50 climb solo day at Joshua Tree

Yonder lies my trip report. It's long, rambles a bit, and is somewhat philosophical. Even so, I enjoyed writing it. Hopefully you will enjoy reading it DJR Oh no!! What does that mean!? I groggily open my eyes as my wife points to the instrument panel where both the brake light and battery light are flashing. I take a moment to acquire a modicum of coherence. I tell her to pull over. We are somewhere in the middle of the Mojave Desert. In a few minutes it will be midnight. Cindy was taking the graveyard shift at the wheel since I was planning on a big day at Joshua Tree tomorrow. Dave is to meet me there at first light for a marathon climbing day. I was planning to climb fifty routes. A few weeks ago I emailed my good buddy Dave in S. California with the crazy idea of climbing 50 routes in a day. Strangely, he is interested in the plan, though for him he says that 25 will be a reasonable goal. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not usually prone to such flights of fancy. As a matter of fact, up until this weekend, the most individual climbs I've done in a day is probably less than a dozen. In the past, I've never considered such numbers in the context of a competition or as an end unto itself. At the end of the day if it turned out that a large number of climbs have been done, then it would only serve to add to the satisfaction and enjoyment of the day. Climbing is a very personal endeavor. Aside from the usual friendly competitive camaraderie, I have never equated climbing with competition. But for some reason I was feeling antsy. Maybe it was the cold weather. After living nearly ten years in Southern California, I wasn't accustomed to the snow and cold. Climbing was something that could be done year round in either the mountains or the desert depending on the time of year. I think I was feeling a little claustrophobic. So, on Thursday November 10th my wife and I leave after work on the nine hour drive to Joshua Tree. The plan is for me to meet Dave at 6:00 AM Friday morning for the big event. At around 11:56 PM, a few miles from the small desert town of Johannesburg, we nervously pull the car over to the side of the road. I open the car door and am instantly hit by a blast of cold desert wind. Fully awake now, I reach in the back for my pullover and headlamp. I lift the hood and look things over and conclude that everything looks okay. Not that I would really know if things didn't look okay. I guess at midnight in the middle of the Mojave Desert I just hoped that everything was okay. I close the hood and get back into the car. My wife suggests that we head back to Ridgecrest and spend the night. She says we can have someone look at it in the morning, I'm against the idea. I don't want to jeopardize the plans I've already made with Dave. Besides, I figure it's likely just a problem with the sensor lights and that the vehicle is probably fine. We continue on and after ten miles or so I realize that I've made a bad mistake. At one point my wife, who was driving, turns on the brights which causes the vehicle to lurch and sputter. I immediately tell her to turn off the lights as I realize that the alternator is gone and that we are running on battery power only. I also realize that I will be paying for my bad judgment in more ways than with just my pocketbook! She pulls over and we switch positions. My night vision is better than hers and I figure well need every advantage we can get. We head on toward the nearest point of civilization which is Kramer's Junction more than fifteen miles away. As I remember, Kramer’s Junction is nothing more than a few gas stations and a couple of restaurants. The sole existence of the place is based on the fact that it’s location is at the junction of hwy. 395 and hwy. 58. Although home to no more than a few souls, right now it seems like a metropolis of salvation. We head on with dim hopes of making it. We both are experiencing a feeling of intense doom since we are now traveling with no lights and have only about twenty minutes of battery power left! I dig out my headlamp and tell my wife to hold it up in the window so oncoming traffic will notice and be able to avoid the idiots driving sixty miles an hour on the shoulder of the oncoming lane with their lights off. Taking full advantage of our only bit of luck, we race on at a full clip with the nearly full moon lighting our way. Suddenly a car looms behind us and I have no choice but to pull off the road and engage the flashers. As the car passes our engine dies and I quickly turn off the flashers and pop the clutch. I know that our fate is pretty certain, but I refuse to give in to it quite yet. The vehicle amazingly jumps to life again. I realize that I've got to build up more speed. If another car comes up behind us it will be all over. At this point we see the lights of our destination, but I realize that we are probably still at least ten miles away. Still, we both feel better having something to shoot for. Some of the oncoming cars flash us repeatedly. They are probably thinking that we are drunk or unbelievably stupid in not realizing that we are driving seventy miles an hour at night with