40th Birthday Party in Yosemite!

The talk of planning something epic for mine and Rhett's fortieth birthdays began a few months before the event. By default I have always been the trip planner. It's always a lot of work and a bit of pressure to plan something cool that is going to be worth everyone's valuable time. As a birthday present Roman took over as the planner for this trip. His skill as a planner singlehandedly inspired this blogpost. 

We all wanted to do some climbing in Yosemite, Tuolumne Meadows to be more specific. We set the date of May 1st and 2nd. When Roman realized we had a picked a weekend in which the roads would be closed, he didn't call off the trip like "normal people" would. After all the Dawn Patrol would be offended to be classified as "normal people." Instead he realized that the increased logistical challenges would likely give us the chance to have some ultra classic climbs to ourselves.  

This blogpost chronicles Roman's trip plans exactly.  

I want you to come climbing for my 40th in Tuolumne Meadows!

Rig and I left Rancho Cucamonga a little after 9 pm on Thursday night with backpacking gear, climbing gear, bikes and a bike trailer. The rest of the team had left Salt Lake about five hours earlier with all the same gear.  We both arrived at the closed gate to Yosemite's east boundary at about 3 am. We were surprised to see a park ranger's truck outside the gate and a light on inside the cabin next to the gate. We had hoped to sleep a little at the gate before starting a big day but the park was still closed to both cars and bikes from that side and we couldn't risk a ranger shutting down our plans before they even got started. So we drove back down the road 2 miles until we found a parking lot, got all the gear loaded up and started into the park on bike around 4 am. 

When we got about a quarter mile from the gate we extinguished the headlamps and went under the cover of night. Let's face it breaking rules is exciting. It definitely felt cool sneaking our bikes and gear around the gates. Once we were in we had 8 miles of all downhill to Tuolumne Meadows. As we whipped down the steep canyon road, I think every single one of us winced at least once as we thought of what the ride out would be like. It was a frigid ride in as we rarely pedaled but it was exhilarating. We kept looking at each other and saying "Can you believe we are doing this? Sneaking into Yosemite?"  

We got to Tuolumne meadows right as it was getting light. It was just as we had hoped, completely deserted. The gas station and visitor centers were still boarded up for the winter. There was a set of port-a-johns that must had just been placed for the summer because not one of them had ever been used. They were cleaner than any of our toilettes at home. We each took the unique opportunity to break one in. 



We found a river bed to stash the bikes in, checked Roman's GPS to verify we were at the right trailhead and started towards our first objective, Cathedral Peak. 

It was a perfect morning. We hiked as the sun rose, occasionally stopping to take pictures of the stunning surroundings. It only could have been a better morning if Rigdon was big enough to carry his own share of the gear. Since he wasn't my pack ended up being about 80 pounds. I carried it about half way and then dared Roman to carry it for a while. 

"Hey Roman how would you like to try walking a mile in my shoes or at least a mile with my pack." That was sheer genius on my part because that led to everyone carrying my pack for a while and I never had to put it on again until it was time to pack it out. We hiked the 4 miles in a leisurely 2 hours. 

The scenery is a lot prettier with a lighter pack. 

That put us at the base of Cathedral at 8ish. We set up camp and everyone took a nap except for me and Bram. Looking up at the perfect granite face of Cathedral and seeing no one around made me too pumped to be able to sleep. 

Roman and Rhett racked and ready!

In a recent survey done by Mountain Project they found Cathedral Peak to be one of the most popular climbs in America. Bram and I woke everyone up at 10. We racked up and started climbing around 11 with not a single soul in site. 

Starting up the first pitch.

Belay ledge selfie.

Rig pointing out tomorrow's objective. 

Rig brought his A game. I put him in a couple of spots that were a bit more difficult than the grade but he managed just fine.

The climbing was spectacular. Six full pitches of impeccable granite with a couple of very epic belay ledges and an amazing summit that was only about 4 feet in diameter. I smiled the whole way up and never once felt like I was dragging from being up for 36 straight hours. 

Wayne on the summit block.

Ain't no way I was leaving this picture out!  Stoic brother, stoic! 

We had originally hoped to nab Eichorn's Pinnacle and we had plenty of time but the snow made 
Bram on the summit looking towards Eichorn.


the traverse over sketchy and without crampons we decided it wasn't wise to try. 

We did one rappel that probably wouldn't have been needed without snow and then had an easy hike back to camp. 

Rig and I shared a mountain house and I then had the best night of sleep I have ever had in the backcountry. I think it was mostly due to my sleep debt but also in part to the new sleep pad that Bram got me for Christmas.  

That helmet of Bram's has seen many a technical peak.

With Cathedral Peak conquered, the team was on to Matthes Crest.

We woke up at 6ish the next morning. Re-racked the gear and headed out. 

After a full night's sleep I was feeling about as good as any 40 year old can.

It felt like there were enough features in Tuolumne to keep climbers busy for a life time. 

The hike over had plenty of awesome scenery and picture opts. 

If it seems like there is an overabundance of myself in the pictures that's just because the full 
body orange suit photographs really well. 

