The Hulk preview video

Dan and I on Positive Vibrations of the Incredible Hulk, September 15, 2009 (somehow the introductory text was stripped on export). We were an inch away from leaving the Hulk without an attempt, but we finally decided an effort like this was exactly why we were there and completed what I would call the finest route I've been on. It was an ambitious step, however, and our style suffered -- I downclimbed and hung at the crux, and our performance deteriorated from there. Regardless, we had a new alpine 5.11 wind at our backs that would push us to the next big reach.

Seminal Climbs: Granite Peak

Granite Peak, the highest point in Montana, had been calling my name for some time. I was still a novice climber (hell, I still am), but I had learned just enough to peak my interest in remote alpine objectives ... and just enough to be dangerous.

Granite Peak, 12,799 feet.

I had originally planned to climb Granite with my girlfriend, but by the time I was ready to start working on logistics and buy the plane tickets, she had become my ex girlfriend. I knew it would be futile to find a trustworthy partner on such short notice, so I didn't even try. Instead, I resigned myself to climbing it solo and considered it something of a penance for my sins against womankind.

My excitement grew as the departure date got closer. I was in good shape, I hadn't bought a pack of smokes in over a year, and my climbing had progressed by leaps and bounds over the summer. The climb would be a challenge for me, no doubt, but I was ready for it. It had been a difficult summer personally, and I was looking forward to some time alone and a good adventure to clear my head and consolidate the life lessons I had learned over the past few months.

I arrived in Bozeman to pleasant weather. Unfortunately, this was not the case in the mountains. There was rain, hail, and high winds in the Beartooths (Bearteeth?). The weather was "icing" me--I'd have to wait it out in Bozeman, just me and my nerves. This ended up being quite pleasant. Bozeman is a terrific town, with an eclectic mix of citizens. In fact, Bozeman may be the only place in these United States where you can drink a craft micro brew while conversing with a cattle rancher, a college professor, and a ski lift operator, and then buy a dime bag from any one of them. I had no problem relaxing while I waited for more stable weather, which was a good thing, because I had to wait for three days.

Theft at Seneca

We finished our day on the Seneca classic, Ecstasy, this past Sunday. Before starting the climb, a couple guys stopped to pick our brains on Candy Corner, asking whether it could be done with a rope that'd been chopped to 45 meters.

The guy doing all the talking was fat, sported tribal tats, a green plug earing, and a backwoods drawl.  I didn't see him climbing anything, let alone on lead. "Good for him," I thought.

He told us they had only a few black diamond camalots, a set of wired nuts and their chopped rope, all distributed between the several bags they were carrying.  I wasn't sure why he was telling us all of this. Meanwhile, the other guy smirked off to the side.

The thought popped in my head halfway up the climb, "Those guys are going to take our stuff."

We cruised the last pitches and rapped The Burn. I chanted in my head, "please be there, please be there," as I rounded the corner.

The scene was exactly as I'd feared. Camera, wallet, keys, ipod, climbing gear and shoes--gone.  My partner's pack remained, but they had taken his shoes.  They took our freaking shoes so we would be slow to follow.

I tore down the stairmaster, crossed the stream and sprinted, barefoot, into town.

The pain in my feet felt good and I couldn't wait to connect with the scum who took my pack.

Town was deserted. A girl walked out of Yokums and stared, no doubt wondering what this barefoot, sweat drenched, crazy-eyed climber was doing in the middle of the street.

Later I gave a police report and wrote notes for the guys at the Gendarme and the climbing school.

Much thanks to those at Yokums last night, and to the guys at the Gendarme who have been spreading the word.

Renters insurance covered everything. Then, the rotund thief and his banjo accompaniment were caught. Tim and I went to the station one Sunday evening on the way home from Seneca for the photo line up. To this day I get small restitution checks from the Pendleton County Police Station. Big thanks to trooper Ware who is the funniest/most intimidating officer I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.

Welcome to New Mexico

Fresh in NM with no partner, my first destination was the local boulder pile in the foothills. I was alone, off balance from just having moved across the country and longing for the wild alpine that felt like home a year prior.

