Whirling into the Chaos

“Perhaps yearning for some imagined, glorious past is bound to an inability to see the future.” –Kelly Cordes, Alpinist 49, 2015.

The night began like so many escapades in climbing lore – at a bar.

It was getting late on a Wednesday night. There had been a slideshow about a great Alaskan FA, but the action really started at a pub down the way, where the victors and their friends drank to the fantastic success of dreams and nightmares realized, and survived. Royal, an older member of the group, who has a white mustache and cowboy hat to match his climbing style – he’s older than most of the others, but no less sharp and able – bought tequila shots for the table. They toasted again and again, not noticing the bartender was trying to close.

Ryan and Kevin were wrapping up a yearlong tour after their award-winning route on Mt. Johnson, and Ryan’s hometown gave the duo a warm reception that dwindled to a handful of die-hards clustered at a small table in a corner of the pub. Brody, a seasoned climber in his mid-30s was among them.

Brody would leave for his first Alaskan expedition two days later, and planned to put up some FAs of his own. The best way to train for first ascents is to do first ascents. So, days before the slideshow, Ryan joined Brody to climb a new route on North Maroon.

“It’s an instant classic,” Royal said of the proud new line that went straight up the right wall of the Bell Cord Couloir, his cowboy hat tilting to the side as he leaned in to talk to another climber; they were already hatching plans for the second ascent.

I looked across the table at Brody and lifted my glass to him, imagining how he might remember the warm glow of the pub 72 hours from then while falling asleep on a glacier. He raised his glass in return.

No one was ready for the evening to be over when we were nudged out of the bar into the night. Ryan and Kevin are family men with careers and mountainous goals, so it was a rare opportunity to party with them.

“Let’s go to the cave at my house,” Ryan suggested, referring to the plywood bouldering cave in his garage.

“TO THE CAVE!” someone shouted. Main Street was dead, but the April night was alive with ghosts of glory and the possessing scent of pines budding in the distant hills. Somewhere even higher and beyond, perhaps buried under mountain snows, was a future so many of us have craved and hunted through generations. For the moment, however, “the cave” would have to do.

The garage door opened and the pack descended – er, ascended – upon the overhanging plywood panels. More drinks were passed around. Kevin tackled Brody from the wall. Brody held on a second before falling to the lone mat in the middle of the concrete floor. Laughs foamed through the room like a heady beer.

“Here,” Ryan said, handing me a pair of ice tools. “Look for the red holes.”

Weapons in hand, I forgot about my muscles that were already sore, and the abrasion where blood oozed from my bicep, a casualty of a hand hold that spun out on me moments before. Red holes? It took me a while to find the dry-tool course Ryan had set around the cave, with marginal holes dotting the wood here and there. It took me even longer to realize I’d been sandbagged.

Kevin and Brody were still wrestling on the mat when the plywood sheared. I was matched on one tool with the other over my shoulder, when the sudden release dropped me on my back and sent the tools whirling into the chaos with a metallic CLANG. Laughter.

“Oh, yeah – I should have told you to look for the white holes – those are easier,” Ryan said, picking up the tools for a lap.

I was sore and hung-over the next day when I went to work, but I didn’t regret it in the least.

I grew up reading the legendary tales of John Long and other greats. For years I pined to know those magical times. I yearned to sit around the fire with Yabo, and chug cheap wine with Harding – to feel I shared a place on the edge of something amazing that was happening right at our fingertips; to see a bit of the wilderness that only pioneers may understand.

Yet I’ve finally come to see such times are still happening. As before, those times are now. The wonder and thirst for unexplored realms still exists, along with all the legends in the making.

That is a wonderful thing to know. Riding home on empty streets while the rest of the town slept, I was completely drunk on the moment, keenly aware of how alive I was on a tiny planet, whirling through the chaos of infinity.

For a moment, I saw the future, and there was much hope for happiness and adventure.

Derek Franz recently sent 5.13 for the first time since his open-heart surgery six months ago. He writes for SplitterChoss.com every month. More of his writing may be found at www.derekfranz.com.