Thirty Nine
Rilla stood at the bottom in the dark, her borrowed jacket zipped to her ears as a light breeze touched her face, and the black oaks quivered behind her. The ground that El Capitan rose from felt alive, with a beating heart deep down in its granite belly that thundered through her feet and pulsed in her ears. The stars were still out. The moon was waning and blue.
It felt like she’d come full circle. She lifted her hands and began.
They climbed, the first two hundred feet un-roped. Familiar from the many treks to haul the gear they’d need and stash it farther up the climb. The wind picked up and the sky lightened to purple. It was easy scrambling, but the higher Rilla went, the more aware she became of the trees, and the sky, and the start of the biggest thing she’d ever done.
They began up some crumbly rock, into a wide corner crack. The climbing wasn’t hard, and feeling well, they climbed easily in a quiet rhythm. At the top, they set up the anchors on the bolts.
Rilla led the next pitch, into a left corner, using a little tri-cam to slip into the crack, double back a piece of webbing, and clip herself it. The movement felt easy and fluid, and it filled her with confidence—almost as if she just watched herself do something she’d never expected. She swung over to another crack, moving up to the bolts.
As the sun rose bright and clear, they reached Sickle Ledge, where they had stashed their haul bags—the pig, Adeena grunted, lifting hers. The wind whipped against their skin, and the sun was so bright off the white granite she squinted even behind her sunglasses. After hauling everything to the ledge and making sure anchors were secure and untangled, they sat three across, legs sprawled on the thigh-wide ledge, and dug through the bag for food. Rilla chewed on a few pieces of jerky and a nutrition bar. After some water and waiting to let another group get off the ledge as they hauled things for their climb the next day, they stood and began to push on toward their first night bivy.
On the next pitch, a burst of wind caught the rope at the end, yanking it toward the flake.
“Nooooooo!” Adeena yelled.
“I got it.” Rilla yanked harder. The rope pulled up just before catching.
“Crisis averted,” Petra called.
The climbing was easy. The sunshine was hot and the wind cool. They pushed on at a pace that made Rilla feel like there would be no way they’d spend four days on this rock—half of it was already done? Rilla kept tipping her head and trying to match it to the route map, but she felt sure they were way ahead.
“The Nose,” she scoffed. “The Nose is going down.”
The Nose was going down. Until it was time to haul the pig—the huge bags lashed to the rope that carried all their food, gear, and water—up to them at the top of the pitch.
Goddamn it, why had she thought they would go fast? Sweat drenched her shirt and the sun broiled her shoulders, and her lips and mouth became so dry from the wind she kept sucking down water, which made her have to stop and pee, and then wind caught her pee and splashed it on her hand and . . .
“Goddamn it,” Rilla snapped when the pig got caught again as she hauled it up. Hauling required her to pull and walk a length of rope down the wall, and then, holding the tension, slide the ascender back up. It was a constant fight. Her fingers were continually in danger of getting smashed into the gear on the up, and her thighs and stomach straining to pull down. Impossible when the bag got stuck. She leaned down and wiggled the line.
“It’s your lead,” Petra called.
And just like always, it switched back to being glorious.
Rilla led. Then Adeena. Then back to Petra for the pendulum over to the start of the Stovelegs. Rilla’s neck ached as she watched Petra lower out. “Why is it called Stovelegs?” she asked Adeena, eyeing the long, straight crack of pitch seven, eight, and nine-ish.
Adeena adjusted her sunglasses. “Before this was first climbed, a climber—working on the route with Warren Harding—went to a scrap yard to find something he could use for protection in the cracks. This was the fifties, so there wasn’t much. He found some legs from, like, a woodstove, and shaped them into a piton that would fit this crack and be easy to carry. It’s been the Stoveleg crack ever since.”
“Lower me,” Petra yelled.
