At the last minute we decided to add an extra member to the team - Jeff was traveling with us as a combination climbing partner / nanny. We had climbed with Jeff in the gunks but have never done a long trip with him.
The trip started with a monster drive. Driving through the night, we made Iowa City the first day. One of the things that helped a lot was "Satan's Tool" - aka Gameboy. With his brain glued to the minuscule screen, Eric was able to endure the endless hours without complaint. Jay passed the time sleeping, beating up whoever sat next to him, reading the same few books over and over, and screaming for whatever Eric was playing with, usually Gameboy.
The reunion was a lot of fun. We met endless streams of relatives and had fun talking about our adventures. The highlight for Eric was visiting my Uncle Wilfred's farm and playing with the big person toys there. He has a dumptruck, tractors, a ditch digger, a payloader, and lots of other stuff. All in working order. Eric got to drive all of them and had a blast. Meanwhile, Jeff impressed the Nebraska folks by setting up a rappel out of the barn.
We finally set out for the Needles. My brother Doug joined us and we blasted across the prairies for Rapid City. Arriving late we found a small climbers campground just past Rushmore and camped.
Our first day started at Sylvan lake. We noticed some climbers on the rocks that form the lake dam and walked over to find many shiny bolts. This was a great place for the kids to play (shade, water, no cliffs below) so we went for it. The other party was also from back east: Keith and Mary from Philly. Turns out that Mary didn't climb so Keith was cleaning everything on rap when he finished. The routes were not very memorable - we did a 9, a 4 (which Eric ran up), and another 9 or 10 that Keith led and nobody could follow. After this we strolled over and bagged the Decimal Point, a nice 5.6 I had done a few years earlier.
For lunch, we stormed down to the ten pins area. After spreading out by the road just above the switchback this big van with an Iowa plate containing an older couple pulled in to a barely adequate spot just above us. We thought for a minute that they might roll over right on top of us. Before we could say anything the driver hopped out and said hi and told us he parked there all the time. He asked us if we were climbers and pointed to a few rocks before disappearing. He looked vaguely familiar but Doug and I were just heading out for a quick climb. We bagged the leaning tower (5.4, neat summit!) and when we arrived back at the car Marti confirmed we had been visited by none other that Gene Larson, the retired Iowa farmer who puts up lots of 11s and 12s out there. This wasn't the last we saw of Gene!
Keith arrived and we headed over to Tricouni (5.8+). This is probably the neatest needle to climb in the area and Jeff gave it a go. He backed off about half way up and gave the lead to Keith. Keith led it in fine style and gave the rest of us a ride. Marti had a blast but Jeff was still spooked from his lead attempt and spent the rest of the day wondering whether he was cut out to be a climber.
Eric decided he wanted to try a summit so I took him to the Tent Peg, a nice 5.7. Eric did really well, needing just an occasional tug on the rope at the hard parts. Eric noticed the register atop Superpin right next to us and decided he had to find a climb with a register so he could leave his name somewhere.
The next day Marti and I decided to dump the kids on Jeff and climb together. While the rest of the gang set off for Jewel cave, we headed to the Needles Eye area. John Reppy had suggested Gnomen, a spire near the eye, so we started there. The route was great and we soon were on top. While on top we heard someone yelling for us - it was Mark Abbott (the Ab) who had spotted our car. He was between jobs and we had told him to look for us in the Needles. We also noticed Gene Larson had walked up to the base of the rock. Marti asked Gene if he was looking for a climbing partner but he said he was on a rest day. When I rapped down Gene started showing me a bunch of his routes. The guy was totally hyper - he ran instead of walking and talked a mile a minute. He also has no idea about rating climbs - "I just climb them - I don't rate them". He really has no clue how hard his routes are but he usually remembers (vaguely) what other folks have told him about the ratings. After convincing him we were not after his bolted 11s he started talking about 8s and 9s. One he suggested was Goldline, just downhill from the eye. It sounded pretty good (just an 8!) so he jogged over there with us trying to keep up.
The climb looked pretty doable but the bolts were ancient. It started with a long but easy runout to a pin, then an old bolt just below the crux. He had given us a ton of advice about staying left at the crux and places where he thought we could get pro (but he never bothers with anything but the bolts of course!). After backing up the bolt and fiddling with the crux for a long while I backed off and let Marti have a go. She flashed the thing but said the only reason she did it when I had backed down was that I was a better downclimber. After the crux, the climbing eased up and she got some good nuts to back up the old pins and bolts. Reading the guide, I found this was a 9 instead of the 8 Gene had said it was. Still, it wasn't too sustained and turned out to be a good climb. Generally, though, I found that the needles crystalline footholds are much harder for me to use with my big feet and greater weight. Gene is a scrawny guy - perfect for this area.