When we started to near the base of Matthes we realized that we were going to have some snow issues to get onto the rock. We had only brought three pairs of crampons between the six of us. Three of us went up and then passed the crampons back on a rope to the other three.   

Now tell me the orange pants weren't worth 16 bucks. 

We thought we had identified the start of Matthes but after one pitch of dirty loose rock it was obvious we were not on route. Rig and I climbed up an arête next to Wayne and Roman. Rig and I's route was more difficult than anything we had climbed the day before on Cathedral.   

Rig with some gritty climbing ahead of him.

The first two pitches were more stressful than anything we had done the day before.

After three pitches we were on top of the crest.  

We simul-climbed the whole traverse.  A few times I felt like racking the rope and soloing in the interest of time but we were prudent and stayed roped up. 

Now for the fun part, the long exposed traverse. (Wayne on lead)

Rig on one of the parts I was glad we were roped up for.

The traverse had a couple of awkward down climbs but nothing too bad. 

Sunset between the notch of the North and South Summits. 

Racing the sun to see who could get down first. 

We hiked back to our camp by Cathedral Peak in the dark.  We arrived back around 10 pm.  Rig and I had hoped to get a text off to Sara and tell her not to expect us to be home until later the next day but we never got a cell signal.  Previously I had told Sara we would probably get off the mountain very late that night and not to worry unless she hadn't heard from me by morning.  No one else had been as optimistic about getting off that night.   Everyone tried to talk Rig and I into staying another night and  hiking out with them in the morning but when you have a track record like I do you don't do anything that might cause your wife any undue stress if you can prevent it.  I knew she would be very worried come morning, which really left me and Rig with no option but to get to the car and drive to somewhere we could send a text that night.  It was going to mean a long night.   

We ate a hot meal and cleaned up camp.  By the time we we're all packed up to hike out it was 11:15.  

Bram insisted on taking this pick before we set out.

We lost the trail quite a few times in the dark and backtracked to find it, but when we lost it the last time and I knew we were close to the road we decided to just head north and walk until we hit the road.  We found the road no problem.  The problem was that we didn't know where we were on the road so we didn't know which way to hike to find our bikes.  We went with my gut instinct which was of course wrong.  We walked for 10 minutes before I realized it was wrong and then we had to walk the ten minutes back plus another five until we found the port a potties which was our landmark to find the bikes.  In the back of my mind I kept wondering if maybe a ranger had caught onto us, found our bikes and confiscated them.  It was a pretty irrational fear but in the middle of night my mind has imagined fears much more irrational than that. 

The bikes were exactly where we had left them.

It was now 1:00 am and we still had the horrendous 8 mile bike ride that was going to gain 2000 feet and between mine and Rigs packs I was towing close to 100 pounds of gear. 

It was going to be a punisher.  Rig would be graduating from Dawn Patrol before he had even finished the eighth grade.  What really made it impressive was he did it without a single complaint.   After about 2 more miserable hours in which I pushed my bike a lot more than I rode it, we finally got to the gate again.  We silently celebrated and snuck around it.  It was two easy miles of  down hill from there.   

We arrived at the car at about 3:00 am.  It only took us 15 frigid minutes to rack the bikes and load the gear.  We drove straight to the 24 hour McDonalds in Bishop and sent a text to Sara at 4:25 am.  She responded to it immediately and I knew it was a darn good thing we hiked out.  We drove straight home getting back to Rancho Cucamonga by 8:40 am and practically to 9:00 church on time.  I didn't even need the can of 5 hour energy Wayne had lent me.  A Coke and sunflower seeds was all the energy drink I needed.    

In our two days in Yosemite we did two of the most iconic alpine climbs the park has to offer and didn't see one single person, not even a ranger, actually especially not a ranger.  Nice planning Roman!  Consider yourself commissioned to plan my 50th and all the ones in-between.  

Bram The Man

For 20 plus years now I have been blessed to have the best friend a guy could ever ask for.  I wish I got to spend more time with him but given our distance we do as well as we can.  He is as selfless as he is adventurous and as fun as he is humble.  Guys don't come any better than Jared Bramwell.  For his birthday I am sharing one of my favorite stories of the Brammer.

Both of us being adventure seekers at heart, we spent many high school and college nights looking for trouble and usual finding it, but on this specific occasion it found us, and we were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I swear.

It was Christmas break at BYU and the roads were a snowy mess.  I was only recently dating Sara.   She had gone home for the break and I had been left with the charge of her beloved 86 Jetta.

I had taken Bram, my other two roommates, and Roman to the mall to do some Christmas shopping. We were returning on the snowy roads to our house near UVU.  To get to our place you had to go down a steep road and make a left hand turn from that steep road onto our street.  When it was snowing, navigating that turn could be tricky and sometimes you would end up having to go all the way down the road and turn around at the bottom and head back up.

When I got to the hill in question, I tried to slowly creep down it hoping I could make the left hand turn and avoid going to the bottom and back up.   There was a car behind me that for whatever reason found my slow driving too conservative, and as a result was driving very close to me.

The order of the following events isn't known exactly by either Bram or myself, but at some point either the car behind us started to honk and that inspired the middle finger from our back seat passengers or the middle finger from our back seat passengers came out and that inspired the honking from the car behind us.  Bram and I will never know what came first.  It doesn't really matter.  What is to be noted, is that regardless of when the flipping off happened, it wasn't done by me or Bram and therefore we maintain our innocence.