no lights on. Although I can verify that we haven't been drinking I am not so sure that we don't qualify as unbelievably stupid. I think there is a good doctoral thesis to be written on the subject of differentiating the fine line between stupidity and desperation. In my mind the miles go by very slowly. I continue to focus on the distant lights of the four corner's community. Concentrating on that target is difficult through the doubts I have about the wisdom of what we are doing and while at the same time, trying my best to ignore the panicked induced utterances of my wife. After an eternity, the traffic lights are upon us. A quick scan of the place shows that the only open gas station is on the other side of the intersection. The traffic light will not be in my favor. I make an illegal left turn and power across Hwy. 58 towards the gas station. Suddenly my wife yells out that she sees a motel. The vehicle shudders and begins to die as I step on the gas in an attempt to cajole the thing another one-hundred yards. I realize we’re getting greedy, but I figure we've earned it. As I pull into the motel parking lot, the engine gives a great wheeze and finally quits. We coast on into an open parking place in front of room number 14. My wife and I silently look at each other and at that point I notice that my hands are shaking uncontrollably. At around 3:00 the next day we head out of the little town of Boron, California. We had spent nearly five tedious hours in the small and dirty waiting room of the only repair shop within a thirty mile radius. In all fairness the local repair guys were quite friendly and treated us fairly. Considering our limited options they could have really stuck it to us and we would have had no choice but to suck it up. They actually took two sixty mile round trips to Mojave to pick up parts for our vehicle. On the way out of town we stopped at a great little Mexican restaurant called Domingo's. It was a much deserved treat after our recent troubles. I called Dave the night before and explained the situation to him and we rescheduled our attempt for Sunday at 7:00 AM. Sunday morning Dave and I pull into the parking lot of the Short Wall at Indian Cove. I am sore from a full day of climbing the day before. I had linked up with my brother Mark and friend Roger for an interesting foray into the Wonderland of Rocks. I probably climbed harder than I should have in light of my plans for the next day, but I think that the main problem was all of the scrambling and boulder hopping that is necessarily a part of any trip into the Wonderlands. On the way to the park I told Dave that I was feeling mentally ready for the day. I think that Yogi Berra’s comments regarding baseball are as equally applicable to rock climbing when he said “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.” I explained to Dave that my “well of intensity” is full to the brim. The idea of the “well of intensity” came from my friend Roger. At one point while in the Wonderlands yesterday, I was preparing to lead a climb on the west face of the North Astro Dome called Deliver Us From Evil. Roger spoke up and cautioned against it. This climb was rated "R" in the guidebook and Roger made an interesting observation. It's his opinion that we all have a "pool" or “well” of intensity, that refills slowly. He suggested that in consideration of my plan to do fifty climbs tomorrow, that I not climb anything today that will draw from that pool. It was his thought that leading any "R" climb will certainly use up valuable reserves from that precious well. After thinking about what he said I realized that he was probably right. We talked about how sometimes we just don't "have it" for certain leads. Under his theory, those are the moments when our mental well is at low tide. At such moments, the best way to regain the mental "eye of the tiger" is to have patience and to wait for our mental wells of intensity to refill. His comments were not just off the cuff. I could tell that he had thought about such things before, and that his conclusions were based on analysis of his own personal experiences. To me it sounded right. Dave and I boot up at the base of the wall, and at five minutes after seven the sun hits the east face of the Short Wall. The warmth of the sun and the fact that we had the normally crowded wall to ourselves seem a favorable augur for the day. After a couple of quick photos we each begin climbing. The time is 7:10. For me, the first few climbs go very quickly. I start on the right side of the Short Wall and work left. Dave on the other hand begins in the middle and staggers his climbs from either side. Before I begin each climb I write down the name of the route and the time I begin climbing it. Having each route already written down in my log before I begin, seems to give me a little extra incentive to complete the climb. Donna T’s Route at 7:10, Gotcha Bush at 7:12, S.O.B. at 7:17. Things begin brilliantly. Dave and I are cruising. We see each other on neighboring routes, at the base of the wall, on the descents. We call out words of encouragement. Each giving the other a little confidence boost. I feel that there is nowhere I need to be except