To Dream

My friend Jeremy and I arrived in Yosemite Valley to find all the campgrounds full. Our only hope of getting a site was Camp 4, which has a legendary reputation.

The ultra-buff breed of hippies who first scaled the hardest routes of the valley called it home in the seventies. Subsisting on Ramen noodles and fresh mountain air, these self-named Stonemasters often lived in the camp for free and well past their permits' expiration, eluding zealous rangers by hiding in the woods and sleeping under cars. During the day, they worked out, experimented with drugs, and of course climbed. Back then, Camp 4 stood as a middle finger to civilized society: a commune of long-haired, jobless pot smokers mooching off government land to spider their way up virgin granite walls the size of the Empire State building.

It's different today. Broken up into neat little sections, it houses docile families, hikers, and tourists who wouldn't dream of bugging a ranger or staying beyond their allotted time slot. More importantly, it's run on a first-come, first-serve basis, which meant Jeremy and I could get a site as long as we were willing to wait in line.

It was eight o'clock, and people typically start lining up for spots around three in the morning. Campsites are assigned at nine in the morning. Underwhelmed by the idea of thirteen hours sleeping in the dirt by the ranger's kiosk, we decided (or rather hoped) that getting in line around four-thirty in the morning would be early enough to get a spot. In the meantime, we went off to get some shuteye somewhere more scenic.

This is difficult in Yosemite. Sleeping in your car is forbidden, and setting up shop outside established campgrounds without the proper back-country permit invites a colossal fine if you're discovered by ranger patrols. Not to mention the threat of bears and the near impossibility of finding overnight parking. I called a California-based friend who suggested we dump our car at El Cap Meadows, hike into the woods, and sleep under the stars on a ledge at the base of the cliff.

"Um, what about bears?" I asked him.

"As long as you're forty feet off the ground, you should be fine."

We stored our food in a bear-box, donned backpacks and headlamps, and Jeremy lead the way into the dark woods. In spite of the uncomfortable night that awaited me, and of my very imaginative fear of bears, I found myself quite excited for our bivouac. 

To climbers, El Cap is much more than just another big cliff. Steep and proud, the three-thousand foot behemoth can be seen from almost everywhere in the valley. Even when shielded by the enclave of Yosemite Falls, its sun-stroked snout still peeks over smaller cliffs. It's almost impossible to put into words the respect and awe inspired by this glacier-waxed colossus. You stand at the base, crane your neck as far back as it goes, and barely, just barely, so far above, you guess the spot where its flat summit joins the sky. Along its graceful arcs and curves, thousands of smooth features discourage human ascension: roofs, utterly blank faces, narrow cracks into which you could barely cram a fingertip. Sometimes, far up the cliff, you spot bright specks moving across the rock: climbers, humans who dare to exist in this vertical universe. Their movement seems so slow that you think them terrible climbers; really, the sheer scope of the cliff dwarfs their efforts. They might be climbing at twice the average climber's speed, but the granitic Gargantua makes it seem as though they're inching upwards.

I've dreamed of climbing it since the day I first slapped a chalked-up hand on a slab of rock. 

It's no wonder -part of what makes El Capitan so mythical is its rich climbing history. Long considered impossible, it was finally scaled in 1958 by the boorish Warren Harding, after an eighteen-month siege-style assault via The Nose, following the obvious line along the monolith's curved prow. The climb was repeated soon after by the masterful Royal Robbins, and this time in just seven days. Faster and faster times followed, until the first one-day ascent by Jim Bridwell (nicknamed The Bird) and his proteges, Billy Westbay and John Long, in 1975. Every climber worth their salt has seen the iconic photo of The Bird and his crew decked out in flowing hippie garb, smoking cigarettes with El Cap in the background, enjoying the very first NIAD (Nose In A Day.) In 1993, Lynn Hill pushed the limits even further with the first free climb of The Nose (i.e: using ropes and gear only to catch falls as opposed to helping the climber ascend the rock.) This landmark achievement gave way to countless others, including Hans Florine's and Alex Honnold's stupefying 2012 speed record: two hours, twenty-six minutes, and forty-three seconds. Just one week before my trip to Yosemite, the very same Alex Honnold did the unthinkable: he scaled El Capitan without a rope, free soloing the entire cliff via a route called Freerider in just under four hours.