Rilla shifted the hard candy in her mouth, trying to rewet it. The afternoon light waned. Hopefully Petra would be quick on lead. She tipped her chin again, shoulders screaming from the hauling and the sun.
Petra’s long legs furiously pumped against the rock, the gear clinking and her silhouette against the sky. She swung, hopped over the rise, and reached.
“Got it,” she called.
Rilla exhaled and peeled a clementine she’d meant to save for farther up. “I’m just going to eat all the food now, so I don’t have to haul it,” she said to Adeena.
Adeena laughed while she kept feeding out rope for Petra in the Stovelegs.
When it was Rilla’s turn to climb, she ended up aiding. On the ground, fresh, she could have climbed it. But after a long day of climbing and hauling, she was so exhausted that the aiders were hard enough to manage.
In the evening, they reached Dolt Tower, a natural ledge wide enough to sleep on. By the time they hauled up all their gear and got everything sorted into a mess of anchor webbing, gear, and haul bags, the light was nearly gone.
They pulled their sleeping bags out and collapsed onto the ledge, exhausted.
“It always seems so easy,” Adeena said. “And then I start and, ugh. I forgot.”
“I am so sore,” Petra moaned. “But so far, so free.” She pumped her fists to the sky.
Rilla opened one eye and looked to Adeena, who seemed to be thinking the same thing. There was no way Petra could climb the whole route free, but . . .
“I’m hungry,” Adeena said, sitting up. “I’m going to pray and then make some oatmeal.”
After a meal of oatmeal with fruit, brown sugar, nuts, and more water, they brushed their teeth, spitting toothpaste into oblivion, and curled up in their sleeping bags.
The light faded and the wind whipped the dark and the stars came out. Even though Rilla had seen the stars before, seeing them here, from the edge of a sleeping bag with her harness digging into her legs and sides, Adeena’s knees in her back, and Petra’s elbows in her boobs made the stars seem magical and new. She closed her eyes, a smile on her face, and remembered the first day of climbing—with Walker, and how it was horrible and how nothing had changed, except that she was here now. But then she heard Walker and his “oh.” And she heard the way they’d talked about her and her past. No matter how long she looked at the stars, she heard it in her head. The wind sharpened until it stung tears from under her closed eyes.
In the morning, she was feeling better. Sore, a little swollen and weird, but better. “What pitch number are we on anyway?” Rilla asked, grateful for Adeena’s mountaineer coffee pour-over skills as the rich, sweet scent of coffee tinged the dry wind.
“Lucky thirteen,” Petra said, sitting cross-legged and looking over the edge.
The sky was blue and boundless, streaked with the pink gold of sunrise. Rilla rubbed more sunscreen on her burnt face and used the remaining lotion on her hands to smooth back the flyways as she finger-combed through her knotted hair and re-braided it. She ate a packet of tuna and an avocado with salt and hot sauce packets she’d stolen from the dining hall. It wasn’t the most satisfying—she could have used a huge plate of French toast with bacon, grits, and gravy, and a glass of whole milk alongside her coffee. But the tuna made her feel strong and ready to climb again, and the avocado made her feel something like full. She packed her sleeping bag and the three of them organized their gear, took down the portaledge, and studied the route map one more time—looking over the ten pitches they were slotted to do before bivying at a spot named after Camp 4.
Petra was tying in to lead, when there was a sudden crack, like thunder and lightning at once. All three of them jumped. Rilla looked automatically to the sky, but Adeena and Petra yanked her tight to the wall as something roared past.
Rilla blinked and watched, her mouth open. A person. It was a person in a red suit and he fell. Her heart stopped beating. A red plume billowed out behind him, pulling him up below as he gently finished soaring to the ground.
“Damn BASE jumpers,” Adeena said. “I about peed myself.”
Petra laughed weakly. “I totally thought something had come off. Ack! I’m awake!”
Rilla’s heart resumed beating—faster to make up for lost time. “Oh, my god,” she said, still staring at the person floating to the trees.
