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For the past few years, I’ve experienced three recurring dreams. The first places me in Paris. I’m always going somewhere – out to eat, off to meet someone, or back to the hotel. If dreams are merely the result of random noctural firings in the visual cortex, then it seems hard to fathom that they would fire so consistently over such an extended period of time. If they represent our minds working overtime to sort out real-life problems, this dream still makes no sense to me. I must have some kind of unfinished business lurking in my unconscious, but I can’t tell what that is or what to do about it. If dreams act as visions to reveal God’s will to us mortals, I have no idea what He’s trying to tell me unless it's "Go have lunch in Paris and maybe you'll meet somebody."
The
second dream puts me climbing up a 150’ cliff. I’m ten feet from the top where a
comfortable, grassy knoll awaits. I have no rope, but the holds are large and I’m not
tired. Even though I could easily hang on forever, I want to reach the ledge and reach up
for another large hold that will get me there. That’s when everything falls apart.
Every hold I grab to try to progress shatters in my hand and falls away in 50-pound
chunks. I have no choice but to stay put; so close to rest and relaxation, yet it remains
impossibly out of reach.
T
he third dream is similar, but I’m standing on an icy ledge 1,500’ straight up with no way off but to leap across a 15’ chasm to another icy ledge. With no alternative, I kick a shallow foothold in the ice and leap out over empty space. Sometimes I make it, sometimes I don’t, but even when I successfully clear the gap and reach the other ledge, it’s sloped and I can’t hang on. I strain with all my force, but it’s no use. I slip and fall all the way to the bottom. It’s not exactly a nightmare because the landing is always deep, soft powder and I land unscathed. The next thing I know, I’m back standing on the ledge, with no way off but to leap across a 15’ chasm to another icy ledge.Tonight, I find myself standing alone on a steeply sloped icy ledge, staring a thousand feet down into the gathering blackness of night, but this time I'm not asleep and I'm not dreaming.
My icy cliff is named Stairway to Heaven. When fully formed, it's
the tallest shaft of vertical ice in the lower 48, frozen and unmoving, mostly, just down
canyon from Bridal Veil Falls on the north end of Cascade Peak, a 10,000+ foot collection
of limestone cliffs stacked like flapjacks and rising 6,000 feet above the Utah Valley
floor.
My climbing partner is Chris Barksdale, a professional photographer, experienced mountaineer, and friend ever since I moved to Utah Valley. We first met near the summit of Mount Timpanogos – the scenic 11,750-foot mountain just across the canyon. I hiked it for the first time with his sister who introduced us at our chance meeting. "Shaun climbs," she added, which soon led to a trial run up a nearby trad route, which won me a spot on an expedition up the Grand Teton’s Full Exxum Ridge later that summer. We had climbed together off and on ever since – sometimes waking up early to fit a climb in before work and sometimes even before daylight. Sometimes I'd drop by to see his family on a rainy day and we'd end up climbing a mountain or a long, steep crack simply because the weather would make it more challenging and memorable.
We quickly grew to trust each others’ abilities and habits and communicate with a tug or two on the rope when we climbed out of hearing distance from one another.
Today we
spontaneously decided to pick and kick our way up several hundred feet of Stairway
because it was taller than anything frozen either of us had ever done. In our haste, we
had brought a single 60-meter rope though we'd need two in order to rappel from station to
station back to the canyon floor. Without saying much about it, we had done this on
purpose. It would force us to improvise. We would find other intermediate anchors or
create our own. It would give us the kind of experience we might need someday if we ever
got into trouble.
Chris and I swapped leads until daylight ran out sometime before I reached Chris at the base of the 5th pitch. Our arms and shoulders were tired from climbing the cold, brittle ice that often shattered into crystal dinner plates and required multiple swings of our ice tools to get a good placement worth trusting our weight to. Our wrists were weak from clinging to our tools while we hung in the leashes and drove hollow screws into the ice for protection against potential falls.
I led the next easy pitch anyway and found a pair of
anchors drilled into the rock near the base of the thin 6th pitch (of 7) and rappelled
back to where I had passed Chris at the last belay. We pulled the rope, ran it through the
anchor, and dropped both ends over the edge into the darkness. The ends dangled in the air
half way to the next ledge large enough to rest safely on without being tied to secure
anchors. The plan was for me to rappel as far as I could go and scout for something to use
as an anchor.
I approached the end of the rope at a narrow bulge not nearly wide or flat
enough to be called a ledge. I swung myself to the rock at the edge of the ice to scout
for bolts but found none. Instead, I drilled several screws into the thickest ice I could
find and shouted for Chris to come on down.
If you’ve ever had a friend or neighbor or distant acquantance get involved with any multi-level marketing scheme, then you’ve heard the hype about living your dreams and how wonderful that would feel. My experience tonight would not support their claim.
more soon.....
