Ol' Man Wilson, you are a grumpy SOB

“Here it is,” I yelled over to Kevin, fatigue beginning to wear into more voice, and pointed to the “anchor” for our next rappel. This “anchor” consisted of two old nuts shallowly stuck into a crack. Considering some of our prior anchors included of a single nut or just a lassoed chock-stone, two nuts was practically “bomber.” As I looked down at my pointing hand, I saw it shaking in the glow of my headlamp. I guess I am more uncomfortable than I had thought. “Pull it together Mike!” I thought. Sure when this day started nearly 14 hours ago I had envisioned the adventure wrapping up right now at the car and my beloved package of Oreos. As I peered over the next ledge, looking into a black void without any sight of a boundary, much less bottom, it now seemed like the adventure was just beginning.

It was Spring break for me, and like any responsible individual shirking off the “real world” by hiding behind the ivory tower of university, I blew off actually getting work done and headed for Vegas. My trip to Vegas was slightly different those most, my final destination was actually about 20miles west of “the Strip,” out in the desert, Red Rocks Park. For the final day of our trip, we decided to climb a route called Inti Watana on Mt. Wilson (this was Kevin’s idea, for the record…). Inti Watana ended short of the summit, but we could link up with the top of another climb, Resolution Arete, and make the summit. Inti Watana is a 12 pitch climb, and the summit would add roughly 6 more pitches. While the first 12 would all be technical and steep, it sounded like the top of Resolution Arete included a couple technical moves and the rest was a scramble. Needless to say, we were looking at a long day. Jokingly, I told Kevin we could only do this if I had time to take a shower before my 6:50AM flight the next day. Done! Timing out the day, we figured 1.5hr approach, ½ hr to get set and start the first pitch, then ½ per pitch, give 2hrs buffer for the top of Resolution. We had a couple options for the descent. We could either do a series of rappels (yuck!) or something along the lines “walk down the water polished third gully to a rappel, then hike out of Oak Creek Canyon.” While the latter prescribed a 4.5hr trip down, we were fast hikers. It was a very generous timeline, but if we left the car at 6AM, I would be back to my beloved Oreos by around 8:30PM. Long day, but pretty doable, and again, we are fast hikers.

Nearly to the top of Inti Watana we were right on schedule, actually 15minutes early. What an amazing day it had been. Every one of the 12 pitches had been some of the most enjoyable climbing I had ever done. Even the tricky moves that I had feared would stifle me, had been tough but conceded smoothly to me. Then I had the thought that when you see it in a movie you think, “That was the most cliché foreshadowing statement!” Recalling some of our past “last day adventures,” this was turning into being uncharacteristically un-epic for us. But it did not matter, what a fantastic day we were having!!

The top of Resolution Arete (RA) was a stark contrast to Inti Watana. While not technically difficult, the moves were awkward, protection very poor, and rock crumbling. Kevin would commonly have 30+ foot run-outs, above a piece of protection stuck into crumbling rock. After I had a handhold break off in my hand, I knew this was not the place to trust protection catching any type of fall. Considering the quality of the rock, some of the “scrambles” seemed worthy of being roped up (looking down a several thousand foot drop off can be very convincing of the importance of a rope). To make a long story short, the top 6 pitches of RA became around 10 pitches for us. When we finally summited, the clock read 5:30PM, we were already an hour behind schedule.

The summit was fantastic. A great view of Vegas in the distance and blue skies blanketed us. I feared a similar experience as Whitney where the cold wind and temperatures would immediately chase us off the summit, but the top of Mt. Wilson was the most pleasant conditions we had experienced all week. After some pictures, high-fives, and the freedom of our feet from climbing shoes, we were on our way back down.