right here doing what I am doing. Everything feels right. The seventh climb for me is a route called Linda’s Face. I was worried about that route. Actually, I worry about any face route when soloing. Soloing! Dave and I finalized the "rules of engagement" while driving to the crag early in the morning. We discussed several possible scenarios, but settled on the following: 1.) No ropes would be used. We realized that we could greatly increase our climb tally by concentrating on a certain area and using quick body belays and maybe a piece or two for pro on climbs that we felt were a little to hard to solo. This would greatly cut down on our need to drive to different areas in search of solo climbs. We also knew that one of the main time killers would be the time it would take to descend from the top of the routes. Many areas were set up for rappels. We could have saved a lot of time by setting up fixed rappel lines. We opted instead for the logistically easier alternative to just climb up and scramble (and sometimes climb) down. We did bring a rope along just in case it was needed for a rescue. 2.) We would climb up everything. Dave had talked to several of his friends who have done similar things. Their advice was to climb up some routes and then to downclimb others. At first I thought that the idea sounded good, but then the more I considered it, the more it didn't feel quite right. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but it somehow seemed that I would be shortchanging myself. Yeah, I know that it's usually harder to downclimb a route than to climb up it, but this was a personal challenge. I was compelled to pursue my challenge in my way. At the end of the day I didn't want any asterisk next to my name. As it turns out, during the day I used several climbs as decent routes, but I made sure at some point to climb up each one. 3.) No headlamps We wanted to be finished when the sun went down. We didn't want to engage in any twenty-four hour epic marathons. We both had busy days coming up. Dave had to go to work and I had a long drive back home. Besides, I'm not sure if either of us could have mustered the physical energy necessary to continue climbing past dark. 4.) No pressure This actually went unstated, but was clearly a part of the day’s interactions. If somebody wasn't interested in a certain climb, then fine. If someone wanted to quit altogether, that was also fine, so long as he didn't mind waiting for the other guy to finish. I make the first balancy move beyond the second bulge of this route. I then make a stretch for an obvious chicken head and am now fully committed. A couple of dicey moves to the right and I have my hands on a solid chunk of dark rock. I pass the first mental milestone. The time is 7:44. Dave and I didn’t really spend much time thinking this project through. We had a general idea of where we would go, but we were really playing it fast and loose. At one point we spent about 20 minutes looking for a route in Clump Canyon. On a day like this, time like that can’t be wasted. From Indian Cove we drive to Belle Campground. As I head to the base of the north face of Castle Rock, I begin to feel a little spent. The climbs here are in the shade. The sweat from my previous exertions begins to instantly cool down and sap my strength. But there is no time to relax. Diabetics at 1:02, Diagnostics at 1:08, Chimney Sweep at 1:15. I can tell that Dave is slowing down as well. Our words of encouragement for each other are spoken with less enthusiasm if at all. Each of us is concentrating on his own task. Focusing in on our own personal goals. My thirty seventh route is called Two Point Crack. The guide book gives it a rating of 5.1. Two Point Crack is an offwidth and chimney combo that at this point in the day causes me to sacrifice at least a third of my remaining strength. After finishing Two Point Crack I don’t even try One Point Crack (5.4). Instead, I skip over to Half Crack (5.3) and then head straight back to the truck and start chowing down on apples and pumpkin seeds. My reserves are low and for the first time I'm wondering if I’m going to make it. By this time Dave has already made his goal and has decided to kick back and rest up. He’s planning to wait until we hit Trash Can Rock to tick off some gravy routes. That’s a luxury I can’t afford. Strategy is now playing a big part as I consider my options. I figure I can solo at least seven routes at Trash Can Rock with the outside possibility of nine or ten. At this point I’m tired and am not sure of my ability to do routes such as Karpkwitz (5.6) or Eschar (5.4). Both routes have cruxes up high and I’m not sure my intensity well is sufficiently full for such commitments. By this time I figure that I still need to do thirteen routes. I also figure that I need to get in six routes between here and there. That would leave me with my guaranteed seven routes at Trash Can. The time is 2:30. Dave begins driving toward Trash Can Rock as I frantically thumb through the guide book looking for six routes that I can do. “Quick, Pull in here!” Dave pulls into Cave Corridor and I rush out and knock back three more. We continue down to Roadside Rocks. By 3:11, I