strands of clanging carabiners, a rope, and helmets.  Soon thereafter, a member of the team above came rappelling down on tangled ropes.  “We’re bailing,” he said in an English accent.  “We thought we were ready; I guess we weren’t.”  
I passed his partners, still untangling their ropes, halfway up the first pitch.  I offered encouraging words as I balanced by, but I wasn’t feeling good.  I wasn’t trusting my feet.  I was holding my breath.  Even the fourth-class section felt uncertain and I could feel Blair’s impatience zinging up the rope electrically.  Recently, he had climbed the route in seven hours without applying himself; I had climbed it once, five years prior, and had taken nineteen.

Blair in the lower pitches.  A bailing party below.

The nineteen hour attempt almost killed me.  I somehow managed to get off-route and neglected to place protection due to steadily increasing rope drag.  I had been making for a tattered piece of blue webbing which I hoped, incorrectly, was the appropriate anchor.  But all the while the friction was intensifying as it ran through carabiners and over dull corners.  I was approaching the blue webbing, which was looking less and less like a legitimate anchor, but the climbing was getting steeper and the rope-drag was pulling at my hips like a lead skirt.  I remember looking down at the rope zig-zagging through protection far below and realizing that, if I were to fall, it would mean at least one hundred feet of bouncing and tumbling down steep granite.  I didn’t expect to survive it.  In another few feet, I found myself clawing up a mossy ramp, the blue webbing just out of reach.  I was beginning to feel as if I couldn’t go on--as if the friction of my shoes was finally being bested by the weight around my hips.  Panic surged into my head.  Just as I felt I was going to keel off into space, I noticed a rusty, old piton protruding from the crack in front of my nose, and promptly stacked two fingers on top of it.  It was enough to stay me.  Then, holding my breath, I replaced my fingers with a carabiner and labored the rope up into it.  I remember thinking of church and angels and prayer.

The moment stuck with me for five years.  As I teetered and tip-toed my way up those slabs again, I was prostrated once more.  By the time I reached the end of the “Robbins Traverse” I had completely fried my nerves with anxiety, and, had Blair not taken the lead voluntarily, would have begged him to do so.

Blair led his pitches nonchalantly--his grungy hair blowing in the breeze, his capri pants smeared with as much dirt as ever, as if he was a piece of earth resurrected, some assembly of dirt and leaves that awoke to climb and that would meld back into the forest floor afterwards.  He didn’t notice the gaping nothingness, the remarkableness of his position.   He placed gear out of habit rather than self-preservation, and declined my offers to take his photo.  He was a little angry, I think, at my disappointing performance--for making him hike all the way up the Death Slabs for a mediocre ascent.  “I don’t understand what you’re freaking out about,” he said.  “There’s not even any exposure up here!”.  I looked behind me at one thousand feet of air, and laughed.

Blair in the double cracks.

It came my turn to lead again and, again, I felt paralyzed with fear.  I was aid climbing through the famous “Zig-zags” and my heart rate was soaring for no reason.  Each shift and click of the carabiners sent my stomach clawing up my esophagus and each free-move looked impossible from below.  But somehow, with some prayers and a silly song, I managed my way up.

At the end of my pitches, I poked my head over a ledge and saw a man with wild hair feeding rope through a device.  “Gregg!” he yelled in a thick Irish accent, “I’m going to demolish the anchor!”  A faint response, mixed with wind, floated down from above and the Irishman began pulling gear out cracks and untying knots.  He greeted me in a tired way and made room on the ledge.  I fixed the line for Blair who ascended much faster than his weary partner preferred.  He arrived with a shout: “My Irish buddies!  What the hell?!”  Apparently he knew them from elsewhere.  They made quick salutations though the Irishman seemed rather nervous and preoccupied.

We were just a hundred feet or less from the top, residing just below “the visor”, a giant overhanging lip of rock that reached out over us like a canopy.  “We haven’t had but three liters of water for the two days,” one of them said as the sun beat down on them.  “We’re unbearable thirsty.”  I looked down at my empty bottle and tried to console them.  The wild-haired one was leading up above, running back and forth between the rock and a bleached blue sky.  It was beautiful, really, seeing his hair blow back behind him, a half-mile of air below.  The Irishman was swearing and struggling to sink a piece of gear into a crack.  He was running along the rock and diving towards the desired crack, a piece of gear in hand.  It’s an action which requires some grace and coordination, neither of which he was able to demonstrate.  Finally, after careening across the rock one last time, rolling and bouncing, he gave up.  “Why don’t we let these fine gentleman pass us,” his belayer said.  An act which Blair quickly executed.  Just before I pulled over the brink, I saw the Irishman successfully make the move and continue tiredly up the slab.  