Immediately, the descent was not going well. After finding three cairns, the fourth played “hide-and-go-seek” with us, and the fifth played “I don’t exist” with us. But we decided on a gully the guidebook vaguely described. As the gully walls quickly steeped we were soon committed to our “third gully.” My only goal was to get through the rappel before dark; I am fine hiking in the dark, but a rappel in the dark sounded awkward. Soon we came to a 20-foot drop and a tree that had been rappelled off at least once in its long history. This short drop wasn’t exactly the rappel I had envisioned, but I’ll take it. Once we cleared that rappel another short drop met us. Ok, that last one was short, maybe a couple of these add up to the apparently singular rappel described in the book. After about 4 or 5 of these rappels, off increasingly sketchy anchors and working our way into a 4-foot wide slot canyon, I began to think we had simply found the wrong gully that some other poor fool had also found. I just hoped that the “poor fool” found a way out in this canyon that didn’t include climbing back up the gully to look for the correct gully.

Soon the sun was gone, our headlamps were out, and I was going through Oreo withdraw. Of all the climbing I had ever done, bailing off the route was never a problem. Within a couple hours I could easily be down on flat ground and off a mountain. Embraced by the vertical walls around me and thousand-feet of elevation below me, I began to feel trapped on this mountain. If the rope became stuck after a rappel, this could quickly turn into a very long night. But hope was in sight. I could see the narrow gully make a sharp turn and open up into Oak Creek Canyon. Maybe this is where the HIKE down begins. Those hopes faded as I reached that point and looked down over the ledge that into a world of complete black. I was soon rappelling into the black void having no clue what was below me. More importantly, I had no clue if the rope would reach the bottom. Maybe the other poor fool that chose this decent had used a double-rope. Those old cams above me had better hold! Squinting through the black I still hadn’t seen the bottom of the rappel by the time I saw the bottom of my rope.

When I was a couple feet from the end of the rope I found a couple cams stuck into a wet crack in front of me. Not only did I have to rappel of these ridiculous anchors, I now had to hang off them!!! Even though they didn’t move after I tugged on them, I still didn’t trust this anchor. So, before unclipping from the rope I jammed my foot and hand into the wet vertical crack. I don’t think I had put a pound of my weight on that anchor until Kevin got down there. After the next rappel I was off that wall and rappelling into back void number two. After a total of around 10 rappels Kevin and I were onto somewhat flat ground. The first thing we found, a cairn. While we hadn’t seen one in hours, this one assured us that this horrible series of rappels was actually correct! After several more hours of one-legged lunges stepping down boulders we were cruising across the desert. We reached the car at 11:30PM, 17.5hrs after we left it. A part of me wanted to suggest we hike around for another 30minutes so that we could make the trip a clean 18hrs, but looking at Kevin’s face I decided an even number was of little importance to him. I did get my shower that night, well early morning, and found my sleeping back by 1:30AM. If I learned anything out of this whole experience, it is this:
When flying out of Vegas, you need to arrive 45minutes before your flight. A 42minute early arrival translates to losing your seat.

It’s always a shock for me to return to my other life after returning form the latest adventure; the longer and more intense the adventure, the more of a transitional shock. Sitting in my dark office with my callused fingertips tapping the keyboard, I only need to look at the back of my cut-up hands to be reminded of my latest adventure. But in all truth, it will take far less than cuts on my hand to remind me of my latest adventure. It seems that every trip I make to Vegas ends in ways I never would expect.

While rappelling into a black void I had thought to myself, “This is the last “alpine” climb I am ever doing!” But similar to when I said the same thing after my first marathon, several hours later I was already looking forward to the next. I seek out these challenges because I am not certain if I can actually do them. It is not an adrenaline-junkie craving; it is a desire to push myself into unknown territory, forcing out my raw character to “figure it out.” I guess it is similar to someone meditating and reducing existence to the “singular;” these adventures strip myself to the character that defines, “Mike.” Sure I could do this through meditation in a dark room, but who would not want to find such simplicity 1,000 feet above the Nevada desert?!?! NOT ME!!

check out more pictures:

Red Rocks