am starting up Mother Goose (5.4). This is a face route, and I have trouble committing to the sequence that I know I must make. I would prefer a 5.7 hand crack about now! I finally commit and then have trouble finding the proper way down. The clock is ticking and I am feeling frustrated with myself. Back in the truck now, the guidebook shows another possibility, A climb called Barney Rubble located nearby on the west face of the Freeway Wall. I ask Dave to drive down to it so I can take a look. The approach looks much longer than I would like, but if I can rush over and do it quickly I will be down to seven routes. I quickly scan the descent and it looks easy. I decide to do it. I rush over in my climbing shoes. My feet are in intense pain, but I can ill afford the time it would take to change into approach shoes and then change back again. I charge up the route and immediately begin to wonder “who rates these things?” There’s probably not a big difference between 5.1 and 5.3, unless you’ve been climbing almost constantly for nearly eight hours. At this point, the differences begin to magnify like pesticides through the food chain. I make it to the top and realize that the “easy” descent is actually a 5.1 downclimb. Once again, normally a 5.1 downclimb is no big deal, but I am suddenly feeling very tentative and insecure. The efforts of the day are telling in both my mental and physical abilities. I make it back to the truck and am alarmed when I realize that I wasted nearly half an hour on that route. Poor judgment once again raises it’s ugly and omnipresent head. Dave races on to Trash Can Rock. We are cutting it very thin. Darkness begins to fall between 4:30 and 5:00. I am chilled to the bone and feeling weak. I force down a pop-tart in the hope that my glucose level will rise and give me a needed energy boost. Dave pulls into the Trash Can Rock parking area. I rush over to The Trough (5.0), and start up. The time is 4:01. I am beginning to feel the days aches and pains. The descent from the top of this crag is relatively easy, but the repetition is wearing me down. Up and down, up and down. The sun dives below Quail Mountain and I realize that between the cold and the darkness, it’s going to be close. B-2, B-1, Baby- Point Five. I’m at forty-eight and Dave’s at twenty eight. We feel a pall slowly lifting as we continue on toward success. Dave chooses Simpatico (5.1), and I head for Eyesore (5.4). Wrong! We both realize that we chose poorly, but neither wants to admit it. This is the test. It seems to boil down to this one route. Dave is now shooting for thirty and I still have hopes of nailing fifty. Above my own heavy breathing I hear Dave’s cursing nearby. We are probably both thinking the same thing; “Who rates these things?” I move slowly upward. Tic.. tic.. tic. Three minutes, five minutes, ten minutes. I continue to struggle. Dave finally makes it to the top and calls down asking me about the descent. I tell him I’m currently only worried about avoiding a certain obvious sudden and unexpected descent. After thirteen precious minutes I pull over the top. Dave and I finish up the last route and head back to the truck to enjoy a celebratory beer, and savor the fading crimson of a western sunset. The time is 4:59. An hour later we are waiting for Cindy in front of Chen’s in Yucca Valley. The moon peeks above the northeastern horizon looking incredibly large and orange. Cindy pulls up and is happy to see us. Her job of waiting and worrying is the most difficult. She is incredibly understanding of my passions and has never tried to force me to find a more “suitable” pastime. We have talked about the possibility of a climbing accident. Though neither of us like to think about such things, the possibility does exist. I can’t offer her any consolation except that if I die climbing, then I died doing something that I love. People will say that such talk is meaningless. I disagree. People can die in any number of ways, but one thing is certain. If either of us go unexpectedly, the other won’t have regrets about taking the others presence for granted. Someone recently asked me why I solo climb. That’s a tough question to answer. Like trying to unravel the Gordian Knot. If it could easily be done, there really wouldn’t be much curiosity about it. When I was younger I had what I called the “fifteen minute” theory. The main theme of this theory is that most people in this country live most of their lives within fifteen minutes of a car. Think about it. When was the last time you couldn’t get to a car within fifteen minutes. I used to cherish time I spent beyond the “fifteen minutes.” I considered such time to be time added to my life. Bonus time. Time that counted double over “normal” time. This was usually time spent hiking or canoeing far from the rush of the motorized world. It was time well spent. For me, soloing is like living fifteen minutes beyond “normal” life. I believe in the power and uniqueness of the experience. Time that is counted triple over the normal, the mundane, the ordinary. Time that is not only added back in triplicate at the end of my life, but makes the time between then and now, much more precious. Of course