They watched until the jumper landed in El Cap Meadow, and then they turned back to the wall and began the rhythm, branching off pitch fourteen to wait for Petra on the Jardine Traverse—the route variation you took when you were trying to free-climb.
On the ground it’d seemed harmless, but now Rilla knew there was no way Petra could free-climb The Nose, and waiting for her to struggle through left Rilla annoyed in a new way. She’d spotted Petra pulling on gear, but couldn’t say anything while Petra was climbing. Her neck ached from twisting to look up.
“I don’t know what she’s doing,” Adeena said at one point. “But it’s not free.” It was the closest they came to talking about it.
Climb.
Ascend.
Haul.
Curse the haul bag for getting stuck.
Curse everything.
Get the haul bag up.
Begin again.
The sun rose high and bright. Halfway through the morning, Rilla pulled on a thin, long-sleeved shirt because she couldn’t imagine how any more sunscreen was going to help against the sunshine trying to burn her off the face of the earth.
Rilla took it upon herself to make salami and cheese crackers for everyone for a mid-morning snack, which they ate before hauling. It was a good idea she took credit for when they spent the next few hours in a long slog, belaying Petra’s attempt to free-climb.
In between, they snacked on apples and thick globs of peanut butter, slowly working their way up a leaning ramp of sun-soaked granite toward the Texas Flake.
The shadows slipped over them as they each wiggled up into the chimney.
With her back to the flake and her feet pushing on the wall, Rilla tried not to think of coming off the wall. There was no protection here. The more she tried, the harder it was to not think about it. Her feet slipped and her arms hurt from trying to keep from pushing so hard on the flake.
It was her fear right now, she could feel it. She was tired and sore, yes. But it was fear locking everything tight. She winced and forced her body to move, putting the fear into its place and not allowing it to weigh on her body.
With a relieved sigh, she pulled out of the chimney to the top of the flake and sat astride, one leg on each side of the flake—one in sun and one in shadow. She put her arms up into the wind and tipped her head, sweaty helmet shifting back. Done.
The Boot Flake was next—and it was Rilla’s turn to lead. She found a good rhythm in ascending the aiders, clipping the bolts and fixed gear until she reached the bottom of the boot-shaped flake and needed to dig at her side for a cam.
She was higher than she’d ever been climbing, but the higher she went, the more the ground lost its sense of reality. It faded into gray and blue and greens of otherworldliness. All that existed—all that was real and permanent—was the granite beneath her raw fingers. The rub of the harness on her legs and waist. The dryness of her mouth. Her body moved like a machine—doing exactly what her mind told it to do. Focused. Strong. She’d never felt like this in her entire life. She was in control—and more out of control than she’d ever been. A body held in perfect tension. Maybe this was what life was—a constant state of seeking perfect tensions.
They didn’t talk much as they kept climbing. Everyone was starting to feel the effects of two full days of climbing. But the summit felt manageable. Within their grasp.
Petra had grabbed gear, but still insisted on climbing free—Rilla and Adeena didn’t argue, but it was starting to annoy Rilla more and more. Especially as the afternoon waned.
Adeena did the run for the King Swing—the famous, huge pendulum was a different experience than it had been for Petra and her long legs. Her swings took time to build, but had a power Petra’s hadn’t had.
When it was Rilla’s turn, she swept through the last of the sun lighting the shadows of the Valley and reached for the rock. The force pulled abruptly, and she felt this surge of superhuman strength course through her arms and connect her mind to her feet to find a foothold. Petra and Adeena grabbed hold of her shirt and secured her beside them.
The sun was beginning to set—twisting that familiar deep amber—but with three more pitches until they reached their camp spot, they were either climbing well into the night or bivying below the ledge.
“Maybe both,” Adeena said with a sigh.
“What is that on the horizon?” Adeena asked when they were working over the anchors, switching belay for the next pitch.
