My son has an Xbox360, it is a remarkable machine that permits us to play a variety of games. As You winnow through the various games you may "beat the level" or acheive a chekc-point, often times this takes a fair amount of perseverence as you get rubbed out again and again. I had switched over to Bear-back, meaning no heel-plate so had gone back to try some of my earlier sends sans eperon one route Quasimodo had gone fairly quickly but another Svengali, both in the Belfry at Vail had resisted my efforts, I had made it to the ice on several frustrating occasions only to get spit off, dang!
Some cold weather blew in last week, Vail seemed feasible again, we were surprised to see just how well the place was holding up. I had gone with Cormac and Adam the place being quite a scene with climbers flying off ice routes making a a racket in general, we retreated to the Belfry. There I noticed immediately a slender dagger had formed on Svengali, although a bit sun-rotted and poorly adhered it occurred to me that if I could make the ice maybe the route would go. Adam led up the pencil sank a couple screws up there for me, I put the draws up and the rope in the draws, then it was show-time.
I ripped through the dry-tooling so fast I hardly noticed, up and out walk feet on inner edge, then a decent move left to right over left Yaniro (figure 4), scrum the foot against the ceiling, grab the left tool up high rock, rock, then WHAMMO out to the lip to an occult divit.
Which I promptly missed. But the pick held long enough for me to crane out and look to see where the hold in fact was, 3 cm to the right so I jumped the tool into the hole, made it. Then left over right Yaniro kick the left front point into the slender dagger while in the Yaniro thus stabilized reach back for the other tool, pirate this tool with grip over my right shoulder, unload the Yaniro and gently kick into the dagger. Now hold breath swing at ice tool sticks, just.
No need to rush now, I won't have the steam for another try so I finesse my way up the hollow icicles pick my shots, take my time I clip one of the screws Adam placed but the route sucks me off up left up a fragile curtain so I twist one in, clip, life begins anew.
So that's that, I beat the level, all those futile attempts to try and climb a whole new way. Two years ago I ran into Jeff Lowe at the Ouray party, he could just stay vertical if he leaned against the counter. "I missed the leashless revolution" he told me staring off into the near distance, his MS having visibly ravaged him. I had first met him in 1995, the year everyone was repeating Octopussy, he was with then wife Terri Eble, still vital, powerful, at the height of his powers. he had watched me do Octopussy wanted to know what sequence I was using, I told him so he went promptly up there and sent the thing handily.
Well I'm not about to miss any revolutions, leashless, spurless or otherwise, if it involves ice tools I am all over it. The Bear-back thing is an immense amount of work until suddenly it becomes the norm then the norm becomes easy, you have beat the level.
Some time after my worse day climbing this winter (one of them) I took this photo, I had just patched up my Fusion tools for another go, was glueing the sole edges of my Dragon Boots back on, a sunny day on my deck I took this photo of my gear.
The gear is me really, battered, patched back up, ready for more.
I need sometimes to remember that mixed is alpinism you need to wait for that alignment of factors, I trained for weeks after my failures, the ice grew there, spring came. I plan to go back but maybe not to that climb this spring, ice cannot be squandered.
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