I heard the honking and was a little perturbed but not to the point of blinding road rage, however the  driver behind me saw the finger and was perturbed to the point of blinding road rage.  I got to the bottom of the hill and started to pull off the road so I could flip a u-turn and head back up.  Until this point I had no idea that someone in my vehicle had flipped anyone off, but I should have caught a hint because as the guy behind us drove by he yelled some belittling words and left us with an open challenge.  I will still claim that I am not a guy who went around starting fights and I really am not much of hot head, but I rarely walked away from a fight either.

As he drove his teal Saturn coupe past us, I made a quick assessment of the situation.  It was difficult to see through the snowy windows but he appeared to only have a girl riding shot gun with him.  There were five guys in my car, granted they were not the first five guys I would pick if I was going in to a street fight, but still five beats one every time.  (In Roman's defense he was only 14 at the time.)

His car pulled off the road about 100 feet in front of ours.  I didn't have time to consult with Bram, he was already getting out of the car.  I jumped out pretty confident. First of all we had the numbers heavily in our favor but second of all we were fighting a guy in a teal Saturn.  Again I liked our chances.   We parked right next to an elementary school and we moved into the parking lot to await our challenger.

Maybe the car was his girlfriends but it was not very intimidating that's for sure. 

When the guy jumped out of the car I was greatly surprised by what I saw.  He was a monster!  He was at least 6' 4" and had to weigh 250 or more and he was ripped!  How could I know he was ripped?  Because despite it being a blizzard he was honestly wearing a neon green Gold's Gym tank top!  Picture Brian Bosworth but with a better mullet.

 The guy had a style that said "the teal Saturn is mine" and a body that said "I pull over for fights even if I am out numbered 5 to 1."

I was just thinking to myself, 'I glad we outnumber him 5 to 1' when I realized that Bram and I were the only ones who had gotten out of the car.  The Boz approached us in a very fast walk and the look on his face was one of uncontrollable rage, my confidence was dwindling fast.  

Some people believe that when you spend enough time with someone you can sometimes communicate to the other one without even talking, almost like mental telepathy.  It turns out this is BS, because I called on this power and flashed Bram a look that said, 'Maybe we should see if we can talk ourselves out of this.'  Bram either didn't catch my message or his manliness just chose to ignore it.

  

When The Boz had closed about half of the distance between us and him, he yelled, "Do you guys have a problem with me?!"

I thought to myself, "No Mr. Bozworth." I was ready to jump back into the car with the other 3 of our fearsome 5. 

Again Bram wasn't thinking what I was, Bram replied fearlessly and without hesitation, "Yeah I've got a problem with you!" That moment will always be one of my favorite memories of Bram.  It is to this day maybe the manliest thing I have ever witnessed in the flesh.  I knew right then at least Bram was fighting the Boz. 

Up until this point the Boz had been on a path split between the two of us, but now he headed directly towards Bram for which I was glad.  He walked fiercely up to Bram and just as he was arriving made a motion like he was going to push him in the chest.  Bram braced himself for the push but didn't raise his arms.  Just at the last second the Boz turned his open hands into closed fists and sunk both of them into Bram's unprotected face.  It was a cheap shop even if he was outnumbered.  My fear instantly left, replaced with my own rage.  

I am not sure exactly what happened next.  The ground was covered in snow and very slick, all three of us slipped around but soon I had the Boz in a front head lock.  The Boz and I were both on our feet but his head and arms were trapped below me where he could do nothing.  I held him incapacitated and Bram returned the initial cheap shot and then a few more.  I felt warm blood start to run down the front of my pants, but he seemed like he still had way too much fight in him to let him go.  

At this point the Boz was obviously losing the fight, and it wasn't going to get better for him.  He didn't feel like a real athlete just like a big guy who had spent a lot of time in the weight room.  Turned out he was no Brian Bosworth.  I could have held him in that front head lock forever and apparently his girlfriend realized this because she decided it was time to intervene.    

She jumped into the driver's side of the Saturn and threw it into reverse.  She pointed the car directly towards us and gassed it.  The car recklessly popped up a curb and she slid out a little.  She retargeted us and gassed it again.  

This time the car rolled over a concrete parking barrier that was hidden by the snow.  The left pair of tires went on one side of the barrier and the right side went on the other.  The result was the car's oil pan slamming into the barrier and sparks flying off the bottom of the teal machine.  The car slid towards us and I was forced to release the Boz and get out of the Saturn's path.

The car slid to a stop.  The Boz gathered himself.  He was bleeding from his nose and had a good cut under his lip.  I was surprised how much he had bled.  The whole front of my pants were covered in blood.  

Bram had weathered the Boz's best sucker punch and only had some redness on his face to show for it.  I was still unscathed.  Boz didn't look good.  He definitely needed stitches.  In my estimation the fight was over.  Boz did not feel the same way.

He started towards me this time.  I backed up in a circle keeping about 20 feet between us.  

Pointing to me he said, "I want you this time."

