"Is this the route on which Ammon’s head was bleeding mixed with some white ooze?"
I heard the question, each time I said that I want to climb Surgeon General. “Yes, this is the route!” I responded with the patience of a yogi in nirvana.
***
Four years ago, I did Velcro Fly - the first pitch of Surgeon General, on which there were a lot of old enough heads, to discourage me to continue climbing. Besides, some rockfall fell, and I understood that this is the time to bail. On the base of the wall, Ammon and Kait were racking up for the second pitch of Bad Seed, and Andy and Skiy bailed from Bad to the Bone. I was surrounded by clouds of dust after the rockfall. It got dark, and when I saw the Valley again. The decision about the bail was already made. I rapped down, and at the base I met Richie Copland and Erik Sloan fixing the first pitches of Zodiac. We were talking about how bails are part of climbing and how we should deal with them. Then I packed up my stuff and I went down. The next day in the cafeteria, Tom wrote his El Cap Report and asked me to spell my name, “R-A-G-A...,” when Tom interrupted me and asked for a second name, “What is your second name you mean?” I was surprised. That he started on the “B”, for
B-a-i-l-i-n-s-k-y.
He was laughing loudly and his reports soon began “Bail of the Day”. I was lucky that I did not get the name as the first, although the name Bailinsky was flogging my ego like whips hitting a slave’s back. Oh well, to heal my wounded soul, I took a trip to Chicago. Three days in the Zephyr train were unforgettable. I got on at Martinez and waved to those who were at the station - A Mexican waitress, a tramp with morning beer in a paper bag and a little girl with yellow balloon. I was on the way. On a seat close to me slept a couple of elderly Amish, and they looked unsure to me whether we were in the 21st century or not! But there, in their faces, even in their dreams I could see the happiness of being together, which is beyond time, civilization, and even the wall of El Capitan. Next to me sat Kevin, who worked in Yosemite. Through the window we passed the abandoned houses and businesses with rusted cars in the yards. It looked like a graveyard of dreams. Once these people believed they had a great idea for life or business, but didn’t succeed. Where are they now? How many abandoned houses had they left behind them? How many routes on El Capitan bailed...? Besides, travelling on the train was an ex dancer with a little kid and a fat gentleman, who were sitting near the aisle and catching every passenger to have a chat about nothing. The dancer got off the train in Denver, and the fat guy disappeared just as quickly as he had suddenly appeared. My neighbour Kevin said good bye at Union Station in Chicago. My stay in the Windy City revived my shaken psyche, and I began to think about the next route on El Capitan, but maybe most importantly, I forgot about Mr Bailinsky. I felt like a sleepy Amish on the Zephyr train.
***
Three years have gone. It was easier to forget about Bailinsky, than about Surgeon General, and as I understood it, strolling the empty Valley at the time of the government shutdown in October 2013 that I was not able to think of other routes. I wanted to go back to Surgeon General and I felt an unwavering certainty that this was what I really wanted. I just needed to wait 12 months to the next Yosemite trip to climb that line. I couldn’t escape from this dream, but also I didn’t try to. 12 months went by quickly and a few weeks ago, I carried a gear water and food to the base of Surgeon General. I sat against the wall with a Cobra and I thought to myself about these 4 years, which had passed so quickly. Ammon and Kait did Wings of Steel, Richie had gone to the other side, Erik went and returned to the Valley, Tom defended the independence of El Cap Report, and me? I met almost all of my climbing dreams. On the other hand, nothing has changed over time in the Valley. The shuttle bus is still the slowest bus in the world, the cafeteria still serves a great coffee for free, and Cobra only tastes good in the vicinity of El Capitan. The morning 11th of October had come or I should say “The time of blast has come.” On Velcro Fly were the same junk heads, but only 4 years older. Before I reached the first belay I broke off 5 heads and I took 2 falls. However, nothing is more important, than to finish the job and I found myself in the same place where I bailed from 4 years ago. It was like a return to the past, but now apparently turned to start the real climb. Above my head were two broken heads, so I bypassed them on a shaky hook, beaks and hook moves. I was glad to read the correct sequence, and when put my cam in an A1 crack I loudly shouted off my monkey mood:
“Yee-haaa!!”
The adventure, which had been waiting for years, had just begun.

