North Sixshooter
Day Two
North Sixshooter
Lightning Bolt CracksMark and I agreed over New Years to engage in two months of tough guy training (something I dubbed "operation de-pussification", but the name didn't stick). This included biking to work every day no matter what, followed by pull ups and crunches in the evening. I really did stick with the biking, but it was hard to find a place to do the pull ups at my place, so that sort of fell the wayside. We hit the gym a few times too, and rocked the plastic. Then I stopped biking.
Anyway. This was what we had trained for. This day. Taped gloves, radical pants. We pulled no punches.
Neither of us were interested in getting into the car. We started relatively early, as the tower was a desperate distance away, and walked in from our campsite. The previous day we had stumbled across a ride from an older couple rolling by in a Suburban. They were passing so close and respectfully slow along the rough road that I just had to suggest that we ride with them. The missus looked suspicious, but the old guy was all over it and we got a lift to a point quite close to the tower's base, passing out another party that left just before us (wearing a borrowed pair of my socks no less!)
No such luck today. 2.5 hours of washes and desperately steep talus cone were required before the actual punishment began. I had a bit of a funny stomach and Mark shared with me a great technique for "ethically" disposing of your waste when at the base of a crag. It is apparently best to find a flat
rock, judged by its ability to serve as a poo platter. Do your business on said rock and hurl it as far from the base as you can, paying mind to the whereabouts of the approach trail. Makes good sense to me!
We spent a reasonable amount of time at the base of this one, scoping the route and delaying the start for as long as possible. I wasn't overwhelmed by the steepness, but there was some suspiciously wide looking stuff near the top of the first pitch. Mark did set off on the route eventually, in an effort to saddle me with the "overhanging fist crack" part of pitch two. No altruism there.
Things started tips and widened all the way, eventually (unbeknownst to us) taking a full shoulder. Mark did great work on this line, scooting through the tough transistion from fingers to thin hands.
Chugging like a hero through the hands into wider and wider territory it finally got ugly; stacked fist and hand through a gentle bulge. Mark played about for a bit but real progress would mean a succession of wild pulls without more real promise of gear. Eventually he turned down to me and said those magic words:
"I hate to do this to you but....do you want to finish this pitch?"Bastard! I'm not actually that good at offwidths. I'm just not terrible like Mark. I toproped to his high point, thanking the Lord that I didn't have to place gear while sliding downward on the thin hands stuff. I did acheive critical success on the 5.9 overhanging offwidth that is barely even mentioned in the topo, but only because I hung on a cam long enough to lodge my leg deep behind a flake. It was a move not unlike putting on a Wellington boot. Mark later pointed out that falling at that point probably would have made it difficult for my leg to stay attached to my body. In any case, I was able with this leverage, to ram my thin (but muscular) upper body into the maw of the crack. A lot of time, squirming, and ankle blood later I reached a ledge.
I'd like to say the pitch was over, but for scaredy cats like me, the leftward traverse was plenty exciting. Without more than (for my memory) a thin, slightly flared crack to protect the moves midway, one is required to smear across sandstone to a set of double cracks. It scared the fuck out of me.
Mark was saddled with the subsequent overhanging fists which served him right. He did it up though, and even accidently did the hardish start to the following pitch. Turns out, switching the pitches was a great idea. I found the fist section desperate and was happy to second it. I arrived at the anchors destroyed, but keen to push on to the business above.
Light stepping up a wall with great gear led outward to a notch where it was possible to pull out from under a roof and up onto the face of the upper tower. Stemming widely gave access to two great hand jams and some sweet hero moves through incredible exposure. Somehow, over the years it has become nearly impossible for me to enjoy these well protected "big air" moves. I did, for somebody's benefit, shout "yee-haw" or "oh wow!" in my most manly voice, but I was definately in "flight" mode. Terrified, I jammed in gear and focussed on reaching some ledge that would allow a full no hands rest. After some disconcertingly sandy moves, I reached said ledge. Leaning into the rock with happy relief, I looked into the huge crack above me. There, lodged in the darkness was the bleached skull of a steer. I had to laugh.
It is suggested that it is possible to proceed to the top of the tower from this point in a single push. However, the rope drag was so brutal that I set an anchor and called Mark to join me.
He gave me the "nice lead" grimace when he arrived.
Although I won't pretend that we're heroes, I think we began to feel pretty good about ourselves at this point. The summit was not far off, and the physical and emotional beatings seemed to be behind us.
The final squeeze chimney was mine by simple virtue of the fact that I can fit all the way into the back of them. The rock gets quite soft at this point, but aside from a bunch of harness scuffing the pitch passed without consequence.
We saw no one else that day and, at this distance, evidence of other living beings was pretty scant. Given the reputed popularity of this route, I was shocked.
After a brief rest on the summit, we rapped down and hiked back, staying high and following the "table top" to its farthest point in a direct line toward our camp at Super Bowl. It was much more scenic and somewhat easier than plodding through a sandy wash. Although I don't have active plans to subject myself to the Lightning Bolt Cracks again, it would be a great way to approach the route.
We settled around a campfire with beers and hotdogs. It was then that I discovered that I had lost a full pack of cigarettes somewhere in the desert.
I did a deseperate little crack-head dance, running from here to there looking for my smokes in the growing darkness, but to no avail.
There would be no Marlboro tar that night--one of my great guilty pleasures on road trips. Sigh.
Feeling accomplished, but somewhat beat up, we decided that we should head out of Indian Creek and find some mellow tower to hit in the late morning. There was no talk of taking on the steep walls of Indian Creek.
So, although it may seem funny to do so after driving such a huge distance, we set out the next morning for Mexican Hat without another thought to the classic crack routes that lined the walls on either side of us.
Back to Utah 2009