"You just got me.  If we do this again, it isn't going to go any better for you, there are two of us and one of you."

He still followed me in a circle, "I want you."

"Dude the fight is over.  You lost.  Look at yourself.  Look at us.  You're bleeding all over.  Neither of us are hurt.  If this keeps going you're just going to get beat up worse.  Plus we've got 3 more guys in the car who are just waiting for the signal." (wink, wink)

Up until now I don't think he even realized he was bleeding.  He felt the cut below his lip and saw the blood running down his chin.  I don't know if it was the thought of a scar marring his 1980's good looks or the blood ruining his neon green tank top but his demeanor changed almost immediately.  

He stopped following me and walked towards his girlfriend.  Luckily for him from the vantage point of the headlock he hadn't been able to see his girlfriend's display of driving skills and didn't know yet that he was likely going to need a new oil pan to go with his stitches.  

His girlfriend cleaned him up a bit and they got in the car to leave.  When they started to drive away his girlfriend gave a statement that put her in the same league of delusion as the girlfriend from Wayne's World.  She said, "Next time you boys better be careful who you flip off!"  

Bram wasn't going to let her get away with that, "Are you kidding? Your boyfriend just got beat up. He's bleeding all over, neither of us are even hurt.  He's on his way to get stitches, and then he's going to have to fix whatever damage you did to his car when you were rescuing him!  Be careful who you pull over to fight next time!"    

That quieted both of them and at the same time I'm sure gave them something to talk about on their drive to the hospital.  

Happy Birthday to the only guy I know who would look a charging Brian Bosworth in the eye and say "Yeah, I've got a problem with you!"

  )

In case you forgot who I was referencing with the girlfreind. 

BRo-Man Goes Big

There aren't a lot of thing in life better than having a brother.  I am lucky enough to have three.  Roman is unlucky enough to be the youngest of the 4 of us and as a result has probably had to prove himself to each of us more times than is fair.  For his golden birthday today I am posting my favorite story of littlest bro proving himself to biggest bro.

A couple of years ago Roman and Michelle were planning a trip to visit. Roman called me to make some trip preparations.

"Hey do you know if that jump you did when you were on the podcast is still there?"

"Yeah, it's there."

"If I brought my bike down when I come, would you have time to take me over so I could do it?"


"Heck yes I would!"

I was pretty surprised by this phone call. Not that I didn't think that Roman could easily do it,  he has always been the brother who has excelled in sports of the X-game variety.  He is by far the best snowboarder and skateboarder in the family and at least as good of mountain biker as me, but he wasn't going to be in town for very long and this jump had taken me months to work up the confidence to finally do. Roman was only going to be in town for a couple of days so it was a pretty ambitious idea, but no one was more excited about it than me.

Roman had just purchased a new bike and I knew that had something to do with his decision but what I didn't know about at the time was a relatively knew social media called Instagram. Yes in hind sight, I think IG may have influenced his decisions at least a little bit.  At the time I wondered why he wanted me to take pictures and not video but it all makes sense now.

Roman knew that having the bike on top of the car would cost him some gas mileage, and apparently it was more gas mileage than he calculated because somehow he managed to run himself out of gas somewhere in the desert. It was his third time running out of gas in the previous two weeks. We had all thought it was pretty funny when it happened the second time but this was really getting comical and any brother who really loved him was going to give him a hard time about it for at least a while. (I guess a while isn't quite over yet.)

We really only had one morning to make it happen and it was going to have to be before school at 7:30. I had a pretty good idea that Roman wasn't going to just roll up to the jump, take a look at it, and huck himself off it. I knew it was going to take some time to work up the courage. So we were at the trailhead when it was still dark and at the jump right at first light. We had a full hour for Roman to check out the landing, take a few practice runs, do a few speed checks, draw some starting lines in the dirt and convince himself that the end result would not be catastrophic.

Everyone that I have taken to the jump has been pretty shocked the first time they see it. You come around a corner and all the sudden out of nowhere is this totally gnarly wooden jump that looks like an unfinished bridge. I know Roman had seen pictures and watched people do it on video but we all know that everything is 10 times scarier in real life than it is on a computer screen. I could see by the look on Roman's face, he was wondering what he had gotten himself into.

I kind of like the feeling of being in a little over my head and getting to see how I respond but I really like seeing one of my brothers in over their heads and watching their response. I rarely get to witness it but when I do it is probably my number one form of entertainment.

Roman looked at the jump. He looked at the landing, smoothed it out a bit, did some speed checks, asked for some advice on his trajectory, picked my brain over how fast he would have to go to clear the rocks below it, etcetera, etcetera.  I had done it a few times and was able to break it down pretty simple for him.

"Start at this bend in the trail, don't pedal at all, just coast and gravity will set your speed perfectly, pull up on the handle bars slightly as you leave the wood and enjoy the ride. It's that simple."

I knew he wasn't going to enjoy the ride, at least not the first time. I had been so scared the first time that there was absolutely no enjoyment until I safely landed on the ground.

Roman started to make test run after test run. After he had made fifteen or so I started urging him to go for it. We finally got down to only having about five minutes until we needed to leave for me to get to school on time. None of his test runs really made it seem like he was going to do it.