The next day passed. The Foe, who for four years persecuted me in my nightmares with dreams of falling off the flake and free-falling together with it. In my nightmares, the flake cut the rope, and I fell, fell, fell... In reality, I took the longest fall on the route, but it was nothing like the fall from my nightmares, and The Foe remained in place.

Nights on the Surgeon General were filled with colourful dreams of a complicated story. In the morning it was difficult for me to reproduce dreamed stories, but during nights, I took them as reality. I can’t remember all the stories, although one of them returned instantly, but more on that in a moment.

The next day I did the A5 crux. I did it gently, with attention and fear, but without falling off, and it counts the most. No fall had been taken, no head strokes, no bleeding with white ooze from a broken skull. A5 done and I shouted "yee-haa". No big stories. Boredom.

After this pitch, I started to hear some sounds - a monkey calls and the melody “I got the woman” by Ray Charles. On every route, I have some sort of obsessive song, and now it appeared to be Ray. Suddenly, I started to sing the words, that came from nowhere and I could not free themselves from their repetition:

Say, I got a woman way over town that's good to me, oh yeah
I got a woman way over town that's good to me, oh yeah...

Can someone riddle unravelled emerging music while climbing? I do not know how to explain this...
Along with the song, I heard some weird ecstatic screams. It wasn’t clear for me, what was the first thing or rather was the cause and what is effect. Is it first the Ray Charles song? Or the screams recalling the words of Ray Charles. The cries seemed Zak - soloist of the Zodiac, with whom I met the day before. Zak was testing pieces and buzzing around all the gear. He started slowly, but surely, as an experienced lover during foreplay. Later, Zak spins up a little, and then was starting to scream like a porn star with a fake orgasm. Now, he was clipping in the next piece, and the next one, again starting another foreplay and so over and over until he finished the Nipple Pitch. Zak climbed to late evening, so when I was tired falling in uncontrolled sleep, the screams mingled with my dreams and I was losing a sense of reality. Again I didn’t know what was the dream and what was reality. The next day I had to concentrate, because some tricky sky hook moves were waiting for me at the White Circle (A4), so I was glad that Zak was already over the Zorro Roof. Then again, I stopped to listen, and in any case had not already heard Zak probably thanks to him not falling on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome pitch. I did all the beautiful movements of the sky hooks, and reached the belay, “Yee-haa!”
On Crystal Chandelier it was very similar, but I twice whipped on Festering Deformities, which became my favourite pitch. It was the day after that I had a break.

I set a bivi under the roof of the Devil's Brow, under the characteristic rock tooth protruding from it. I decided to rest before I climbed the Devil’s Brow zone. To tell the truth, I was a little scared and I could not help thinking about what would happen if I didn’t find the right way, the right sequence of movements, or the right system of cracks. When I just started to fall asleep, the rock tooth began to speak to me in my dream. I stared at the big rock and I remembered Tom’s words, echoing to me: “Bailinsky, Bailinsky, Bail ......” I was drifting in and out of sleep, and in my dreams I saw Tom, who smiled; "Regan, you get Bail of the Day." I noticed that from his mouth a huge tooth stuck out, identical to the one above me. Yes, that was Tom's Tooth on the Devil's Brow! It was beginning to persecute me every time I slept, whether during an afternoon nap or at night. He came and went,
only to immediately reappear every time I closed my eyes. I eventually got the impression Tom’s Tooth was a separate entity, which speaks only to me. In my head, all I heard was "Bailinsky, Bailinsky” and “Bail of the Day, Bail of the Day." In the end I begged Tom’s Tooth for mercy, but he said in a cold metal voice: "On your knees, beyatch!" and when I did bend my knees, it laughed: "You think it will help you? You think, it’s enough to beg for mercy and everything will be okay? Got a problem with an overgrown ego! You bonehead! It is impossible to escape from this route, and it cannot be begged or bought for nothing – You need to climb off the route on legs, not on knees, you jerk!"

