Summary | |
Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
Creation Date | 2007-04-16 20:38:55 UTC-0400 |
Description |
Climbing the Black Dike March 5th 2007 Silas and Vesna I fixed my mind on Black Dike long time ago, but only dared to think that I could actually climb it after running into Brad of IMCS while starting on the Hobit Culoir few weekends ago. He said if I could climb the Hobit Couloir, I could climb the Black Dike, and that's just what I wanted to hear. So he hooked me up with Silas and soon enough we were gearing up for a long hike at the empty parking lot. Cannon mountain leaned over us fat and indifferent while the white noise of the highway only made it more eerie and never toned down even in the heart of the Dike. The route looked thin and broken with the sharp wedge of Whitney-Gillman guarding its left flank. Quite striking, the scenery and all, but I couldnt help thinking: Why, this is not so steep after all. But as we toiled at snail-speed across the accursed boulder field covered with loose treacherous snow, the Dike steadily assumed its proper, ominous size and authority. Once we were at the foot of the route I looked up with awe and tried to remember why exactly I wanted to come anywhere near something like this, let alone climb it. By the time we were stacking the ropes and gearing up, I was thinking 'how about a nice huge brunch back in town instead?'... Silas must have gotten the wind of my mood-he brought me back to climbing mode with his efficient moves and a high-five and with that look of infinite patience when I remarked oops, my only gloves are frozen stiff, as I forgot to put them inside my jacket while fiddling with things barehanded and oops, my goggles just fell apart, I hope there wouldnt be too much drifts. Do you have spares? Umm, no. Thats me, the glove and goggle freak with a full selection of sizes and styles always in my pack. The embarrassement snapped me back in the proper speed and mood and we were in business. Whatever weather was happening outside, we had no clue of it in the Dike where on every few feet of real estate a different warlord had a command of it. The only consensus they had was on the upwards gusts with icy needles pummeling my butt and getting inside my jacket from the wrong end! Looking up to scratch a hold with my tool, Id get dizzy seeing the snowflakes moving up and away from me; looking down to find a rock ledge or a bit of ice for my frontpoints, Id get a shower of drifts up my nose, blinding my goggleless eyes. Quite exasperating, and what made it worse was the full realization that conditions were actually decent considering what the Dike is capable of serving in its best days! Decent or not, for the first time ever, I climbed with my down jacket on. Silas' climbing was beautiful and smooth (in mountaineering crampons at that!) and made it seem easy and quite repeatable. Hm. Never have I done a climb with so many wobbly, inelegant and, quite frankly, non-trustworthy moves! Nothing felt right in this awkward terrain. If there was ice, it was between the rocks or in the false bulgesthe frozen few millimeters that flowed over the protruding rocks. Id spot one in desperation while barely clinging to the face with a tool tip barely in ice and a single frontpoint tottering at the edge of a scratch in the rock, and Id give it an enthusiastic whack only to have my tool bounce back with doubled enthusiasm, ruining my balance! It took the whole first pitch to get the idea. How I never peeled off--it escapes me. Even if the bulge was fat, the ice often didn't touch down and the bulge had a big undercut, so it took some figuring out how to bring my feet up at all. The snow just made it more interesting. More than once I resorted to effective if inelegant knee stick-the snow was just sticky enough to hold one knee in the place where a frontpoint would break through the thin ice underneath and slide off the underlying rock. The abundant rock was totally not user-friendly, which started getting on my nerves just around the beginning of the second pitch and the notorious rock traverse. I read and heard about that traverse and imagined cracks and ledges begging for hooks and stein-pulls, but there I was on a mini ledge enough for two steps facing a man-sized sheer rock face above. Now, the face was topped on the right with a horn that I was supposed to hook and lean way to the left enough to swing my left foot onto something anything as high as possible and strong enough to bear my weight till I find a foothold for my right crampon and unhook the right tool to stick it into ice at last. At least thats what Silas has done a moment before as if its nothing at all, nimbly traversing over a flat vertical rock face onto a thin ice runnel and flew up that to a first decent stick 2 meters upstream. Before leaving he clearly told me to clean only the sling and the biner clipped into the old piton, while the sling around the horn and the nut jammed in the crack should stay. Well, I was so sketched out that I promptly forgot what he said and found myself a way to postpone the moment when Ill have to execute the fateful traverse-I spent what felt like an eternity trying to clean the bloody nut. Just as he yelled down leave the nut I finally poked it out and now I faced the traverse with not too much courage to boast. The spot felt lonely and sad, and the constant hum of the highway provided no relief. What am I doing here!!?? I asked myself, and not for the last time! Hey, snap to it! Ok, here goes the hook around the horn, but, boy, is it uncomfy. Hook the sling! yelled Silas. A-ha, thats better! But now what?! Even when I leaned back all the way and moved as far left as possible on the ledge, I wasnt able to reach with my left foot the ice around the face and into the channel. Arms and legs too short! A lot of impotent struggle ensued and for the life of me I dont remember how I did it, but I vaguely recall gripping the rock with my gloved left hand for long enough to scratch a foothold with my left foot. The rest of the traverse is in the fog-all I remember was the exhilaration when I finally made the first fat stick further above. The experience was spiced by the ropes, which decided just during traverse to go limp on me forming a foot-long loop between my tottering legs-the route is all but straight and the ropes must have been snagging or getting buried in the snow, and neither of us could tell what was going on on the other end. Communication at this distance was hard too, and I certainly didnt make it clearer by constantly yelling Take! instead of Up rope. Silas tried to oblige me and pulled hard, which almost ripped me off the face every time, so I had to scrape and grope to regain balance, not understanding why he was pulling so hard! Only the next day, when telling the story to a (native) climber friend I realized the linguistic lapse! One would think after 12 years in US I should have my English sorted out, but apparently not Climbing after the rock traverse felt easier, although not much. In the entire climb, I dont remember a single move in which all six of my sharp points were stuck into something of satisfying fatness. Its not the steep angle, nor the sheer rock, nor the thin ice, nor the deceiving snow mushrooms that made it hard-its the entire weird combination that makes for a really weird environment, hard to deal with confidently. The only easy thing about this climb was cleaning (and I am sure, placing) the pro--all we used were the stubbies or 13cm screws, that take just a few turns before they're in/out, and we clipped the odd frozen sling or piton. There was a blue rope left-over lower down and a pink rope up higher--looks like someone had to make a desperate retreat... go figure. Now I understand why Lewis & Wilcox mention the tremendous atmosphere in their description of the route and why they say the Dike has become a measuring stick for aspiring alpinists-it takes a bagful of tricks and an open mind (or better, a total lack thereof) to figure this one out! When I finally poked my head up on the wooded top, I couldnt believe it was over. I kept saying I cant believe you lead this while Silas smiled and reminded me that I followed quite right too. I crowned the climb by pulling over the lip with both my knees firmly planted in the snow-not embarrassed to say The Black Dike brought me down to my knees. Incredible, this Dike, whichever force of nature shaped it! After a quick snack and a cheer for Silas, a cheer for the Black Dike and a cheer for the girls, chased down by liberal swigs of Talisker, we bushwacked and postholed over the Cannons flank down to the snowmobile racecourse, erroneously refered to as bike path in Lewis & Wilcox book. As we hiked away from the beast, we philosophized about the will and the reason and all other things that make us think we can or cannot do things. We arrived back to the car while it was still daylight. All in all, it took us 2 hours to approach the climb, 5 hours to finish 3 full rope-length pitches and a bit more than hour and half to get back to the car-a hard-days work if ever there was any! Vesna |