After this we broke for lunch and headed back to the pins. I did a quick ascent of the ridge on Moby Dick - an easy climb with basicly no pro anywhere, but still sort of fun. I enjoy doing the easier runout classics but the Ab was eager for something harder.
While on the climb the caving gang reappeared, ready to climb. We sent Mark and Marti to Tricouni since he hadn't done it yet while Eric wanted to do Tent Peg again. We videod his ascent this time and shot a bunch of pictures. He did really well, needing only one spot of tension this time. Since Eric still wanted to sign a register, I ran up the kingpin which used to have the original register on it. Arriving on top, I found the register was missing. As Jeff followed, a rain storm suddenly blew in and I had to lower him off and rap as fast as possible while lightning was striking nearby. That was the end of the climbing for the day and we headed back to the campsite.
The next day we decided to hike in to the cathedral spires and picket fence. The area was really beautiful and everyone (except Eric) enjoyed the short stroll to the rock. From the base, Kayyam spire seemed to be especially aesthetic and we headed for it. Reaching the north face, we looked at a route on the back which had no obvious line and was graded 5.7 in one book and 5.9 in the other. It was a hot day and the shade called to us and I started up. It turned out to be an excellent route - very atypical of the needles. Good pro, interesting sequences, and almost no crystals. Definitely solid 5.9 - in general, Touch the Sky is pretty bogus as far as the ratings go. It took a while for me to finish the lead and Mark and Jeff followed. The view of the rest of the spires was amazing - there is an incredible amount of rock there!
After rapping down we headed for the picket fence by crossing the divide above our climb. Jay finally fell asleep and Marti and I decided to take Eric up a nice sounding 5.3, the sickle. This rock looks to be a thin, overhung spire from the trail but actually is a long, narrow ridge which you see edge on from the trail. While hiking in we found a broken register jar that once had been on the summit.
Eric and Marti followed me to the top, climbing side by side up the narrow ridge. The tiny summit was a blast and Mark took pictures from below. We descended to Jay's cries from below - he had waken up and was unhappy to find his mommy had deserted him. The day was almost over but we had time for one more climb - Wicked Picket. This is mostly easy with a neat 5.7 crux just below the summit. Mark, Jeff, and I rapped off just before sunset and hiked out.
For our final day in the needles we decided to go sport dogging at Rushmore. We soon found that the R and I guide was full of crap. What they advertised as a classic 8 turned out to be a hard 10. One route sounded good for Eric - a short bolted 5.4 up the ridge of a spire. Marti and Eric and I walked over to the climb and it looked good. I soloed up to the second bolt and decided to let Eric have a go at leading.
The biggest problem for Eric was that the bolts were placed where a normal sized person would have a good stance for the clip. Unfortunately, he always had to do an extra move or two to reach the bolt. Although the runouts were pretty short, I was a little gripped belaying him. Every time I gave him advice he would say "thats easy for you to say but hard for me to do!". Still, he did just fine and I ran up to join him. We brought Doug up and then Doug and Eric drove off to Rapid City to play at a water park. Meanwhile, Mark managed to lead the psuedo 5.8 we had backed off earlier and we all did a really nice 9. As we packed up to go, Keith drove up and told us he was heading for Devils Tower and wanted to climb the next day. We agreed and all headed off.
That night we arrived at the tower to find the campground marked as full. Fortunately, a ranger had just marked unused group sites as available and we camped right next to Keith and Mary. The next morning we decided to leave Jay with Jeff and take Eric and Doug to Durrance.
Eric woke up eager to climb - quite a change from the usual `do I have to?'. His primary motivation was signing the register on top - he decided that this was just as good as the ones in the Needles. Unfortunately, the third-classing up to the start of the route wasn't too fun for him but once we started rolling up the route he was in a good mood again. We were lucky to be behind two fairly fast parties. After waiting a little, we jumped on he first pitch. Eric did a great job - he needed almost no help and climbed quickly. Doug was a little slower but didn't have any trouble either. While we were on the pitch Mark showed up from below and yelled that he didn't want to bother with Durrance so Marti and Keith teamed up and climbed behind us.
The second pitch of Durrance is the crux - you stem between a crack and a column. This was a wide reach for Eric and he needed some hangs to rest but he was still able to climb faster the Keith who was leading right behind him. Eric couldn't do the hand and foot jams that bigger folks use but his stemming was really great.
The third pitch starts with a hard face / chimney move and then up easier ground to a ledge. From the ledge you can either climb up to the top or traverse down and right, across another ledge, and then up the the Meadow where you can unrope and hike up. Eric had no problems with the climbing until he got to the ledge. Here we had Doug back belay the traverse. Unfortunately Eric slipped a bit while stepping down, skinned his knee, and started crying and blaming Doug for giving him a bad belay!! Fortunately Keith was right there and took over the back belay. Instead of having him climb down the Conn traverse, we both tightened the belay ropes and brought him straight across on a psuedo tyrolian traverse. This was so exciting for Eric - suspended high over the ledge as he was pulled across - that he completely forgot how unhappy he had been just a few minutes ago. Once he reached me Doug came up and we unroped and started hiking. Marti and Keith elected to keep going up and meet us on top.
