Where You Are
Welcome to Sixty Foot Fall! An area created to share photos and thoughts on climbing adventures. Aptly named Sixty Foot Fall due to our lack of experience on the wall and most importantly our lack of knowledge on correct top rope anchors. Many climbers achieve their "high" while climbing the wall. We at Sixty Foot Fall, achieve our "high" from many areas of climbing: Will this anchor hold? Can this dude belay me? Am I going to fall off the edge, while setting this anchor? Did I yell "ROPE" loud enough? "TAKE, DAMN IT," you got me!! The list is endless, and yet the aforementioned thoughts along with the extreme adrenaline rush brought on by attacking the wall is why we continue to climb.
1st Day: Only Thing Missing Was Actual REI Sales Person
We agreed to meet early on the rocks, a 9 o'clock start to the day was not unrealistic. Ryan, Tiger, Bear and I were going to touch real rock for the first time, to say we were excited would be an understatement.
I overslept and awoke at 7:30 to a Coors Light hangover, but the thought of climbing enabled me to continue on. Bear and I grabbed some Caribou and hit the road to meet up with the others.
We finally met up on the tarred trail, decided which wall to conquer and headed to the top to set anchor. At the top, the four of us reached into our bags, not hiking packs, but REI bags and pulled out our gear.....and some reciepts. Yes....you see none of us had climbed outdoors to this point, and all had recently purchased the gear that we felt was nessecary to achieve the task at hand. As we stood there pulling price tags and packaging straps off of our gear, we began to wonder what was to be done with of this new equipment of ours.
I had read on the internet what needed to be done, but 60' up on a ledge quickly erased any memory of those studies. No worries.. Tiger had a book! Oh...but it was a book on routes. Well at least we would know the name of the route in which one of us may parish on. We were going to have to work together and come up with something that looked safe and reliable, cause the correct way was not happening today.
We joked and laughed, mades comments of death to ease our fears, but not one of us was too eager at this point to be the first to climb. We were doing a slow dance with trouble and trouble was leading. Tiger stood on the cliffs edge, as if there wasn't a 60 foot drop on the other side. Ryan assured us all with his repeated, "Your crazy man, don't fall" remarks that he did not want to lose someone before we even started climbing. Tiger shrugged off the remarks, yelled ROPE and tossed it over the edge. It made it......all of ten feet before it bunched up into 160 foot edelwiess ball. EDELWIESS!!! we exclaimed. Tiger shook his head, fished it back up, and repeated. Alas, victory....the rope was at the bottom. Bear headed down, the situation may have been too much to handle? Tiger, Ryan and I stayed to double check our finished work, yet none of us were quite sure what it was we were double checking.
Out of nowhere an angel appeared crawling over the edge of the rock! Tiger and Ryan immediately entered into conversation and watched as this angel of the rock quickly made a web of anchors for another climber. I noticed as she glanced over at our......contraption, the disapproval displayed on her face. I am not sure if she offered or if we begged, but this Angel in a matter of minutes turned our dangling straps into a work of art.
We climbed all day, and lived to climb another!
Stoked!
I am stoked about this trip to the Tower! For me, this is a new challenge that doesn't involve running. Marathons are no joke, but I know what to expect after finishing one. Close friends and family ask how the race went, and all is forgotten a week later. Do they even know how far a marathon is and how tough miles 18-26 are? That's where climbing comes in. I'm excited again like I was for my first road race. Most people don't feel safe climbing a ladder, much less a rock formation that towers almost 1,300 feet above the ground. Everyone I've talked to thinks we're "nuts." It's funny how people perceive things. Climbing is probably much safer than running miles and miles on the side of a road. I look forward to the sense of accomplishment we're going to feel when we reach the top. I'm guessing it will be similar to what Medvetz felt when he was able to summit Everest with a broken hand. Did you know he has a steel cage in his back?
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