"Alright Rome this is the run."

"OK"

Roman did one more half hearted run.

"I don't think I want to do it anymore. Let's get you back to school."

"No you can do. You've got to do it or you won't forgive yourself. I'll skip my first hour of work."

"Are you going to get in trouble if you're late?"

"Maybe a little, but it will be worth it if you do the jump."

I secretly had already made arangements to miss the first hour but made Roman believe I was just ditching it to put more pressure on him.

The second hour was more of the same but it definitely had a more serious feel and at least 10 times I really thought "the next run" was "the run" and he was really going to do it and every time he would hit the brakes at the last second.

Finally after probably the fiftieth "warm up run" and with about fifteen minutes left in the second hour Roman again said he wasn't going to do it.

"No way man! You're doing it! Think about what we have invested in this now. I missed my first hour of work, you ran your car out of gas getting your bike here. We could have gone on a really cool bike ride this morning instead we have been here for two hours drawing lines in the dirt and it will all be for nothing if you don't do this stupid jump."

"Yeah that's true."

"Not to mention you need to prove you are worthy of that new bike you got. And really the biggest reason is I know it is going to ruin your whole weekend if you don't do it."

"Yeah you're right."

"Think about it for a second. Realistically what is the worst thing that is likely to happen, you have that big fat shock and as long as it hits the ground first it is going to absorb most of the impact. If it does it's job and then you wreck you're probably only going to end up with scrapes and bruises. Broken bones are pretty unlikely and paralysis…. well….you've got a better chance of being hit by lightning."

Not that Roman was arguing with me but I was winning the argument.  If only I would have known to throw in something about how bitchin' all of his Instagram followers were going to think he was, he probably would have done it ten minutes earlier.

"You're right, I've got to do it."

Roman took five more runs and every time I thought he was going to really do it, but he braked at the last second.

I knew he was going to do eventually he just needed a tiny bit more pressure to close the deal.  I was forced to act the part of the annoyed older brother now.  I would have waited all day if I had to, but neither of us wanted that.

I said, "That's it man, I've got to go, I really don't have one more minute I've got to get to school."

"No I'm going to do it. One more time."

"Hurry one more time."

Roman went back to our line in the dirt.

"Just take your fingers off the brakes and tell yourself that no matter what, you are not going to put your fingers back on them. You've got it this time."

I had made that statement 50 times, and it hadn't worked yet, but I had a pretty good feeling this was the time.

The next ten seconds was one of my favorite things I have ever witnessed in the flesh. Roman finally coaxed himself into the unthinkable.  He shot off the end of the jump.  He went huge, definitely bigger than I ever had.

  This is the actual time he finally rode off of it.  The zoom reveals some serious apprehension.

That is a pretty bitchin' picture.  I'd follow him on Instagram.

The zoom in is better.

The double zoom is even better than that. 

That is exactly the same way I felt the first time I did it.

The landing may have left a little to be desired, but just like I promised him that beefy shock absorbed the brunt of the force, his wrists absorbed most of what was left over ...

….and his cheeks absorbed the rest.

Roman appeared as if he was going to ride it out unharmed but the end result was Roman celebrating in some scrub oak and a large cloud of dust.  It was an awesome moment and I am so glad I got to witness it.  

Roman came away from the experience with some cuts and bruises but he was completely satisfied with himself and that alone is always worth some cuts and bruises.  Plus he probably picked up some Instagram followers along the way.  Call it a win/win.

Happy Birthday BRo-man!!

 

Search and Rescue Mission Report

This is the link to the Inyo County Search and Rescue Mission Report detailing our rescue from their perspective.  Those guys were awesome and are all my heroes.

http://inyosar.com/overdue-climbers-on-whitney-east-face/

Helicopter heroics

This is the conclusion of my previous post.  If you missed it and you care to read them in order scroll to the the bottom of this post and start there.

Inside our cubby, the temperature was probably close to 40 degrees, I only can guess that because our slushy water was slowly getting less slushy.  Forty seems warm considering the night before it was in the teens, but there was no way to avoid touching the cold rock and we were still shivering more than we weren't.  It was still cold enough that when Roman peed into a empty bottle he chose to snuggle with it until it lost its heat.  I'd like to say I thought it was gross but I was jealously wishing I could pee as well. 

We got in the cubby at 1:00 in the afternoon on Wednesday.  It was a long uncomfortable night of wondering how many days we might need to stay in there and how long we could make our food and water last.  We passed the time by trying to get someone on the radio.  We could hear other people clearly talking back and forth but for some reason they could not hear us.  Hoping for the smallest cell signal we prepared a text to our wives that had our GPS coordinates and said that we were going to need helicopter rescue.  At 5:00 AM on Thursday, after 16 hours in our claustrophobic cubby, Roman turned his cell phone on to check the time and saw he had a signal.  He immediately sent our text.  Within minutes we got a text back.  It said that a search and rescue team had already been assembled and that a helicopter was available weather permitting.  We started to celebrate.  Roman's signal turned in to 2 bars so he called Michelle.  Michelle had to pinch herself to make sure she was not dreaming.  Like most wives would, she had been fearing the worst.  

