Next route: the Finger of Fate on the 1,100ft Titan –the largest tower in the country. In Crested Butte there is still no snow, we won’t be shoveling roofs for $15 an hour so we return to the Fishers. It goes well, and we can’t wait to come back. Provisions: PB & J, water and smokes.Ě few hours later we are on the heavily bolted Colorado NE Ridge of the King Fisher. We throw a skimpy rack together and are off. “Do you want to go to the Fishers today?” I inquire. We are both in our early twenties, and looking for some direction and meaning in our lives – climbing in the Fishers seems to be the best way to find it. We’ve climbed together for years, and he has always been the most willing of all my partners to stick his neck out. Spawn, as we call him, is one of my roommates and closest friends. Spawn comes out of his room and joins me for a smoke outside on the porch. “I spunked on the ledge.”Ěnother clear February morning in Colorado. Do you promise you won’t tell anyone?” “Sure. Two more bolts later I call out that the line is fixed. Fighting against my screaming stomach I reach out as far as possible and tap in a1/4” bolt, rolling the drill to the apex of my fingers. Each stroke of my hammer against a frail piton releases ballasts of grime that cascade over my body. I strip away layers of sand around the crack. Several delicate pendulums later I barely reach an incipient seam.
The view of the Titan as seen from the Cottontail saddle. I continue to force my tortured soul up the muddy stone. “Shut up” I whisper, hoping that my own stomach will at least heed my orders. I can smell the odor of fear penetrating through my fleece. His mind is obviously somewhere else – I have been on lead for five hours already – knowing him it’s probably some chick. I lean on the rope still there is no tension. I wipe it away and feel lines of rashes break out on my face. “Hold me here.” The sweat on my forehead mixes with sand, burning as it runs into my eyes. I clip it to the hook and bounce up and down. I tug the rope a meager amount slides through the Gri-Gri.
“Spawn” I yell again, my body starting to shake with fear. I decide to commit to a series of hook pendulums and call down to my partner for slack, to no avail. They mark many stomach churning hours of work already done today. It looms like a riddle needing to be solved before I can be allowed further passage.ěelow are a dozen birdbeaks, freshly pounded into the soft Cutler sandstone of the Fisher Towers. I have spent the past hour contemplating the 20-foot section of blank rock ahead of me. The author negotiating the terrain on pitch five.Ī cold wind blows across the snow covered Utah desert, momentarily distracting my thoughts. “It’s the fear that lives in a forest of stone were the sun rarely filters down and the ground is not so soft.” Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members!
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