Today, El Capitan is still iconic. The Nose, perhaps the most famous route in the entire climbing world, is considered the standard way up El Cap. In spite of superhuman records, it remains the ultimate test-piece for many climbers, for whom NIAD might very well be a supreme and crowning achievement.

In light of all this, perhaps I won't sound too silly when I admit that my heart was racing as I approached the cliff.

What little daylight remained was seeping into the cliffs, so we hustled to the rock and walked around its hulking prow, looking for a ledge to spread our sleeping bag. Off to the right, two climbers were already snoring. Jeremy had spoken to them at the meadows; they were leaving at midnight to take a crack at NIAD. 

I'd met a few people who had climbed The Nose before. One of my guides on Mount Rainier had even done it in a day. How to describe your emotions while listening to people who have achieved one of your dream? With El Cap, it's complicated. I only envy people when they are doing something which I can do, want to do, but am not doing, for whatever reason. With The Nose, I am nowhere near ready, so it's hard to envy people who have honed their craft for years and fully deserve such a feat. I supposed I admire them. At the same time, there's a large portion of unknown. Psychologically, I have no idea how I would endure several days in a vertical, granitic desert, perched on skateboard-sized ledges, sleeping in my harness, and baking under the California sun while dangling above two thousand-foot drops. Technically, I know next to nothing about aid climbing. I don't even know what it is that I need to learn in order to climb The Nose -I only know that there's this whole realm called "aid climbing," and that unless I become an elite athlete, I absolutely need to master it to climb up El Cap. Lastly, athletically, I am not strong enough yet to lead Yosemite 5.9 (the grade of The Nose if you aid it) for several extremely taxing days. I have so much to learn and figure out before I can contemplate climbing The Nose that I am afraid. Afraid of the challenge, afraid that I might never do it, but perhaps even more afraid that I might actually do it and find myself so ridiculously far out of my comfort zone. . 

So when I saw those two aspirant "NIAD-ists" snoozing, I felt a mix of envy and fear. I wanted to rope up with them and climb, and that desire scared me because it might never come true, and because it might one day come true.  

I also felt concern, because they were sleeping on the only good ledge I could spot at the base of the cliff. We clicked on our headlamps and our twin circles of light stamped the rock in the dark, searching for a place to sleep. We followed the curve of the cliff, and I realized that were were right at the start of The Nose. What better place to sleep?

We unrolled our mats and bags. Jeremy picked a spot off to the right with his head away from the cliff. I squeezed my sleeping bag between a large rock and the flank of El Cap and wriggled inside it. 

We were about one foot off the ground instead of the forty my friend had recommended -I hoped that the bears would do us a favor and keep away. 

We set alarms for four thirty in the morning, wished each other good night, and then I lay back on my map, rolling up my puffy jacket into a pillow. My left side was propped against the cliff, and I could literally look straight up the Nose, which unfurled three thousand feet into the sky. The light from the moon and stars was bright, illuminating every little feature of the climb. I could see Sickle Ledge, Stove Leg Cracks,Texas Flake, Boot Flake, The Great Roof, Changing Corners, and so many others. I extended my left arm and patted the cliff. It felt like an old friend. 

I read for a little while, then put my book away and closed my eyes. I couldn't sleep. My eyes kept popping open and wandering up the great cliff, where I wanted my body to one day follow them. Minutes turned into hours, and I gave up on sleep. My eyes stayed fixed on the climb. I thought I might have become bored after

all this time, but there was so much to see. I stared on and on. 

Shortly before midnight, I heard whispers and the familiar clanks of climbing gear. The NIAD-ists were awake. At midnight on the dot, they set out from their little ledge and walked right by me. They moved with long, athletic strides, cams and nuts swaying rhythmically on their gear loops. They both had the typical climber's physiques: skinny waists, bulging shoulders, thick forearms, and long, spidery limps. To me, they were mythical beings. 

I picked up my head as they whooshed by me. 

"Hey guys, good luck!" I called after them. 

I so badly wanted to be part of their adventure in whatever infinitesimal way I could. 

"Thanks," one of them said without slowing down. His friend did not reply. 

They quickly climbed over the first little face with grace and technique, and disappeared over a ledge. I couldn't even see the lights from their headlamps anymore. Only the metallic noise of cams knocking against one another betrayed their presence on the wall; the endless dark cliff had swallowed them whole. 