Rilla peered into the twilight near the last bit of sun. It was bright and seared her vision. It was hard to tell. “Clouds?” she asked.
“It’s probably just the sunset doing weird things. Or whatever . . . clouds.”
“Fuck,” Adeena said, swiping hair out of her face.
They all kept their eyes to the horizon, even when they put headlamps on and kept climbing in the dark, and couldn’t see what might be coming.
The wind picked up.
“It might rain,” Petra yelled.
In the light of her headlamp, Adeena’s eyes rolled.
Rilla wasn’t having it. She glared up at Petra. “No shit!” she yelled back over the wind.
“We’ll be fine,” Adeena said. “Let’s just get to the bivy before it starts.”
The dark was all around them then—biting with cold teeth on the back of Rilla’s neck as she kept blindly following Adeena, who had taken over on lead.
The first lightning flicker sent her pulse screaming—the granite lit wildly as if there were ghouls and goblins in each shadow. The face turned menacing. But in the fear, she suddenly felt, for the first time, as if the rock was hers. As if she belonged here—more than the other two. She was ugly, and terrible, and full of shadows where she kept finding terrible things. It always felt as if the bright sunshine of the mountains would kick her off; but here, in this night storm on El Cap, her fingers tingled and her body hummed, and she finally felt secure.
“Fuck! Your hair!” Petra pointed.
Rilla tipped her head up to see her hair on end, dancing above her helmet. “Fuck fuck fuck!” she screeched. She was about to be hit by lightning. She could feel it—the hum of the clouds gathering energy and seeking her body.
“Curl in a ball,” Adeena yelled. “Grab your ears.”
Rilla let go, immediately falling on the long stretch of cordelette of the anchors, and bumping against the wall as she hugged her knees to her chest and tucked her ears down. Thank god she’d been anchored. Thank god, because she’d just let go without thinking, and hadn’t double-checked anything. Cringing, she waited to be struck.
The lightning flashed. Thunder echoed.
Her heart beat ferociously.
“Come on. We have to get to the ledge,” Petra yelled.
Rilla only heard “ledge,” but she didn’t need Petra’s encouragement to know they were in deep shit and needed to get up to shelter.
She kept her head down and climbed until she reached the anchors and helped haul the pig.
“Be careful of the next pitch,” Petra said. “There are loose blocks.”
“Perfect,” Rilla moaned.
Lightning and thunder drowned out Petra’s reply. In the flash of light, Rilla realized Petra was scared. And Adeena was calm. Adeena was the leader. Maybe she had been all along, despite Petra’s bluster.
Rilla met Adeena’s gaze. “What do we do?”
“We can’t climb in the lightning,” Adeena said in a lull of the wind. “We need to spread out and hunker down until it passes.”
“Let’s just keep going,” Petra urged. “We’re almost there.”
Petra was delusional. Rilla yanked the route map out of her pocket and kept a firm grip on it in the wind. “The rap bolts are to the left,” she told Adeena, showing her the paper under the light of her headlamp. “I can head out over there. You and Petra anchor to the bolts here.”
“Guys . . .” Petra protested. Lightning flashed on her face, turning it white and blanched.
“We’re listening to Adeena,” Rilla snapped. “She has the most experience.” On the ground, what Adeena had lacked in technical ability was, up here, less important—now Rilla could see how Adeena’s experience with the situation and the stress made her a calm and able leader. It was heartening to realize not everyone showed their potential. That maybe there were things, hidden on the ground, that gave Rilla value. That she didn’t have to be Caroline. She could just be herself.
Thunder drowned out Petra’s protest. And Adeena handed her a rain jacket.
Rilla headed out across the granite, headlamp yanked down to her neck. With the lightning, she couldn’t see anything anyhow. Adeena belayed off the anchors, but if she fell, it would be a swing back underneath Adeena, hitting them with the rope. The light flashed and she spotted the glint of silver bolt hangers. It went pitch black; but Rilla kept her eyes trained ahead. She exhaled, bringing her belly in closer to the rock. They could make it. The storm would pass soon.
