Old Ragged

When I started climbing 5 years ago, I liked how it brought out the best in me.  I liked how it drove me to bed early, how it inspired me to eat well, and how it stripped my focus to a crystal edge.  Climbing still focuses me, but I've become more comfortable, and have allowed my other life--real life--to encroach upon my climbing discipline more and more.  This weekend my "comfort" reached a new level.

The plan was to join Andre, one of DC's finest trad climbers, for a day on the granite of Old Rag in the Shenandoah Mountains of VA.  To prepare, I planned to get a light workout in on Friday night, have dinner with Laura, and get a solid night of sleep.  Nope.

Friday we said goodbye to someone I've worked with for the last 5 years.  He was a boss, colleague, and friend.  What started as a farewell happy hour at Matchbox gained momentum until there was no jumping off.

My alarm went off at 6:15am Saturday morning.  "Why do I have an alarm set on a Saturday?  That's ridiculous."  Then it all came back.  Andre would pick me up in 15 minutes.

"What have I done?"

In a stupor, I filled my climbing pack, and jumped into Andre's waiting car.  Part of me engaged in conversation about our coming day, and another reeled in horror.  "When did I go to sleep last night?"  "How did we get to Cleveland Park from Rockville? Right, we took the metro, but Grosvenor Station was closed, wasn't it?  We rode a shuttle bus?"

On the rolling, curved roads at the base of Old Rag I became overwhelmed by nausea.  Andre kindly stopped the car and stood aside as I retched coffee and fruit.

Thank goodness for the hour and a half approach hike.  Thank goodness for the redemptive, cleansing therapy of long slow cardio.

Notes from the Old Rag Bear Attack

-Met up with Tim from the gym after work.
-Hiked out to Old Rag by headlamp friday night and camped at the base of Strawberry Fields.
-Come morning, Tim hang dogged Strawberry Fields. I followed.
-I led the first pitch of Return to Sickbay, the route over in the corner to the left of Strawberry Fields that starts with the chimney, then a finger and hand crack exit. Very cool. Tim followed.
-I climbed the first pitch again and continued up to the second for the layback section. The climbed wasn't too hard, but committing, as there were no rests from the layback. The crack was filled with wet slime and moss, so I wasn't able to get reliable gear. I bailed ten feet from the top, as I was sure everything would rip given a slip on the dirty smears.
-After hiking up to rap and clean the gear, we bushwacked down to find Bushwack Crack.
-We were having a hell of a time trying to find our way in the dense woods. Then we came upon a bear.
-Tim starts "soloing" up a low angle and dirty dirty corner to get away. I just laughed.
-After a while of watching and being fascinated by the bear, we started tossing small rocks and making noise to scare it away.
-We continued deeper into the woods and found Bushwack Crack. It was amazing.
-I tried to lead it, but ended up hang dogging. I need to get back and get it clean. I'm not going to describe it. You have to see it for yourself.
-Hiked back to camp and found the rain fly on Tim's tent shredded, his pack and my stuff-sack of food, gone.
-We look up to see the bear 30' away tearing into Tim's pack.
-Tim starts looking for things to "solo" to escape the bear. I laugh and watched.
-I break out a beer and toss one up to Tim, who had found another dirty ramp to climb, and we discussed the situation.
-Tim's headlamp, phone and car keys were in the pack. We had to get it back. It was soon going to be dark. It looked like it was about to storm.
-We created an "escape route" by rigging tandem single line rappels over that little 30' drop just past Report to Sickbay. Then we started yelling "ROAR!" and trundling rocks and throwing logs.
-The bear retreated about 20 feet, then more. Soon it was about a hundred feet off.
-One of us would keep making noise while the other rushed in and grabbed our stuff.
-We hiked out as it fell completely dark. We weren't going to stick around with that bear and the sky looking to storm.
-Famous words from Saturday morning, "That's not bear shit.  There aren't any bears in VA!"  Tim will never let me live that down.

DC Alpine Assault

To continue our training for Patagonia and fuel our alpine urge, Dave and I met after work last night to do a quick night ascent of Old Rag's Oh My God Diheral (5.10c). The grade was at our limit, but we'd climbed it before and thought it safe enough to try at night.

We pushed through rush hour on 66 and got to the base of the North Ridge Trail at 830pm. The sun had set hours ago.

We blasted the 4 miles of switchbacks and spooky scrambling to the summit of Old Rag carrying small packs, harnesses, a rope and 5 cams.  Mist curled through the beams of our headlamps and heightened the atmosphere.

We bushwhacked down the flank and arrived at the base of the climb just after 10pm.

I led it, then Dave.

We rappelled, reversed the bushwhack and ran down the mountain. All we could see was what the bouncing circle of our headlamps showed, which gave us the strange feeling of being in a first person shooter game.  Who knew what bad guys lurked in the darkness?  Hopefully just deer.

We reached the car around 12:30am, then home just after 2am to get a few hours of sleep before work in the morning.

Climbing Oh My God Dihedral by daylight on the 4th of July '07.  I hadn't tried anything harder than 5.9 at this time and thought this attempt would be a hangdog affair.  Instead, I got the onsight.  I will always remember this as one of my proudest sends.