The Irsihman

A moment later, I was barefoot on top of Half Dome, watching the sun approach the horizon and wildfires flare on a ridge far below.  Their smoke rose into the air mixing with the sun’s rays to create blazing, rose-red projections across the sky.  Blair had scampered off to be alone, presumably to recuperate from the frustration he experienced at my slow pace, but I didn’t mind as much as I otherwise might have.  The air was cooling with the oncoming night, and the mountains were as beautiful as I had ever seen them.  

Blair, hiked barefoot down to the start of the route.  I followed in worn-out climbing shoes, gingerly scampering along and trying to keep pace with Blair’s shaggy form. I winced when my toes jammed especially hard into the fronts of my shoes.  As I descended, the wall beside me grew steadily higher and starker until it again rose into the sky like the gates of Heaven, unpierceable and endless.  

I stopped to rest my toes and to photograph the sunset which was becoming increasingly inflamed.  When I stood up to hobble further, I extended my toes to meet the next boulder.  Having sore feet and being born on exhausted legs, I reached out to Half Dome for balance.  Cool crystals of rock roughened my palm.  The steadiness of a billion tons stabilized my weary gait.  I looked up.  The wall was burning with failing sunbeams.  Ancient water stains streaked its face.  I leaned against the stony bulwark to ease my sore feet and was balanced by its immovable form.

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Blair stayed out in front most of the time, motivated to get back to his home, the Valley.  I savored my time in back.  The sunset soon extinguished itself behind the horizon and a deep gray descended. By the time we came crashing out of the manzanita and found the mandatory rappel, the gray was almost black.  Blair whisked down the rope, the sound of Dave Matthews trailing away with him.  As his headlamp faded, my eyes adjusted to the stars, my ears to the sound of crickets.

Sunset

We fell many times on the way down.  The grating sound of a shoe sliding along rocks became common place.  It was often followed by the heavy sound of a body and backpack crunching against stones.  Thankfully, intentionally, we never fell when it mattered.  The giant stairway was down-climbed carefully by headlamp, with many of the same greasy roots employed for balance.   Soon enough, I was submerged in the deeper darkness of the forest and found Blair waiting for me on the old horse trail.  

The last bus pulled into the bus stop just as we ran up to it, our headlamps bobbing in the night.  The bus driver welcomed us with a wave into her vehicle’s fluorescent bath and humming vibrations.  A few, clean tourists contented themselves to stare.

Upon reaching the parking lot, Kelli met us with a wide smile and a peaceful demeanor.  We sat talking with her in the dark--sipping cider, crunching potato chips, exchanging stories from our days.  While her and Blair were still catching up, I dug my toothbrush out of my pack and meandered towards the bathroom.  

In the bathroom, I found myself staring like the tourists do.  I was half-way through brushing my teeth when I noticed it.  My face was dark with sunburn and layers of grit.  My lips were cracked.  The ragged blue shirt was hanging from my shoulders, transparent in some regions, completely worn through in others.  The scabs on my shoulders caught its fibers like Velcro.  I could feel them when I moved.  They peppered my elbows, shoulders, shins, and fingers.  My eyes were off-white--the wrinkles around them accentuated with grime.  I looked older.  I looked tired.

Blair and I slept in our spot in the forest again, the downed log dividing us.  Pine needles and twigs were sticking to my side, and Blair was wrapped in tangled hair and leaves.  

 I awoke in the night with cool skin, to pull the sleeping bag up around me.  Frogs and crickets chirped freely among the trees.  The night sky shone brightly between branches. 
Meanwhile, high above our camp, the walls of the valley loomed tall and silver with smoky haze washing against their lower reaches.  Still higher above them loomed Half Dome, its vast face no more than a shadow among the stars. And somewhere even further away was the memory of a piton and some blue webbing--of shaking fear, a silly song and a friend's hair blowing in the wind.

Summit Photo