We lounged around on the top for a while waiting for Marti and Keith to finish the chimneys. Eric wrote his name and then dictated a long message for the register. He spent a while serving as `official greeter' for the summit. Finally, we started rapping back down. The first rap ends in the meadow so we lowered Eric and let him wait on the ledge. After this, I tied him to my harness like a haul bag and rapped with him dangling below my feet. When we returned to the ranger station the first thing Eric did was ask them how old the youngest climber to get to the top was. When they told him the record was for a 7 year old girl, he told them he was only 6 and had just climbed the tower. Eric's head began swelling and he went around telling everyone about his climbing feat.
Meanwhile, while we had been climbing, Jeff was watching Jay. When we arrived at the base he informed us that Jay had locked the keys in the car and they had been without food or diapers for over 3 hours. Although we had another car key, the lights had been left on and the battery was dead. It took a couple of hours to clear the mess up and get the car started.
Jeff was really anxious to visit the top of the tower so although it was almost 5:30 we made a run for it. We did Durrance in three long pitches and watched the sun set from the top.
The next day was Ab's. After deciding to bag Durrance the previous day he had linked up with this rather strange dude who was hanging around looking for partners. Although he talked like a climbing hero, when he was confronted with some hard climbing he suddenly made excuses about heat exhaustion or something and insisted they bail. So the Ab was ready for something hardcore.
The first route he selected was El Matador. This is one of the tower classics and requires 135' of very wide stemming between columns. As we left the parking lot we noticed Marks pal from the day before hanging around declaring he was on a `rest day'. Arriving at the climb, Mark snarfed the first 5.8 pitch and told me to be the hero on the hard part. This was logical since the crux is extremely height dependent.
As Mark was finishing the first pitch who should arrive but our pal WD (weird dude). Basicly, he walks right up to me and announces he's going to do the first pitch of El Mat. With us. Yeah, right. Mark has already done his time with WD and I tell him I don't have time to haul him around. Fortunately, he seems to accept this but still he hangs around the base of the climb watching and making inane comments. Some hardy tourons stroll up the talus to watch and WD becomes their tour guide, showing off his vast climbing knowledge to the unsuspecting crowds. Later a rangerette with a bullhorn orders the tourons to get away from the rock and WD finally descends.
Meanwhile, Mark hands me the rack and says `Go!'. He should have said `Assume the Position'; you spend the entire pitch in a wide stemming stance with a hand and foot on either side. Fortunately, we had combined racks and had a tremendous number of wires and runners racked and ready. With a last whimper, I started up. Basicly, you make the same identical move repeatedly until either your calves burn out or you get up. One problem was that bombproof pro appears frequently and I couldn't help dropping a solid wire in every 7 or 8 feet. On one hand, each placement took just a few seconds, but it added up. About halfway up is a psuedo rest stance with a place to park your left foot. At this point I was starting to burn out and soon I was taking hangs. About 20 feet later I just gave up - there was no hard move, I was just physically and mentally exhausted. The Ab lowered me, grabbed the rack, and launched up. He climbed fast and was soon up to my high point, but higher up he too grabbed a few rests on the rope. Doggin, doggin, doggin. But no falls though.
My turn again. God, I've already climbed this thing once! Oh well. Earlier I told Ab that if I fell, it would be totally unexpected. I proved this by popping off about 20' up without warning. With a little slack and rope stretch, I was almost landed on the belay. Damn. Once more. This time, I hung in there. I was climbing as fast as possible to minimize the burn but still needed a couple of hangs to beat on stuck nuts. From the ledge at the top of the pitch, we rapped back down and met the gang on the trail below.
This was a truly amazing route. Totally unique. It also is a good example of how ratings are meaningless. Any move would probably be about 5.7 for me since I'm tall but putting it all together is hard! Someone like Marti would have no chance at all in the stem.
Jeff was climbing with us in the afternoon so I sent Mark and Jeff off to New Wave while I hung around with Marti and the kids for a bit. Later, I found Mark busy working on the crux of New Wave (10). This is a nice route but totally out of character for the tower. There are rests between sequences, the crux is face climbing, and the climbing is varied throughout the pitch. The only downside was sharing a very small ledge with Jeff while Mark worked his way up. All in all, a very nice climb.