Roman and I's anticipation of the sun to rise now was like that of kids on Christmas morning, except our Santa was going to be flying a CHP helicopter.  We talked about happy things like helicopter rescues, Churros and Disneyland, but mostly helicopter rescues.  We wondered how exactly it would go down.  Would a search and rescue guy be lowered to us?  Would they simply lower us a rope and harness?  Would they lower us a stretcher of some sort to strap into?  It seemed we were only hours from being reunited with our families and we couldn't think of anything sweeter. 

Around 7:00 the sun started to shine onto our little doorway.

I immediately broke out a window to see a glorious sunrise.  It looked like perfect conditions for a helicopter rescue.  Our rope still hung outside from the last rappel the day before.  It was frozen.

This is a short video I took upon realizing our good fortune.

At around 8:00 the helicopter started buzzing around.  I was hanging out the window of our cubby waving Roman's red backpack.  I was naive enough to think he may have seen me on his first pass over us.  I had no idea how hard it must be for them to spot us on the huge mountain face, but after watching him buzz past us 10 or 20 times I started to realize.  Luckily we had a signal again and I called the search and rescue team.  They put me through to the helicopter copilot and I started giving directions as to where we were. 

It seemed like it took longer than it should have but I eventually guided them to just about 100 yards in front of me exactly at eye level.  I was furiously waving the red backpack.  They still could not see me.  

"I'm looking straight at you!  I am waving a red backpack!"

The pilot could sense my frustration.  Finally when they were only about 50 yards in front of us, the pilot spotted me.  I realized that if we didn't have cell phone service it might have been days before they actually spotted us. 

Once the helicopter did find us the pilot immediately told us we were in the worst possible spot for a rescue.  He told us there was no way he could get close enough to rescue us from our current location.  

In this video the pilot is surveying the cliffside for a location in which he could rescue us from.

The pilot found an finger of rock that stuck out from the cliffside far enough he could get the helicopter in for a rescue.  It was only enough room that he would barely be able to put one skid down but it was the only real option to get us off the mountain.  The spot was about 3 pitches away from us.  He flew the helicopter to it and asked if we could get to it.  My immediate response was no.  Two days ago, when the cliffside was a rock face it would have been no problem, but now the face of the mountain was 70% snow.  We didn't have any gear to protect ourselves on snow and I didn't really have much experience on it.  I was definitely scared at the thought of going out on the exposed snow.

Search and Rescue had a team ready that had all the proper gear for protecting the snowy pitches.  The pilot said he would come back, drop them off at the pick up spot, they would then come to us and then guide us back to the pick up spot.  He figured the whole process could take up to 8 hours.  Which didn't seem that bad until he explained to me that the morning was the best time for a rescue, often in the afternoon the wind picks up and they can't do the technical flying that would be required to pick us up.  Basically there was a decent chance we would be spending another night in our cubby this time with two more guys.  I knew there wasn't room for anyone else in the cubby and I really didn't want to be there another day.  I talked it over with Roman and called back the pilot.  I told him not to bring up the Search and Rescue team we were going to attempt to get there ourselves.

I have been asked by everybody, "Did you have enough food and water?"  The honest answer is we took enough food for one full day of climbing and after being up there for 3 days we still had 3/4 of it left.  The stress was so great that I never once thought "I'm hungry, I'm going to eat something." instead a few times I thought "I should try to eat something" and was never able to actually stomach much.  

The water was similar.  We took enough to go up and down the technical sections only, but after 3 days still had about half left.  The reason for that was it was either frozen or slushy and we were so cold already that neither of us could bare the thought of drinking ice cold slush and making our body temps that much lower.  

This combination of not eating or drinking had to be taking a toll on our bodies ability to cope with what was now to be required of us for the rescue.  In the cubby I didn't care about our bodies weakening states because once we got in there, I was planning on staying in there until rescue came.  I had shut it down mentally and physically.  Now we had to get it going again for one last push.

We started to organize our gear.  Our rope was frozen and I was wondering if we were going to be able to pull it down or not.   I remember secretly wishing that we would not be able to get the rope down and I could call back the pilot and tell him he needed to bring up the rescue team.  The rope was stubborn but we worked it down.
    

The first pitch was a horizontal traverse along the shear face.  I set it up as a rappel and managed to get in only two pieces of protection in the hundred feet.  I was about half way through the pitch when Roman yelled to me, "I can't find my belay device."

"Are you kidding?"

"No I can't find it."

"I'm not coming back there.  You better find it!"

Roman is notorious for misplacing things, however this was not the time to lose your most valuable piece of gear, but he had lost it nonetheless.  

I finished the pitch and fixed the other end of the rope so Roman could traverse across the fixed line with just his personal anchor.

The next pitch was a straight forward rappel.  Or at least it would have been straight forward if we had two belay devices.  I have read a million different ways to rappel without a belay device but never actually done any of them.  Of course they had all run together and I was having trouble coming up with just one legitimate way.  Roman rigged up some kind of triple rope wrap of his locking biner and it was going to have to do.  During the rappel Roman knocked his radio loose and it fell.   I was expecting to hear it hit against the wall a few times and then here it explode when it hit the bottom, but the wall we were on was so shear and so tall that I heard it hit the wall one time and then nothing, I waited for an explosion but nothing.   

