June 26, 2024

It’s Day 4 of our climbing course, following Day 3’s multi pitching at Castle Rock in Leavenworth, we’ve travelled to Mazama, WA to do some alpine climbing of South Early Winters Spire of the Liberty Bell Group. The hike to the base of the climb is about three miles with less than 2000 feet of gain, easy peasy right? Well, here is where Shiela and I went wrong. The night before while setting up our gear for the climb, we make the mistake of asking the guides what shoes they recommend. Everyone else in the group seems to be settled on wearing their approach shoes, until one of our guides says “if you really want good practice, you should wear your mountaineering boots.” Looking back, I’m not sure if that was earnest advice or if I just missed the sarcasm. But the next morning, there we were with our finest gigantic mountaineering boots adorning our poor, unsuspecting feet.

Our group made the hike out pretty fast as the weather report said there was a chance of storms in the afternoon, so we wanted to make sure to be down before they rolled in. But as the first two groups began their ascent I looked over to see an angry sky to the west, and it was approaching fast.

As the last member of the last rope team, I was still at the bottom when I felt the first sprinkles starting to land.

The South Arete route on South Early Winters Spire is rated 5.5 and is a very easy route that generally allows new climbers to focus on learning safe climbing systems instead of using their mental and physical energy on a difficult climb. That said, a 5.5 route becomes a bit more difficult in stiff mountaineering boots. They have no give. The rubber is not sticky like a climbing or approach shoe. So smearing is out. The only useful feature of stiff boots in a rock climbing scenario is standing on an edge for a long time. They’re great for that. But that wasn’t what we encountered on this route so the boots were the equivalent of putting on oven mitts and trying to grab a marble. Awkward, uncomfortable, and not really the tool for the job. Not to mention that by the top of the second pitch we were now in the middle of a downpour of freezing rain, moving as fast as we could to keep up with the two groups ahead of us. The water was running down the rocks, making each foot placement less than trustworthy. My hands ached from the cold. I could tell our instructor, Zach, was not having a good time in his soaked through soft shell jacket, and Shiela was looking miserable in the cold. About 30 feet into the third pitch, Stephen, the middle group instructor, came back toward us with his two clients in tow. “We need to get down, now! James and them are right behind us!” It was hard to argue as we were all soaked through with freezing cold rain blowing sideways. This necessitated down climbing to the last rappel station we had passed, on wet rock, in stiff boots, while shivering like mad.

I had, up to this point in my climbing career, performed two rappels. The first was on a day trip out with the owner of our climbing gym who was less of an instructor and more just making sure no one died on his watch; and the second was two days before when our group was going over basic skills. Neither of these experiences prepared me for bailing off the side of a mountain in a storm. After following Zach down the first rappel to the second set of bolts, I turned around to fireman belay Shiela and the next two coming down. Once it started to get crowded on that ledge, Zach was preparing to go down to the last set of bolts to set up the final rappel off of this slick rock.

When I looked at him setting up his ATC to start his descent, I had the weirdest sense of dejá vu. I had seen this exact scene, or one close enough to it, in a dream some time before. We were on an exposed stance on a mountain, rain and wind howling all around, and I watched as Zach or someone that looked close enough prepared his rope, hands shaking uncontrollably as he missed clipping the rope into his carabiner and plummeted off the side of the mountain.

Back in the real world, I started to freak out. What is the climbing etiquette for telling your instructor you had dreamed their death? If I told him, would it mess up his preparation? I held my tongue and did my best to visually confirm everything was attached and rigged correctly. Zach leaned back and zipped down to the last set of bolts with ease. I said a silent “thank you” to no one in particular for my lack of spooky pre-cognizance. As soon as Zach was down it was my turn once again. “Don’t bother tying your prusik, we have to get down”, Stephen had made his way to the anchor to direct traffic, “just don’t let go with your brake hand!” Comforting.

Two more freezing rappels and we were back at the start of the climb, standing on the ridge line and being buffeted by the wind gusts, shivering and getting behind rocks for some protection. The rain had slowed down, stopped? By the time the rest of the group made it down the sun was out and the clouds were moving east and breaking up. It was turning into a gorgeous fucking day now that we were off the mountain. As we hiked back down to our van, slowly drying off with each step, we discussed the sudden turn of the weather. None of the guides, with probably 40+ ascents of the Liberty Bell group between them, had ever been chased off by the weather before. They all agreed that was one of the most epic storms they had been caught in, especially in late June. I learned a few lessons about alpine climbing from the experience:

1. Sometimes you’re meant to be on a mountain, sometimes you’re not. Knowing how and when to recognize this can mean the difference between life and death.
2. The weather dictates the climb.
3. A climb where you have to turn around and bail can sometimes be just as fun, and make a better story, than successfully reaching the summit.
4. Never wear full-shank mountaineering boots unless it is absolutely necessary.