This leads to a large ledge (the Teachers Lounge) where you can select from a number of different routes. Mark pointed me at Assembly Line (9-) and away I went. Mark had been up the first 20 feet earlier (with WD) and guessed that he had passed the crux. Armed with lots of gear, I passed Marks high point and slowly worked up the crack. The crux wasn't actually any one move, it turned out to be a simple matter of survival like El Matador. The dihedral contains a crack which varies between fist and fingers, but with almost no big footholds and few really good jams. I was wasted and put in way too much gear. Fighting the urge to give the pitch to Mark, I rested, lowered to clean some gear (most of the pro was large stopper / small cam). At last I made it to the first real rest, about 110' feet up. From here, it suddenly got easy and I was at the belay. While no move was all that hard, putting the whole thing together was exhausting. The lack of footholds really hammered my feet; tiny edges and toe jams the whole way.
After Mark and Jeff did the pitch, we rapped and looked for Marti. Eric had spent the afternoon milking his `world record' for all it was worth. At the ranger talk about rock climbing, he acted like he know everything there was to know. With his sunglasses on and his thumbs tucked in his shorts, he constantly answered every question the ranger asked, although not always with the answer she was looking for. At the end of the talk she told everyone Eric was the youngest ever to climb the tower and he had a bunch of tourists taking his picture and getting his autograph (a rather slow procedure!). He was also made a `junior ranger' and given an armpatch with a little picture of the tower on it.
Our plan was to leave the tower and head back to the Needles. Mark decided to take off. Doug had left the previous day so we were back to just our family and Jeff. That evening, we called Denver and found that Marti's uncle had just died. Instead of returning to Connecticut, we decided to drive to Denver for the service.
The next day we were played tourist in Wind Cave and then drove on to Denver to stay with my folks.
On Monday, we rested and did the wash in the morning. That afternoon, we dumped the kids on Jeff while Marti and I headed for Eldo. Dave Youkie and our nephew Brad joined us. We hit the West Ridge and Marti and I did Break On Through (10a) while Dave and Brad did Long John (8). Brad had no problem keeping up with Dave and the climbed quite a bit faster than Marti and I. I kept prodding Dave for a `Philosophy McNugget' but now that he's writing a dissertation he has no thoughts less than a page long. One the way back we took Brad up the first pitch of the Bastille Crack (7) so he could say he had climbed the big Eldorado classic. His small hands made the thing disgustingly easy for him.
Tuesday we went up to RMNP. Alan Wendt and his wife Sarah met us there for some climbing. The parking lot at Lumpy was full and a ranger warned us that parking on ranch land might get us towed, so we split up so I could park legally about a mile away. Unfortunately, Marti missed the trail to the Pear and we spent lots of time getting everyone back together. Finally, we decided not to go to the Pear so Marti, Alan, Sarah, and the kids played in the meadow while Jeff and I bagged the J crack (9). The J crack seemed really easy after the tower - having good rests sure makes the pitch easier to lead.
Wednesday morning we were joined by a German exchange student, Stephan. My folks had volunteered to take him in for a couple of days as he traveled to Utah. His original hosts were busy so they called my folks at the last minute. Stephan had never climbed before but was eager to try it out so we decided to take a quick trip to Eldo. Marti was spending the day with her aunt, so it was Jeff, Eric, Stephan, and I on the rocks. My dad came along to watch. We did Wind Ridge (6), with Jeff leading. Eric did well but left to play in the stream after the first pitch. Stephan zoomed up as if he had been climbing for years. Jeff did OK leading but was really slow. The overhang on the third pitch was too much for him so I got to lead that part. Stephan pulled it with no problem but Jeff wussed out and pulled on the rope.
After climbing I joined Marti for the service. It was really nice and afterwords I got to play with all my psuedo nephew and nieces. (Actually they are first cousins, one removed!)
For the grand finale, we took all the kids out climbing Thursday morning. We went to Tunnel 1 and set ropes on some easy climbs. Unfortunately we had only one kid harness so it was hard to keep all 6 kids entertained. Everyone did well, especially Brad's sister Becca (6) who refused to give up on anything. The highlight was a tyrolian traverse across a roadcut.
From there, all that remained was driving. In Nebraska, we just missed a tornado (well, missed by an hour or so!) and saw an amazing lightning display. My cousin Fred gave us an underground tour of the Nebraska state capitol building the next morning and then we ran for Rockford, IL where my old climbing buddy Bruce lives. After a nice dinner with Bruce and Lynn, who I hadn't seen him in 10 years, we hit the road. After a night at a motel in Indiana, we finally arrived home wasted.
Marti sent a postcard of Devils Tower to the local paper and they interviewed Eric about his big climb. Unfortunately, Eric clammed up and Marti and I had to answer most of the questions. Still, he got a picture of himself wearing a rope and an article about his climb in The paper just in time for the first day of first grade. He's now been invited to speak to the local Rotary club (some guy in the club had climbed the tower 20 years ago so he was impressed) so we'll have to see how that goes.