The Great Game - TR 7/15/07

No, it isn't a route, but an analogy, a climbing culture analogy.

We are up for something different this weekend, Gary and I, and Aaron who calls me late on Saturday night, "waszup?" I reply "Gary and I will be by your house at about 6am if you are still in" no pause "I'm in." We are going to meet up with a guide and be taken someplace new, very new, and not to be named.

The Great Game is a term that describes the events which transpired between the Russians and the British spanning nearly 100 years from 1813 to 1907. There is much related to the climbing world that comes to us from this rivalry. Rudyard Kipling's poems and novels, Kim popularizing the strategic conflict. Younghusband's exploration of the Himalaya, the Boy Scouts, etc, etc.

But for my story there is the fact that between two huge empires, the British subjugated Indian subcontinent and the expanded Tsarist empire, lay terra incognita, arguably the center of the climbing universe even today. And even today it is a land that refuses to be tamed, the impact point of ancient religions, the place of zealotry hidden and unknown, foreign even in this day. In our own Sierra there are huge empires of climbing, with age old traditions, and well defined cultures. But there are still wild areas, home of bearded men with burning coals for eyes prowling the night keeping the lines pure. And our guide had agreed, with our vow to keep it quiet, to take us there to see.

Meeting Gary at 0-dark-thirty we are speeding off to Aaron's in Deb's new Honda... I still don't know the answer to Gary's question about what I had done to merit this privilege. On familiar roads, we drive on past our normal path and meet the Guide, eventually, high up in the forested lands, the dramatic scenery of the Sierra at once familiar and new, as on this visit we have the eyes of a climber. The Guide is just breaking camp, and cheerfully greets our arrival. We talk a little about plans, and then drive off to the starting point.

This is to be a wide day, and we make sure we have the necessary equipment. Gary has a Valley Giant in tow, he has a hankering to set it in a climb today. Our Guide reassures him that we will have such an opportunity. The traditional gear sort takes place at the turnoff, we shoulder our packs and the Guide leads off to the bush, "try not to break any branches here," he warns, "it is better if the trail is not so obvious."

I am used to this sort of game. Ever since I started climbing in the 70's unknown areas were the subject of secrecy, to be developed by the discoverers and those deemed by them to be trustworthy. A lot of work goes into a new area, trail building, route cleaning, anchors, bolts, etc. Often, the better lines are worked on, maybe saved over a period for worthy attempts, while other, lesser lines are developed at leisure. Once the place is known, other climbers come in and can take what the developers felt was a right borne from their labors. This feeling is a legacy of the influential philosopher John Locke's concept that ownership of property is created by the improvement of wild lands. Thus the climbers improving the area feel they have a claim on the lines. Those in partnership agree to abide by the will of the group, usually this includes restricting the number of climbers invited to participate in the development.

As we walk up the slope on a rough climber's trail hacked through the manzanita we find ourselves in a glorious forest of Jeffrey Pine with a vanilla smell so pure as to seem to be the abstract realization, the imagined ultimate essence of vanilla. Yet here it was for us, delighting us on our hike. The Guide stops occasionally to put his nose to the tree trunk to inhale, deeply, the scent. It is wonderful.

Eventually the slope yields to rocky out crops. We arrive in a saddle and behold a granitic land of fissures on folding down an even steeper, brushier slope. We can see the road below us, but we are all alone in this playground of cracks.

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Aaron descends to the climbing area.

"Ah, first we have to replenish the 'Giving Tree'" and the Guide removes the beers he has packed up and places them in a fine wizened trunk of a long dead tree, hollowed and now a hidden cache for those who know. But even while this is in plain sight, only the chosen would partake of the gifts that it holds.

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A spectacular setting.

Down we go to the first climbing area. A warm up of sorts, the Guide has stated that the rating on the route could be 5.8 to 5.10a... My lead first, 7-Up Crack named for the litter found on the first ascent wedged inside. It's a cool crack, fist to arm-bar, good rock, good pro (two each #2 to #4 old Camelots) and a steep crux I think the consensus of our little group put at 5.9-, but not 5.8. All through the business we are getting a scouting report from the Guide, pointing out the objectives for later in the day across to the west. Gary and Aaron climb this also.

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Gary leads 7-Up Crack.

Aaron and Gary scout around the base of the cliff and come up with a bunch of possibilities. The first obvious line is a water streak with a seam in it, very hard looking to a dirt filled crack. Too much for our little expedition, we opt for a deeper crack next to it in a deep slot, the sloping sandy floor leads underneath a giant chockstone capping the slot. The Guide takes up the lead on the first line. The origin of the sand is immediately identified as the Guide scuffs off the outer layer of whatever he touches. The rock has a hollow, rotten sound but there is enough sound rock to get good pro in, some strenuous hand jamming leads to good offwidthing, and then a squeeze chimney. Stuff is falling on me as I belay him. On my follow, I knock stuff off too, but I'm not leading, and the route is already getting cleaner. Gary follows on TR after me, and the route is even more clean. Phatima is 5.9 and 80' to 90' long on a vertical face, but it doesn't seem too vert in the crack.

