Something to take with me

Today was my last day at Newfront. Had a chance to reconnect with a lot of the people I had the pleasure to work with the last two years. I’m taking this as an inspiration to share one of my favorite stories from 2023 that feels relevant.

I was encouraging my oldest daughter to come up with something we could do together (thinking of dinner, or a show, or anything she’d want to do, but together). To my surprise, she asked if I could take her to the climbing gym. It had been several years since she had shared any interest. For those who know me, you know that felt more like a gift than a demand.

We spent about a dozen evenings over the summer at the gym. Packing up one night, I had a flashback memory from when she was about 8 years old showing her a climbing magazine article of the 15 best moderate climbs in the US and the one within driving distance of our home. The photo had sunset at the photographer’s back, Alpenglow on the peak reflected in an alpine lake. Starry eyed Kaitlin looked and thought, “That’s Beautiful!” I suggested that we might climb it together some time, but knew she needed to get bigger and stronger for the 4 mile approach and a 500’ spire.

So I asked 17 year old Kaitlin, “Do you remember?”

“I do.”

“If I planned a trip, would you go?”

“Yes.” ?

So it’s going to happen.

Comparing our calendars, it was 6 weeks before we could find a free day. Our chance was the middle of October which could either be really good weather or really bad. Since it was the only day we had, we were going to flip a coin and hope for the best. ?

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Before leaving the gym, I reached out to two friends I’d had a life changing day with a couple years prior to give one or both of them “first right of refusal” to join us. I needed at least one more experienced climber and Val made time to join.

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The morning of the climb, we got up before dawn. The low was supposed to be 28. Everything was sparkling in frost. My phone tried to tell me it was only 18 degrees. I decided not to share that information with anyone.

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The three of us put on all our layers and hiked fast by headlamp in the dark to keep warm until the sun started rising. We could see the full spire for almost half of the approach hike. The highest Kaitlin had ever been was 50 feet off the ground. This was 10x that.

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Offhand, I made a comment that the sun goes behind the ridge around 2 or 3, so it would be nice if we could summit and be on our way down by then.

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“Wait, the sun sets at 3?!”

“That’s not what I said, but it’s important.”

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One roped up and climbing, we could see all the peaks around us and a new ridge line visible at the top of every pitch. Kaitlin was delighted at the new sights every time we stopped at an anchor to set up the next pitch.

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Still a couple of pitches below the summit, we lost the sun behind the ridge. In the shade, the temperature dropped sharply. Kaitlin has every piece of clothing on that she has and is fighting back shivers.

“Can I give you my puffy?”

“It’s okay. I’m just going to have to take it off again” (we had been wearing down layers at belay stations and then putting them in a backpack to keep from tearing holes in them while climing.)

“What if we arranged your layers with both puffys on the inside and the shell over so you can climb with them.”

“Yes. Please.”

I’m 50% heavier than her, so it was going to take the chill longer to catch up to me.

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Before starting the last pitch to the summit, I shared that right before the top, there’s a false summit flake. The holds are bad, it’s incredibly exposed, and separate from the main formation where you can see through the mountain. More scarry than hard, but it gets your attention. I think my description is accurate, but it didn’t make my partners any happier about making the moves when they got there.

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Once over the flake, you have to lower yourself six feet backwards from bad handholds to a 2 foot square chockstone with visible exposure wedged between the flake and the summit block. The emotional impact was so great that Kaitlin just sat down on the chockstone curled up in a ball. The wind was howling, so I asked, “did you find a wind shelter down there?”

She yelled back over the wind, “No!” It was a wind tunnel, but she was more terrified than cold at that point. I tied her off on the anchor while I helped our third.

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Val struggled through the flake, made the downclimb, and joined me on the summit block (a flat top spire about the size of a picnic table with a big crack in the middle that dropped off sheer on all sides). We didn’t have much time as the wind was still pulling the warmth out of all of us. I yelled down to Katilin, “It would be a shame to come all this way and not get a summit photo.”

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We snapped a few pictures squeezing three people and 140M of rope onto the spire. The smiles on our faces defying how miserable our bodies felt.

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I lowered both of my partners to a safe ledge on the back of the formation and pulled gear as I downclimbed to join them. My lower legs and feet were numb from the cold. I had to visually inspect every foothold before using it.

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50 feet under the summit, the light was gone. We downclimbed, rappelled, scrambled and hiked by headlamp. I found some cell signal a few times to text message updates to a friend who was expecting to see us that night.

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“It’s dark and we just got off the summit. It’s going to be a while.”

“We’re going to be late.”

“We might not see you tonight.”

“We might not see you in the morning either.”

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Finally making it to the trailhead at quarter to midnight after 18 hours on our feet. Kaitlin disappeared into a sleeping bag in the back of the car without a word. The day was a way bigger bit than I had intended for her first time out. I hoped I hadn’t over done it.

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The next morning, I got up early. Made hot breakfast and warm drinks. We had initially intended to join another friend on another peak hike, but that didn’t seem like the greatest idea.

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“We can do anything today, but we don’t have to do ‘anything.’” Instead, we found touristy things around the park, saw the sights and made a picnic lunch in the meadow watching the Big Wall climbers from a distance thousands of feet off the ground. After an hour of sitting and enjoying a sandwich, she started planning our next trip. (I hadn’t ruined it with too much Type 2 fun).

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An opportunity isn’t a gift, it’s a challenge. A good experience doesn’t mean it will be fun the whole time. The bigger the test, the better the odds to head home with a good story.