A Bolt from the Blue by Jennifer Woodlief

Author:Jennifer Woodlief
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Paperback

EIGHT

“Socially, climbers are not that adept.”

—

Renny Jackson, head Jenny Lake ranger

On July 23, 2003, Rob Thomas had secured two permits for his climbing group of 13 to camp in Garnet Canyon. The campsites at the Lower Saddle, where the main guiding companies camped with their clients, were already full, so he wasn’t able to obtain his first choice of base camp. Instead, Rob got one permit to camp in the Meadows camping zone at just over 9,000 feet in elevation and another one for the Moraine camping area at almost 11,000 feet, and he split his group up between the two locations.

Leo Larson had spoken earlier to a member of the climbing party at the Jenny Lake ranger station, stressing that a group of more than a dozen people needed to get an early start to climb the Grand. The day before the climb, on the trail heading to their base camps, members of the climbing party again ran into Leo and also ranger Marty Vidak. Leo and Marty warned the climbers about recent afternoon storm cycles with the threat of lightning and advised them to get an “alpine start” for their climb in the morning, meaning a predawn approach. Leo suggested that they be on the Lower Saddle ready to go no later than dawn, which was 6:06 A.M., enabling them to look across and see Wall Street by first light.

The purpose of such an incredibly early start is to reduce the dangers that can occur as the day warms up—falling ice and rock and thunderstorms—and to provide a cushion of daylight in case a group is delayed. Based on the rangers’ experience, their point was that with a group as large as 13, there must be a time commitment to do a route, or the dynamic can rapidly go downhill.

* * *

When asked why they climb, why they love it, why they risk so much of themselves for it, longtime, hard-core climbers will often turn that question on its head. The response of this class of climber lies not in why climbing adds enjoyment to their lives. The answer, in fact, is that climbing is what makes living worth the effort.

If pressed, devoted climbers will admit that the appeal of the entire pursuit is the feeling of membership, of belonging. For a lonely sport, climbers are not alone. By mastering a skill that both is dangerous and defines accomplishment by a precise and measurable standard, a climber is not, after all, an outsider but falls, as it were, quite squarely inside a tightly drawn circle. If a climber is in trouble, other climbers will help him because he is one of them.

Former outcasts are suddenly included, and far beyond merely being part of a group, they are members of a cool community whose password is not money or connections but competence and expertise. It is intoxicating in every aspect, not only the actual climbing, but also just being around other climbers, lingering in a climbing store, fussing with climbing gear.

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