Sometimes I go back to a memorable climb and do a retro TR. That way, I can share the experience, and also store it on my hard drive for when I'm senile and can't remember. Ironically, I am writing this as I am listening to an old tape of music I composed at the time. It sounds better than I thought it would. Maybe it will bring me back to the beginning of the decade when this climb took place.....

Around 1990, I was Employee Housing and Human Resource Manager for the Southern End of Yosemite National Park. I did my best to mediate between the corporate interests of the concessionaire and the human interests of the employees. It was a union environment, and one of the local union stewards was particularly abrasive and militant in fighting for real and imagined causes. To the other managers, he was the devil incarnate. The devil's name was Neil, and he was also a climber. One day, while debating some issue or another, he joked that we should climb EL Cap together. This was a little like suggesting Yassar Arafat team up with the Israeli leader for a paddleboat expedition around the Mediterranean. I jokingly accepted but as time wore on, the joke became more serious. He couldn't find competent climbers who would dare spend wall time with him, and I was entertaining "Love thy Enemies/Build a bridge of understanding" type of thoughts.

Before we knew it, we were headed up Freeblast with the Shield in our sights. We reached Mammoth Terraces around dark and fixed our lines at night. We were headed up the ropes early the next day, and were terrified to hear the dreaded whistling of a heavy object accelerating through space in our direction. We managed to catch a glimpse of a piton hammer screaming past us about 15 feet to our right. Neil was pissed and exclaimed that "Anyone stupid enough to drop their hammer had no business climbing the Capitan in the first place!" A remark I would remind him of later in the climb. He was rattled, but it was understandable enough. I figured nobody drops their hammer intentionally. They weren't super high on the route, they would have to come down. We would have the Shield to ourselves without them to potentially shit and piss on us. Sure enough, the offending party rapped past us later in the day and the route was ours.

Once the free-climbing was over, Neil proved to be a slow aid-climber. He took a fall on the easy aid leading up from gray ledges. It was becoming painfully apparent that his wall speed and competency weren't what he imagined. I could understand. Before the ski season, I can alway imagine myself pounding down fields of moguls with a few rad jumps interspersed. The reality on the snow was usually less spectacular. Neil wasn't the type of guy you could talk delicately with, but somehow I obtained the privilege of leading the pitches for the next few days. I felt like I was walking on eggshells being on the wall with him. He was prone to frustration-born outbursts at the slightest suggestion that he do anything differently. I felt a sense of dread and resolved to girdle my loins for the days ahead. The traversing pitch before the Shield roof and following the roof in the wind gave him plenty of fuel for his emotional fire. In my more paranoid moments, I wasn't sure I could trust him to be the guy to catch the big whip if it came.

I had some quiet revenge when we were bivied below the "groove pitch" on the overhanging headwall. We were in hammocks. It was butt cold and windy and I wasn't a bit warm even tucked away in my bag. In the middle of the night, Neil had to take a dump. It would have been the very last thing I would have wanted to do in the middle of the night. I was holding back the laughter at his flailing sounds extracting himself from his hammock with the wind cold and wailing. Then he announced that he might have crapped on the ropes hanging down from the bivy "by mistake". I prayed it wasn't so, as handling his foul body excretions was low on my vacation time priorities.

The next day dawned turd-free and I embarked on the famous groove pitch. I had heard somebody had once fallen near the top of this once A-5 pitch and zippered the whole thing! It was already fairly fixed at this point but there was plenty of manky crap to cause concern. I don't think I was sweating it too hard when the copperhead I was standing popped with me high in my aiders. Fortunately or unfortunately, I hadn't clipped into the truly trashy pieces below me and I flew about 20 feet until I was caught by a fixed rurp. Neil asked if I were OK and I asked if he were OK. Thanks for the catch Brother Neil! I was beginning to get a feeling for understanding him on his own terms. I was happy that the fixed mank was still there to clip on my way back up to the first and last copperhead I would have to place on the route. Placing a head is a little more adventuresome if you just whipped, and weren't expecting to need heads, but you can't fight reality. Soon we were on to the triple cracks.

The Triple cracks are these great series of splitter cracks on an otherwise blank overhanging headwall. Back then, they weren't fixed at all and I don't think TCUs were available yet. It was quite a nice lostarrow whacking stretch of rock. I finally could watch Neil cleaning and I could see he didn't know how to use his jumars on traverses. I asked him if I could give him some tips, but he angrily insisted that he knew what he was doing. I don't know how he thought insisting 2+2=5 was going to salvage his ego. I wasn't going to get down on him for not knowing the tricks, but insisting he did was pushing my button. By this time, I think my patience was thinner and we snapped at each other. I found that, because Neil was combative by nature, I could fire off some angry abuse and, just a few minutes later, we could be chatting as if nothing had happened. I found a similar difference in communication styles when I lived in New York for a couple summers. A mellow California guy, I shuddered to confront anyone, but I found that confrontation was New York for "Hello". People was always yelling at each other. It seemed that they reserved profanity for real emotional moments, just so they would know when somebody was really mad. Neil and I didn't spare each other any profanity, but it felt good not be on eggshells anymore. Finally, he was thrutching with the jugs so bad that he gave up and let me tell him what to do. I gave him the beta without rubbing anything in. In a awkward and male kind of way, we were beginning to understand each other.

That night, on a long and narrow ledge, I noticed that some of the water knots on his gear were sporting rather short tails. He wasn't very pleased when I mentioned that he should be mindful of short water knot tails on webbing. We exchanged abuses and then went back to chatting about life and the climb as if nothing had happened. It looked like we were going to make it after all.

We must have been three or four pitches from the top when Neil felt ready to lead some pitches again. We had the time. The difficulty and angle kicked back considerably. I was hanging at the belay when suddenly I heard a startling sound. There was that damn whistling sound and, ironically, I got to watch Neil's hammer flying by the belay on its way to the talus! Total Karma, man! I didn't have to say anything but I think I still received abuse for him dropping his hammer just by the look on my face. The water knot on his hammer had come undone, and down it went. Neil felt he wasn't in the category of idiot hammer droppers because he didn't drop it , it came untied! The climb wasn't clean to the top but I just back cleaned all the pins I placed and we were on top with time to spare.

We took summit pictures of us giving each other the finger. We were only half serious but we did somehow come to an understanding and respect for each other. We fought battles at work with each other in the future, but with respect and without pettiness. Neil was a brilliant mind but he never opened his heart or tempered his ego, and that cost him. He would have been a fine lawyer. (contradiction?) He was eventually fired and took to robbing banks. He is serving a long prison sentence at this time. I write him in jail sometimes when I can overcome the entropy in my life. Some folks take the hard road. Climbing can attract folks who have a fire within, but can't stand up to their own heat. It is my hope that Neil finds freedom someday, within and without, and that others might benefit from the heat-tempered strength that he could offer. I'm sure if he had the opportunity to write a TR of this same climb, he would have a different perspective on our time together, but that's life...take it for what it is worth.

Peace
Karl

© Karl Bralich 1998 All Rights Reserved