Redstone Slabs & 30 Foot Whippers

The Redstone Slabs have been on my list for awhile, as I’ve never seemed to be able to get my act together when the conditions are good on this south facing route. After getting back into town from Christmas, I’d heard everything was fat, including the slabs. Knowing the weather for the weekend was going to be stormy, cloudy and not too cold, I figured Saturday would be perfect. Bob was in, and Chris decided to come as well. Let’s get it on!

We woke up to rain in Carbondale, hmmm, seems to be happening a lot to Bob and I. Still, we had faith it would be colder in Redstone, and headed out. As we drove by the Narrows, the rain was still coming down, and we were doubtful that things were going to get better. When we got out of the car at the start of the approach, however, it was more of a freezing rain/wet snow mix. Things were looking up! We started the hike (being respectful of the private property in the area, of course) and soon the rain changed to snow. The snow on the ground was wet, but not too bad, and certainly nothing like last year when Mike and I climbed Crystal Visions in similar conditions. When we got to the base, it was fully winter conditions, and we could see both starts looked in. We settled on the right line, as the left looked to be pretty wet still.

Bob made quick work of the pitch, and we were on our way. We witnessed several impressive wet slides in the steep terrain to our left, but our route appeared to be safe as there was no such terrain directly above our line. The pitch was a little wet, and soon my hands got that wonderful, cold, brick-like feeling where just holding on is a problem. I managed to ignore it long enough to pull through the steep stuff at the top, and then deal with return of blood to my digits. Now we’re having fun!

The next pitch was a fun gully to a short pillar. I took the lead for this one, and although it looked benign, the start was thin and hollow, the kind of ice where you just tread lightly and keep moving up in hopes of finding thicker ice and a decent screw. The ice just below the belay was pretty wet and my hands took a thorough soaking. As I set the anchor I looked up at the next pitch, a beautiful wall of slightly less than vertical green ice.

Behind the main curtain there was a great little ice cave we took a break in, to get out of the wind and try to dry off. Yeah right. Softshells are nice for climbing, until you actually get wet, and then they are just heavy. Oh well. We had a quick lunch, and then Bob set out on the last pitch. Once at the belay, Chris and I followed at the same time. Chris stopped mid pitch to wring the water out of his gloves and put them back on. My hands were deteriorating, and quickly becoming useless blocks of wood. I rested as much as I could, trying to get blood back into them, but to no avail. About 10 feet from where the pitch got significantly less steep, I started to lose the battle with the cold, wet pump. I yelled up a couple times, take! I’m falling! I grabbed one tool, so I could get back up, and I was off.

Except I didn’t stop falling, not for what seemed like a long time. I let out a primal yell and kicked at the ice as I fell, to keep my feet from catching and snapping my ankles. Next thing I know, I’m standing on the belay ledge, having hit it just as the rope came tight. My first reaction was, holy shit, I just took a big fall, and I think I’m not hurt. Then I wondered what went wrong. Bob was belaying, and I had no reason to doubt his attentiveness. The rope had been pulled up the whole time while I was climbing, there was no slack out when I fell. All these thoughts raced through my mind as I called up for slack so I could set an anchor and evaluate myself for any injuries. It was hard to communicate with the wind and the distance to the belay, which was a full 60 meters. After I anchored in, I climbed back into the ice cave and sat down to make sure I wasn’t hurt. A head-to-toe revealed no injuries, wow, I was psyched about that! Then I just waited for what seemed like forever for Bob and Chris to come down.

Coming over the lip on their way down, they saw my one tool still stuck in the ice and were confused about how I’d fallen so far. Bob was really concerned, but assured him I was ok, and just wanted to know what went wrong. He said he had the cord tight, and thought I fell a few feet. So if I had no slack on my end, and he had no slack on his end, the problem was somewhere in the middle. This stumped us for awhile, until we realized that because the snow was so wet and heavy, when Bob had walked through a bunch of it to get to the anchor on top, the rope wasn’t running in a straight line from the belay to me. Instead there must have been some curves in it, that held their shape when he was pulling up the rope on belay, but snapped into a straight line when weighted with my fall. It appeared to be a freak accident, as I don’t think I would have thought the snow would have held the rope like that. But you can bet from now on we will take that into account. We rapped down, and my nerves started to chill out, a little.

Come back tomorrow for part two, the fun doesn’t let up for our hero…