The lightning flashed again and she reached out to clip the bolts, fumbling in the blind dark. Quickly, she turned her headlamp on, and clipped another set of bolts and long draws to the anchors, getting herself secure.
The wind gusted and roared. The dark seemed a thing to consume her. “Off belay,” she yelled into the wind now that she was anchored to the wall.
She couldn’t hear anything back.
Rising up on the balls of her feet off the rock, she crouched like Adeena had instructed, ducking her head to her knees and covering her ears with her hands. Lightning-safe position—ready to be fucked by a bolt. She closed her eyes and tried to mentally be okay with sudden death.
The rain started. Pelting her back like ice in the driving wind. Lightning and thunder came at once, shaking her to her teeth. Her calves cramped. Her back tightened in the cold rain. Now she prayed for sudden death instead of this slow one where she froze. The rain came harder. And the thunder melted away into the mountains.
She straightened. “Guys?” she yelled into the dark.
No sound.
For the first time, panic seized her heart. She’d always had a partner in this. And even though she knew Petra and Adeena were across the wall just a little ways, she didn’t know. She couldn’t convince herself to believe it. The rain lashed her face. Rilla clutched the jacket tighter and bent her head, hanging in her harness.
She must have fallen asleep, because the next thing she knew she was gasping for air under a waterfall. Automatically, she straightened her legs, pushing off the wall. Was she dreaming? She looked around and it was still dark. Still night. The waterfall gushed over her shins, pouring icy water into her shoes and already wet pants.
“Rilla,” she heard someone yell.
Instantly, she realized the storm had lifted. The wind had died down and the rain had stopped.
“I’m okay,” she forced through her chattering teeth. “I’m in a waterfall.”
“Can you make it back over?” Adeena yelled. “We can bivy and find something dry.”
Rilla looked down at her waist. Her legs were cold and shaky, numb. But they were likely to only get worse, especially if the water didn’t let up soon. “I’m coming.”
It took her three times longer than normal to haul herself up into the rush of water to unclip from the anchors. Torrents spurted over her jacket and into her clothes, dripping ice through her whole body and any layer that might have still been dry.
Shaking uncontrollably now, she clipped the biners to her side and began inching along the still dark wall. After a few steps, she realized it wasn’t pitch-black anymore, but faintly dark gray.
The morning shadows of Adeena and Petra waited against the wall, quiet as she made her way to them. The going back was a lot harder than leaving. A lot harder. She shuffled slowly, hands open on the wet wall. What had she done? What had she done to be here? She sniffed and the misery she’d felt when looking at them turned into misery at looking at herself. She’d stolen Petra’s watch. When all Petra had done was help her. Invited her in. Took her climbing. She kept getting pissed at the rules Petra broke on this climb, because she was pissed at herself.
Rilla reached Adeena, waiting as Adeena clipped her into the anchors. “Thanks,” she said.
“You need to get dry. Petra’s getting you clothes.”
“Are y’all dry?” she muttered through the shivering.
“Mostly. We’ll bivy and rest up. Get something warm.”
“Take your shirt off,” Petra said. “I got a sweatshirt.”
Rilla worked out of her jacket, handing it to Adeena, and then peeled off the soaking layer of thin technical shirt she’d been wearing and the soaking wet bra underneath. “It’ll dry as soon as the sun comes up,” Adeena said, taking her sports bra and handing her a sweatshirt. Rilla yanked it over her head, worried somehow it would slip out of her hands and disappear into the wind.
They wrestled with the portaledge as the sky lightened and the wind whipped the cliffs dry. By the time Rilla had her wet pants off and hanging off the edge to dry, she was in her underwear in her sleeping bag, watching the sunrise.
No one talked. They didn’t even eat.
They all just fell asleep.