Here I am on the rappel.  Notice the helicopter in the top of this picture.  Like myself, Search and Rescue wasn't convinced I had what it took to do the pitches in the snow, so the helicopter stayed constantly near us in case something went wrong.  You would think that would have given us a sense of reassurance, but really it made the situation feel like a Hollywood production and definitely added a level of stress. 

The second rappel deposited us about 80 feet below the pick up spot.  The finish line of our epic was finally in sight.  Eighty feet of what was easy climbing before the snow was now going to be a formidable test.  

Roman was light headed and having dizzy spells.  My hands had been painfully cold and now didn't have much feeling left in them.  I was far from 100 percent, but the best thing about climbing is the challenge it presents.  If it were easy there would be no reason to do it.  Most climbers favorite climbs are the ones that push them closest to their limit and Roman and I were getting very close.   

Starting the last pitch the first move just to get off the ground was very steep.  As I did it I wondered if I still had enough in me to get up it.  The pitch had some good old fashion climbing stress, very different from the "lost on a mountain in a snow storm stress" we had dealt with the day before. 

Even in the stress of the last pitch, the beauty around us was undeniable.  The fresh white snow, the crystal blue sky, the gorgeous alpine peaks, then throw in the drama of a helicopter circling over head and you have probably the most memorable pitch of climbing I have ever done.  I am embarrassed to say I loved the last pitch.

Finally we arrived at the rendezvous point.  It felt like I had just finished an ironman.  It wasn't quite over we still had the unknown of jumping into a mostly moving helicopter.

The pick up was everything we feared it might be.  Roman said it was the scariest part of the whole ordeal.  We crawled out 3/4 of the way to the end and hoped that was as far as we needed to go.  The pilot made a pass and signaled to us that we needed to go all the way to where the arrow is pointing.  He told us to lay flat and hold on as there would be gusts of 120MPH that could blow us right off the snowy rock to a certain death.  We laid there in the snow for about 20 minutes waiting for the pilot to burn off fuel and then we heard his siren and knew it was go time.  We tighten down our grip on the rock.  To add a little more Hollywood flare the pilot came up from the below us.  It felt like he magically appeared out of thin air and our environment turned instantly violent.  He went up about twenty feet above our heads and then lowered back down ever so slowly.  The wind was too fierce to watch what was happening and we could only peek every couple of seconds.  Finally he put his skid down just barely onto the rock.  The door already open, the copilot yelled for us to go for it.  I jumped in and scooted across to make room for Roman.  I looked back just to see Roman land safely in next to me.  We were safely inside.  During our 3 days I had wanted to break down crying at least 3 or 4 times but had managed to kept it together.  Neither me or Roman could refrain any longer and both of us let our tears of gratitude flow freely.

After getting checked out for frostbite by the paramedics we were released to go and take a picture with our rescuers.  We will be forever indebted to them both for their great skill and their willingness to risk their own lives to save ours.

We also got to meet and thank our would be rescuers, the Search and Rescue Team.  Who despite being simply volunteers were also willing to risk their own lives to save ours if they had been asked.

Needless to say there were more than a couple of heroes there that day.

Thank you California Highway Patrol and Search and Rescue!  And a special thanks to the taxpayers of California who make helicopter rescues free for boneheads like myself.  I promise not to need another one. 

In need of a helicopter

When you have resigned to wait on a cliffside for a helicopter rescue, you have a lot of time to think about what went wrong.

When Roman was coming to town and thought he could spare a day of his trip to go climb a mountain with me, I was tickled.  We both really wanted to do the East Face of Mt. Whitney.  Having two or three days to do it would have been better but we knew we could do it in one long day.  It would be 20 hours or so but we could pull it off.  We had done a similar outing on the Grand Teton and it had turned out to be one of my best days ever in the mountains.

The East Face of Mt. Whitney is a long route of 13 pitches with a rating of 5.7 (a grade we were both comfortable with).  What got us in trouble was the commitment level of the climb.  Once you get about half way through the East Face there is no longer a retreat option.  The only way off the mountain is to finish what you started.  The other problem was the route finding, which had been reported by many as difficult and had rendered many climbers lost.

We got to the trailhead at about 1:30 AM got our packs together and laid down for an hour before our 3:30AM start time.  The hike in was a little longer than we anticipated. We got a little lost in the dark and that cost us about an hour of light.  We had planned to be to the technical climbing around 7 but it was closer to 9.

During the last hour of the hike we could look up at the face we were planning on climbing.

It is an intimidating looking face. 

                                          The first pitch was exciting with lots of exposure.

It was a beautiful day and we were both enjoying the thrill of having such a classic climb to ourselves.  The climbing seemed more difficult than we had expected which made the climbing all the more enjoyable.  After the fourth pitch we realized the reason for the increased difficulty was we were off route.

    It took us two traversing pitches to get back to the route, and cost us more precious daylight.

We were to the famous Fresh Air Traverse pitch where the guidebook said was the easiest place to get lost on the route.  We could not afford to get off route again.  It was getting late in the day and we were worried about possibly having to spend a night on the mountain.

