Some Days Are Better Than Others

Age is a high price to pay for maturity—which is why I refuse to invest in it heavily: the rate of return is questionable. Never mind that I have a grandson now and Terry calls me “Gramps” and it won’t be long before I can order from the Denny’s senior citizen menu. Never mind that for over three decades my mother continues to ask: “When are you going to get this ‘climbing thing’ out of your system?”

Probably never. And with the MLK weekend at Joshua Tree marking the first SCMA trip of the new year, I was going to get out there and immerse myself in that inexplicable “climbing thing.” Accompanying me were Terry and Doug, and Sunday morning found the three of us playing at Playhouse Rock, basking in January sunshine. It was all good. I was sitting atop Curtain Call, taking in the scenery as I belayed Terry and Doug up the route. Winter days at Josh don’t get any nicer. Once I had them topside, we coiled the ropes and scrambled down the back, conversing and contemplating our next route.

Then the oddest thing happened. We had almost reached the desert floor when suddenly the rock where I had planned to step disappeared. Vanished. Terry would later accuse me of sight-seeing and chattering; not paying attention to where I was going. But that rock was there, I tell you. Nevertheless, the end result was me pitching head first into boulders. My left thigh took the brunt of the fall, impacting with such a force that it knocked the wind out of me. I lay there with my head spinning, stars bursting, convinced I must’ve broken something: a rib, pelvis or maybe a femur. Somewhere, far far away, I could hear Terry asking “Are you okay?”

As the pain slowly receded, I shifted my legs to see if they still functioned. Miraculously, they did. Terry assisted me to a sitting position and said: “Oh gosh, you hit your head!”

I touched my forehead and felt the knot forming. No big deal. I slowly rose to my feet, feeling as if I had been kicked by a mule. Limping back to the packs, I was concerned that I’d have to call it a day. Terry even suggested as much.

“No way,” I insisted. And gathering our things, we hiked back to the car for lunch and—at least for me—a liberal dose of ibuprofen.

I was determined to keep climbing. No pain, no gain—or something like that. I suggested the sunny walls of Watts Tower and off we tromped. However by the time we arrived at the base of the formation, my left leg was throbbing. After checking the guidebook, I pointed to the leftmost and easiest route, called Watt, Me Worry.

“Your lead,” I told Terry. “I’m done for the day.”

She scrutinized the vertical hand crack with a wary eye.

“It’s only 5.5,” I assured her, pointing to the route in the guidebook.

She took the gear rack and tied into the sharp end. She started up the route, hesitating again and again while Doug and I imparted loads of encouragement and unsolicited beta. Finally she found the gumption to go for it. She jammed up the crack a ways and plugged in a second Camalot, panting and cursing as she struggled to clip it.

“Relax,” I called up to her.

Onward she forged, but without much headway. Twice the right-leaning crack spit her out, and each time she would attack it again. But it was to no avail: She was spent. I suggested she take a break and she grudgingly retreated.

“See, this is why we need to get out and climb more often,” I pontificated as I lowered her.

Now Doug wanted to take a stab at it. He grabbed his helmet and took the rack. Mind you, I can count the times on my fingers that Doug has climbed outdoors. But he has proven to be a quick learner. He scampered up to his mom’s high point, checked out the terrain above and went to work.

But just as with Terry, the crack spit him out. Again he tried. No luck. Finally he pulled out all the stops and gave it his all, slowly moving up the crack one jam at a time, moving a little higher… higher… and then he fell, taking a nice little whipper.

“Dude, don’t do that: You’re scaring your mother.”

He attempted it again. But it was clear that he had already given it his best shot.

“Don’t make me have to come up there,” I warned.

But after a while, he asked to be lowered.

Now, bum leg or not, I had no choice in the matter. I tied in; Doug belayed. The opening moves were spicy and it was an effort to get to their highpoint, leaving me to think: Man, this is stout for the grade. I jammed up further and plugged in a third cam, a task that I found extremely taxing. I peered upwards. It wasn’t getting any easier anytime soon. I processed all of this information and came up with the only plausible conclusion: This was WAY harder than 5.5.

By the time Doug had lowered me to the deck, Terry had the guidebook in her mitts and was studying it closely. Finally she emitted a “Hmmmm” in that sing-song lilt that cannot be expressed into words here, but rest assured I know her well enough to know the translation in this case would be: “Well it figures: I should’ve known better than to listen to you.”

“What?” I challenged her.

“The way I read this... We’ve been trying to climb Sole Food, not Watt, Me Worry. And it’s rated 5.10.”

“Impossible.”

“Did you read the route description Gramps?”

“No, I looked at the picture.”

“Really. The picture?”

“Look at it. Watt, Me Worry is the furthest route to the left.”

We all looked at the photo, then gazed up at Watts Tower. Then Doug scrambled around to the left end of the wall and pointed to a hand crack hidden behind the corner. It looked to be somewhere about… maybe 5.5?

“Hmmmm.”

So there we were: Less than an hour of daylight remaining and I had $250 worth of gear dangling from a crack that nobody wanted to go up and revisit. Without further ado, Terry put me on belay and I led the real Watt, Me Worry. Doug followed, cleaning the route. I then tossed the rope down to Terry and she climbed Sole Food, retrieving my gear in the process.

“That wasn’t so bad on a top rope,” she commented when she reached me. It’s funny how that works.

The sun was setting as we rapped off. We bagged our gear and hiked back to the car under a crimson sky, where beer awaited to quench our thirst (at least for Terry and me: Doug had to settle for an Arizona iced tea).

Later that night at Sheep Pass, we relaxed around the campfire with a bottle of wine. My leg was hurting again but the booze helped. Others were gathered around: Don, Kashmira, Yvonne, Suzanne, Laurie and Thom. I listened to their yarns from the day and the climbs they had done. Everyone was in a fine mood. And in due course, Don turned to me and asked: “So what did you guys do today?”

Where do I start?

Terry couldn’t resist.

“Hmmmm.”