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.

the patagonia trip: P-Town Rock

The morning weather would have been the perfect compliment to an evil wizard's castle.  Regardless, we resolved to accomplish something.  At the least we could cache gear at the base of the route.

At the crest of the talus we donned every layer and fought the wind to stay grounded.  Snow fell, blinded and wet us.  We ate and waited.  Why not try to climb the first pitches?  We could fix the ropes and have a head start for our next try if the tempest persisted.

I led the first pitch, stopping and starting many times as my body vascilated between warming up and shutting down.  Then Voytek jogged up behind me and led the next pitch from my hanging belay.

Voytek was a hundred feet above when I heard an explosion shake the valley.

By this point we were decently conditioned to the sound of rockfall and avalanches in the amphitheater.  I worried more when we first arrived in the high valley.  One particular morning, I was seized from sleep by a sound like a building falling down or a train crashing.  I sprang out from our boulder on a wave of emergency reaction.  I knew we couldn't be in the direct path of any rock fall, but worried the shaking ground might shift our bivy rock, and that would be it for Los Americanos.  The panic subsided to memory and I felt more hardened to these geological thunder storms.

But what I was hearing from my hanging stance amid snow, rain and Patagonian wind was bigger and closer than what I had come to know.  I turned my head a fraction and saw it.  The sky blotted out as a monument's worth of rock shot from the Central Tower and bombed a swath of ground to our right with tub sized boulders that spun and bounced in the slow motion of disaster time.

I yee-hawed into the aftermath to rid the shock of what I'd witnessed and I looked down too see that Dave was safe, scurrying around to find better cover.  I imagined what it'd look like if I saw that cloud coming down on me.

Voytek finished the pitch and we descended to ABC where we cooked endless dishes of the last bits of virtually all of our foods.

We ate polenta with veggie soup sauce.  We drank Zucar.  We ate pasta with parmesan.  We drank Zucar.  We ate a milk peanutbutter and apricot dish of Voytek's devizing.  We drank chai tea.

I went to bed at 8pm and slept deeply.

the patagonia trip: Dave Turner

We woke at 5am to dubious weather, ate breakfast at Voytek's "villa" in the talus, and decided to postpone our decision for the day's action to see what would happen with the weather.  Back to bed.

A few hours later Voytek rousted Dave and I and pointed to a beautiful sky.  It was later than I would have liked to attempt the route, and I was really enjoying the additional rest.  With Voytek's support we decided to put it off.  It could use some time to dry anyway.

Later in the day, which blossomed to the warmest and sunniest of days, we met Dave Turner.  Dave had been on his portaledge soloing a new route on Escudo for 34 days.  It was the first grade VII onsight solo in history.

Every time we ventured into the high valley, we were comforted by his California-eye-in-the-sky presence.  Where's Waldo?  Where's the fly on that big granite wall?  Ah, relief, there it is!

The evening Dave and I masqueraded on Taller Del Sol, we heard a woop! waft across the valley.  "I bet that's Dave topping out," my Dave told me and we wooped back as hard as we could into the big void between us and Escudo.

Last night, as we dined with Voytek, we again heard celebratory yells, this time from the base of the wall.  Dave had just touched down after a full day of descending.  We all yelled back, and I yee-hawed to let him know there was another American there to witness his landing.

What a weird meeting to finally put form to legend as Dave, Voytek and I greeted Dave, who was already in conversation with Raul and Lucas of Santiago and the Dutch Guys, Gerke and Marten, atop a moraine.  Dave and I were among the least experienced in the group, but felt we might offer some American familiarity to the contact deprived climber.

Dave was tall and lanky with huge hand and feet and smaller chest and shoulders.  He said fuck a lot and spoke about his rope access work on wind mills and about the pot laws in CA.

Dave told us he had heard our yells the night before, and to some level we all felt a part of his experience, which Steve Sneider had dubbed the biggest adventure since Shackelton's.

"Why are none of us climbing?"  I exclaimed of the beautiful day around us.

"Well, I have an excuse," Dave replied.

We all laughed and felt genuinely good.