I settled back down into my sleeping bag. They were lost somewhere within the folds of the gigantic prow, but I could still hear them. The familiar calls of "on belay" and "climb on" soon reached me; they were on the first pitch. 

For a while, I listened to their shouted exchanges: on belay, off belay, taking up, that's me, climb on, etc. Then came another call. 

"Denis! Hang on! Hang on, man!"

The voice was whiny and frustrated. 

"What's up?" came the response from further up the cliff. 

"Everything's tangled."

"What's tangled?" asked Denis. 

"My aiders. And my daisy. Everything."

"Okay. Take your time."

I listened to Denis' partner fumble and curse in the dark. I still couldn't see them, but I could just about imagine the scene. I'd been there a hundred times -stopping a climb because you've made a mess of your rope management. Not a big deal on most climbs, but a little more bothersome if you're going for NIAD. 

"All good!" the climber eventually called up. 

The gentle clanking resumed, and I knew that Denis was climbing again. A few moments of silence passed, and then the call came again. 

"Denis! Hang on! I got a problem." 

More cussing and fumbling, and the clanking resumed. It didn't last long. 

"Denis..."

This went on for hours. Five, ten, sometimes as many as thirty minutes of silence would pass by, and then, inevitably, the call would go up: Denis! I thought that Denis must have the patience of a saint. I also wondered what the other climber's name was. Surely Denis was about to say it any second, followed by a series of expletives. But Denis always answered the same thing: okay, take your time. Something countless climbing partners had told me when I'd screwed up. 

I listened to the duo on and on, right until my alarm rang at four thirty. Jeremy sat up, bleary-eyed; we packed our rucksacks and headed down the hill. With more distance between me and the cliff, I spotted Denis and his friend, two little sparks lost high up in the night. In spite of their stop-and-go progress, they were making good time -they were already working their way somewhere above Sickle Ledge. Perhaps they would get their NIAD after all. 

I never did find out. We hiked out, and I never saw them again. I didn't hear any reports of deaths or injuries on El Cap, so I assume that they at least finished the climb safely, even if it wasn't in under twenty-four hours. 

Jeremy and I slept in line at Camp 4 for five hours and got a site. We spent two wonderful days enjoying gorgeous and challenging climbs. On the third day, we tackled "Royal Arches," a sixteen-pitch classic up a sixteen-hundred-foot wall, about half of El Cap (but much, much easier.) 

Jeremy doesn't lead trad yet, so I lead every pitch that day, and something funny happened. I screwed up a lot. I got our ropes wet in a gully. I got our ropes tangled at a belay. I dropped my sunglasses on pitch eleven and had to lower down to get them (they had miraculously wedged themselves into a crack instead of tumbling a thousand feet.) I ran two rappels together and got our ropes snagged, and had to lead back up a sketchy crack to untangle them. I rappelled down the wrong side of a gully and ended up at the end of my ropes, dangling twenty feet above the next belay ledge. I had to use friction hitches to climb my way back up sixty meters of rope on completely blank granite. 

We were on the climb for an embarrassingly long time: fifteen and a half hours! It was hard. It was frustrating. It was fun. It was epic. It was everything I thought my first big climb in the valley might be. And every time I screwed up, I would look up or down to my partner and yell: "Jeremy!" 

After we'd finished the climb, I thought back to Denis and his friend on El Cap. They weren't mythical beings anymore. They were just climbers, like me. Climbers screwing up, figuring it out, improvising, problem-solving, laughing, suffering, and overcoming obstacles to get to the top of a climb. Were they so different from me? They were climbing several grades harder than me, and they knew aid climbing. And when there was a problem, the name "Denis" rang out instead of "Jeremy." 

For the first time, my dream of climbing El Cap entered reality. It was no longer an obscure hope with a huge chunk of the road map missing. I could see myself training, learning aid-climbing, and mentally preparing for the climb. I wasn't ready now, but in a few years...why the hell not? 

I still don't know if I'll ever climb El Cap. Truly, I don't. I only know two things: I want to, and it's possible. The rest is up to me. It might not seem like a big deal, but that's the first time it's ever been so simple in my mind. 

Funny that it took a guy named Denis and his screwball climbing partner to make me understand that.