if all other explanations fail, then there’s the old reliable “If you need to ask, you’ll never understand.” By the time we exit the restaurant, the moon is well above the horizon. We each do our best to bundle up against the cold. Dave says he needs to get going. After transferring my gear from his truck, we shake hands. The act takes a split second longer that usual. A small acknowledgment of mutual respect. Cindy and I get in the car. She starts the engine and turns the heat up to full blast, but cold air is all it can muster. She steers the car east, in the direction of Joshua Tree. Tomorrow we have a long drive home. It’s been a good trip. Epilogue: I think that the idea of climbing a hundred routes in a day first came from Todd Gordon and Dave Evans who did it back in 1980. Since then, Joshua Tree has been witness to many other climbing schemes. I have read that Charles Cole holds the current record for climbing the most routes in a day at 124. I have to believe that many others have done “speed solo” days. I am equally convinced that seventy-five, and probably even one-hundred route solo days have been done. I make no claims of greatness. For me fifty routes was satisfying. The following information is provided to anyone planning a similar project. May you learn from my mistakes. Plan ahead: Scope the routes ahead of time. Know your itinerary. A lot of time can be wasted looking for routes or even backing off of routes that may have had difficulties that you were not prepared for. Know your descents: I wasted valuable time looking for the way off of some formations. Keep the routes short: I climbed some two pitch routes on the Feudal Wall that really cost me some valuable minutes. Not only was I climbing twice the length, but I had to descend twice the distance. Try to clump as many routes together at a time as you can: Driving around for a route here and a route there is not the way. Keep hydrated: I did and I know it helped. Eat: My main problem was that I didn’t eat anything until my body began fading. I think had I munched a little here and there along the way, I would have had a much stronger finish. Daylight: If you are in doubt about finishing in the sun, be sure to plan your attempt more toward late spring or early fall to give yourself a few extra hours of daylight. Hands: After climbing for eight years at Joshua Tree without using tape, I recently began to “tape up.” It cuts down on my use of chalk, and allows me to better concentrate on the climbing. Even so, my hands were in great pain that night from all of the abuse they took. I try not to imagine the pain I might have felt had I not taped up. Feet: After the first dozen routes or so, I realized that my feet were going to be in a bad way. I tried climbing without socks, even though the temps were at times very low. Eventually, my feet became a source of almost constant concern. Later that evening I stubbed my toe and almost passed out from the pain! I would recommend bringing an extra large pair of shoes along so that you can wear socks and give your feet some relief. Crowds: Throughout the day, I estimate that we lost the chance to climb five routes that were on our list because people were on them. Especially at places like the Short Wall, people will drop topropes on routes and leave them there for hours. I would suggest that you build a certain “fudge factor” into your plans. The following is mostly for my own personal log, but I decided to post it in case anyone is interested. For the route names, I consulted Randy Vogel’s 1992 guide and Alan Bartlett’s mini-guides. I believe one or two climbs are not listed in any guide, but based on length, aesthetics, and difficulty, I considered them as individual routes. Also, in some cases I thought that the guidebook ratings were inaccurate. I tried here to present the published viewpoints. Happy Climbing DJR Route Number and Name Rating Time Started 1. Donna T’s Route 5.5 7:10 2. Gotcha Bush 5.4 7:12 3. S.O.B. 5.6 7:17 4. Toe Jam Express 5.3 7:23 5. Double Crack 5.3 7:27 6. Chockstone Chimney 4th 7:32 7. Linda’s Face 5.6 7:36 8. Linda's Crack 5.2 7:45 9. Mad Race 5.4 7:52 10. Duchess Left 5.4 8:04 11. Route 1326 5.2 8:14 12. Scaramouch 5.2 8:19 13. Marchesa 5.2 8:26 14. Court Jester 5.7 8:41 15. Dum Roodle 5.6 9:00 16. Princess 5.7 9:05 17. Minion 5.4 9:14 18. The Heart Route 5.6 9:25 19. brimstone Stairway 5.1 9:53 20. Hillside Strangler 5.4 9:58 21. Be Wary 5.2 10:02 22. Ambulance Driver 5.1 10:06 23. Myrmecocystus Ewarti 5.4 10:10 24. Jailbreak 5.3 10:50 25. Cellbound 5.5 10:55 26. Crack 69 5.5 11:22 27. Finally 5.4 11:40 28. Picnic 5.6 11:56 29. Hodgepodge 5.4 12:11 30. Short Crack 5.4 12:22 31. Diabetics 5.4 1:02 32. Diagnostics 5.6 1:08 33. Chimney Sweep 5.0 1:15 34. Ground Finale 5.10a 1:23 35. Junction Chimney 5.2 1:30 36. Crack above route 35 5.3 1:35 37. Two Point Crack 5.1 1:41 38. Half Crack 5.3 1:50 39. The Sound of Grains Snapping 5.4 2:46 40. Short crack left of route 39 5.6 2:52 41. On Ramp 5.0 2:58 42. Mother Goose 5.4 3:11 43. Barney Rubble 5.1 3:28 44. The Trough 5.0 3:57 45. B-3 5.3 4:01 46. B-2 5.3 4: 07 47. B-1 5.1 4:12 48. Baby-Point-Five 5.8 4:18 49. Eyesore 5.4 4:23 50. Simpatico 5.1 4:40