I woke up in a hot sweat. It was dark, with the only light from some soloist flashlight on Tangerine Trip. I started to write in my red Moleskine, drink coffees one after the other and stare at Tom’s Tooth, hanging over me. The voice in my dream was right, only climbing would be my escape from this nightmare. I wrote some notes in a nervous haste waiting for dawn. I needed to divert attention from the stress, Tom’s Tooth, and Mr Bailinsky. I wrote sentence by sentence, turned page by page and at the top of the very last page were the words "Hi from Tom ECP". I felt the presence of Tom sat next to me on the portaledge, but in fact there was no one there. Tom must’ve wrote this just before I set off up the wall. When we hung out in the cafeteria and I went to refill my coffee, I left my notebook on the table. With the first rays of the sun, I threw my gear on my shoulders and went. When I was next to Tom’s Tooth, it seemed that the route disappeared, and maybe just disappeared on purpose? That line was vanishing away and there was nothing left over my head. I began to nervously search for some some cracks or microcracks, or a hook edge but in the end I decided to go down and traverse on hooks to get to the Devil's Brow roof. Then Tom’s Tooth spoke again: "Steady climb a pitch a day A-OK, Regan. This time someone else will get Bail of the Day but be careful because it's not the end of the route."And so I was, vigilant till the end of the route, lest become a Bailinsky, or the damn “Bail of the Day”. No point falling to my knees and pleading for mercy for nothing.
The next day, holding on to this idea and forced by fear to extract I started the pitch 11, jumped on the hooks, and I came to the magical crack, which spits out and apparently is the only A3 +. I used all my beaks that I carried for years, I had never had the opportunity to use them and I reached the end of crack which overhung on the end. The last, the smallest beak, let me to get out of this nightmare and avoid a fall. When I crawled onto the loose ramp my throat tore the “yee-haa!” shout as I was so scared on the lead, so I laughed when I was cleaning the pitch. From the magical crack, beaks leaped at the sight of the hammer, so I don’t know why I bothered to use a hammer. Most of the beaks popped out due to submissive pressure and persuasion from the ropes. Well, maybe in the middle of the crack a beak had jammed and I had to be more persuasive, but that was unique in comparison to other ones.
Although above me there were some A4 and A3 pitches, I had a feeling that I'd done the Surgeon General already, and started to relish simple dreams: A morning coffee with a croissant, a Cobra on El Cap Meadow, and the words of Ray Charles' "I got a woman way over town that's good to me, oh yeah ... "
After two consecutive days, I finally shouted –
"Yee-haa, I've done it, Beyatch!" and crawled on top.
In the evening I went down to Camp IV, sat down to the table on Tom’s site and immediately said:
“I love that climb! Surgeon General was the best one I ever done on El Capitan, but now it’s time for simpler dreams.”

Yee-haaa. Beyatch!!!

2010

The decision has been taken

"Don't worry, Regan. That's climbing!. If it was an easy past time and we succeeded all of the time, then we probably wouldn't continue doing it"

Alone on Camp IV

The beginning of the adventure

In my nightmares

"Boredom" on A5

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Shut up, Zak:)

Crystal Chandelier

C.Ch.

Festering Deformities is nice and painful

The voice in my dream was right...
"You need to climb the route on legs, not on knees, you jerk!"

Hi!

Magical crack

Beaks are gooood

The best top out on El Cap

I love that climb!

Memories:

Tom's Tooth
Mayan and Libby a day before Woman's Speed Record on the Nose
[Click to View YouTube Video]


Special thanks for help in editing to Blair and Dave
Thank you for support:
MBC Ltd, UK (Grivel, Edelweiss, Deuter, Shred)
Zamberlan

http://www.reganclimbing.com