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"The Guide" starts up Phatima, 5.9 on the First Ascent.

Aaron does another line a couple of cracks down. The middle line has a fingery section that looks like it would be hard, splitting a roof, and Aaron decides on the "quick kill" of the easier line. Such is the luxury of first ascents in undeveloped areas. And it is that luxury that is sought and so jealously guarded. We are happy to be infidels here, sneaking into this hidden kingdom. Aaron has a great lead, with a thin hands crux up high with tenuous jams, and crumbling feet. He pulls it off. India Pale clocks in at 5.9 and is as steep as the face is, though the cracks and features keep the steep away from your thoughts. This climb has good hand jams with one awkward set of moves into a flare just before the crux. Gary followed.

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Aaron near the top of Indian Pale, 5.9 on the First Ascent.

We had been eyeing the cliffs across the way all morning. They looked long and steep, but perspective is an odd thing. As we get into the alcove we find things not quite as big, and not quite as steep as they appeared. Our objective was Bicameral Thoughts which was a 5.10 crack climb, and the reputedly requiring the VG. The Guide selects Gary to lead it. I have climbed with Gary a lot over the last 4 years or so and I have never seen him take so much time getting ready. But finally he is ready. The rack? #1, #2, #3 old Camelots for the incidental protection to get to the block, 2 #6 Friends and the VG. The Guide had been optimistic in stating that the rock on this outcrop was better than on the other side, less dirty. The fact is that it is roughly the same.

Gary goes up and gets to the first wide section quickly. Left side in to the top of the block, which has an edge top, not a nice rest. From this alter you face the next problem, a 9" bottomless crack, which has offset sides making right side in the choice... bicameral indeed. Gary recovered the VG from below and places it in the bottom of the crack. Then he works through the powerful entry moves. A rattley knee jam, but a great interior edge enticing you to make the committing step across. Once there, you have to figure out something for your left leg/foot to do while you edge your way up, maybe three feet an inch at a time, classic offwidth technique, gastoning, armbarring, right heel-toeing. Just when you are redlining, the left foot finds the heel-toe which seems a gift from Allah himself. Of course, all you have to do now is work a strenuous set of moves over and over again: heel-toe/gaston/arm-bar to move the right foot/leg up, gaston/arm-bar/right-knee-bar to move the left foot up into the next heel-toe, then stand up setting the gaston and arm-bar higher... repeat.

Twenty feet of crack feels like fifty feet. But it's all there. If you closed your eyes, you'd think you were at a particularly painful Thrash Thursday session. But opening your eyes you take in the blue blue sky, you smell the scent of the pines, hear the call of Ravens and know that you just have to keep on keeping on, a pilgrim's trip to a stone in the great western desert.

Gary deploys the first #6 Friend, walks it up for a ways, he's breathing hard but this subsides as he submits to the physical demands of the fat crack. He breaks out the second #6 and walks that to the top totally in control. A bit more and he's done.

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Gary breaks out the wagon wheel on the second ascent of Bicameral Thoughts.

I go next on this stone pilgrimage, then the Guide, then Aaron submits.

We declare it 5.10a, the entry to the right-side-in crack being the crux. But who are we to declare on this ground?

Rap off, down climb, pack up and make for the "Giving Tree." We drink some of the beer brought up and talk of all the other things there are to do here in this land... always more plans then days of our lives, but would we have it any other way?

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We give thanks together in companionship upon receiving the gifts of the "Giving Tree"

Where is this place? I cannot say. But it provided us a day of glorious cragging thanks to a few excellent climbers who have a zeal for exploring in these remote lands and have the vision, and the strength, and the commitment to a way of climbing that few now ever know. To these imams I give thanks and I swore an oath on my descent not to reveal this place.

For there are places never meant to be tamed, and I am happier in the knowledge that they really exist.


"...
They have looked each other between the eyes, and there they found no fault,
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on leavened bread and salt:
They have taken the Oath of the Brother-in-Blood on fire and fresh-cut sod,
On the hilt and the haft of the Khyber knife, and the Wondrous Names of God.
The Colonel’s son he rides the mare and Kamal’s boy the dun,
And two have come back to Fort Bukloh where there went forth but one.
And when they drew to the Quarter-Guard, full twenty swords flew clear—
There was not a man but carried his feud with the blood of the mountaineer.
“Ha’ done! ha’ done!” said the Colonel’s son. “Put up the steel at your sides!
Last night ye had struck at a Border thief—to-night ’t is a man of the Guides!”

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the two shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.

Rudyard Kipling
The Ballad of East and West