We took a good look at the guidebook and were pretty convinced we could see the Fresh Air Traverse. We went for it.  It required a rappel that we could no way go back up on.  If it wasn't the Fresh Air Traverse we were certainly going to be spending the night.

I wanted to record the Fresh Air Traverse with the GoPro so I got it out and turned it on.  When I realized we were not at the Fresh Air Traverse I hit a new low in Mountaineering.  The stress of the situation was tangible.  I never would have recorded it on purpose but turning off the GoPro was the last thing on my mind.  Below is some high mountain drama.  Warning: my wife says it is boring and could be rated PG-13.



After finishing the plan formulated in the video above we had time for one more pitch before it was mostly dark.  We talked about trying to continue on with headlamps but decided it would be safer to man up and wait for morning.  It was time to put on our thermals (thank goodness we brought them) and get ready for the longest night of our lives.

We were on a small sloping ledge, too little to dare sleep without being harnessed into the rock.  We dressed, tried to eat and drink a little, and sent a text off to our wives that said we were going to be out another day.  Remember we had only slept one hour the night before, so I figured we would get some sleep despite the horrendous conditions.  By 8:00 it was pitch black and we were getting into our warmest position.  I fell asleep and woke up 50 or 100 times.  I snuggled with Roman.  I spooned with Roman.  I went through cycle after cycle of "shiver, violently shiver, shiver, violent shiver.  I felt Roman do the same.  I dreamed I was falling off the edge 10 times.  It had to be almost morning.  I finally dared to look at my watch.  It was 9:45!!  How was that possible?  It had already been the longest night of my life and it had only just started.  The rest of the night I never dared to look at my watch, I couldn't have handled that kind of disappointment again.

Oh how we were looking forward to that sun coming out and warming us up, when it finally got light there was no sun to be seen.  Clouds had rolled in during the night.  We forced ourselves to get up.  Roman couldn't feel anything in his feet.  I didn't realize that he had slipped into the river the day before and his shoes and socks were still wet so he had only had his climbing shoes to wear that night.  Despite the daylight my body still just wanted to stay in the fetal position and shiver.  It was very difficult but we forced ourselves to rack up our climbing gear.  We were both so cold that our bodies were barely working and we wondered if we even could climb.

We climbed one pitch and my body started to work again.  I warmed up to the point that I wasn't completely miserable.  During our second pitch it started to snow.  I simply ignored the snow and kept climbing, refusing to admit that it was really happening.  The climbing was more difficult than it should have been and I didn't know if it was because of the snow or because we had never really gotten back on route after missing the Fresh Air Traverse.  We climbed a third pitch and the snow continued to fall harder and harder.  The snow was impossible to ignore now.  Drifts were gathering at the top of the wall and every few minutes the drift would get blown off the top and we would watch it roll down the cliff face and then brace ourselves for it to hit us.  The barrage of snow drifts would push the snow down even the tiniest of openings between clothes and skin.  I was getting wetter and wetter.  I was climbing in a light pair of belay gloves and my hands were freezing.  The thought of spending another night on the mountain, this time wet, was enough to scare the heck out of me.  I had seen enough episodes of "I Shouldn't Be Alive" to know the misfortuned mountaineer is most likely to lose his fingers, toes and nose.  It felt like that fate could realistically be ours if we didn't make good decisions.  The pitches were getting increasingly more stressful, and the snow was making them harder and harder.  We did a fourth pitch and I got to a point that I should have been able to climb but with the snow it wasn't happening.  I wanted to cry.  I was getting scared enough that it was hard to think straight.  I lowered off on a cam and started up a different crack.  After another 70 feet of climbing I was right in the same predicament.  I really don't like wasting gear but our situation was getting desperate.  I lowered off on another cam.  Roman had noticed a small hole in the rock he thought we could take cover in at the start of the previous pitch.  He suggested we go back and take cover from the storm.  It was the right thing to do and I was glad he suggested it.  I am a little bummed that we were so stressed on day two that we didn't take a single picture.  The conditions were the gnarliest mountain conditions I had ever witnessed, by a lot.

We rappelled back to the shelter.  I was the first one down and when I saw it I didn't think we could both fit in it, but we cleared some rock out and it barely housed the two of us.  It was only 1:00 in the afternoon. It was going to be another long night.

One guy would have to lay in sideways and jam himself in as far as he could so that the other guy could sit in the fetal position at the front of the door way.  Both positions were bad and we debated which was worse.  We took turns switching every two hours.  It was miserable, but it literally may have saved our fingers and toes.  That hole in the rock was a tender mercy of the Lord.

It was embarrassing but we knew with the amount of snow that was falling we were going to need to be helicoptered off the mountain. We had no reception on the cell phone.  We tried to call out an SOS on the radio, but could not get any one there either.  I assessed our food and water supply and figured we could hold up in the "crack" for at least a week if we had to.  We figured we would get reception on the cell when the storm broke whenever that was. 

We watched as the doorway filled to the top with snow.  The snow made it like a little igloo.  It wasn't warm but it was a lot less cold than we had been the night before.   

We finally manage to sleep some while we waited for the storm to break.

Story of the rescue to come.