By Jim Herson
Rebuttal By Erika Monahan
One might reasonably assume that these kiss and tell trip reports would have a 'dampening' effect on my willing partner pool. True enough. But those few, undeterred, indomitable spirits, whose only take home lesson from such is that to climb the Valley's biggest you simply need to not wear your climbing shoe on your back, do make for some rather entertaining partners.
Admittedly there's a bit of romantic nostalgia as she was my first, but objectively Ann Lyons, with her unique combination of sheer competence, tenacity, and ignorant bliss, still sets the gold standard for big wall cluelessness. Launching Ann over the lip of El Cap on a single strand 5mm piece of slick dental floss was perhaps my finest moment, to which the seared tourniquet marks, still etched into her thigh, are a proud testament. (To be fair, launching Dave over the Salathe lip without jugs or any hope of ever returning to the terra firma was a strong runner-up.)
And yet like all purely physical tumultuous relationships, ours came to -- quite literally -- an impasse. A better big wall partner I could not hope for but for one itsy-bitsy, seemingly trivial but ultimately insurmountable obstacle: Ann's utter refusal to go on demand!
Having just set the unfathomably longest potty training record ever with my son, I have none-too-little hard earned pride in this area of expertise (making people poop). So you can imagine the brutal blow to my ego when Ann steadfastly refused to take care of business in the 4:30am, freezing morning air at the base of El Cap?!
This pre-climb ritual is the only in-a-day requirement for the big stone. And so with broken hearts we departed on the saddest of terms when Ann came clean that she'd never do a wall with me for fear that her appalling lack of direct bowel control might somehow make it into a trip report. Talk about paranoid.
But who better to fill Ann's big, blissfully ignorant shoes than Lenny and Erika! Lenny and Erika's unbridled enthusiasm for stepping out onto the big stone, while breathtaking in its naivete, did inspire one of Larson's finest:
Lenny Ferreira's complete lack of wall experience was no match for his sunny disposition, positive energy, and pill bag. Lenny had just completed the grueling 4 day, 225 mile, 40,000' elevation La Ruta adventure mountain bike race in Costa Rica. In finishing this brutal mud fest there wasn't an energy bar, electrolyte pill, protein shake, omega oil, or caffeinated gel that Lenny didn't enthusiastically embrace with abandon. His future as cycling's anti-doping czar seems limited although he certainly would be a boon to MLB. So Lenny shows up at the base of the Half Dome approach gully ready to rumble with a medicine chest cabinet full of pills and gels and I'm thinking, well at least the gear sort will be easy. He assures me that the magic Italian gels will get him through anything. One gel a day in Costa Rica did the trick although on a particularly grueling day he popped two. He packed five for Half Dome.
The first golden rule of big walling is not to panic at the first glitch, but when Lenny bonked before we hit the first fixed line on the approach I had to question the wisdom of that mantra. Figuring it would be easier to take his weight now rather than his body later, I took the rope while Lenny popped a gel. Instantly he snapped back to his old cheerful self and resumed singing his way up the slabs. When Lenny arrived at the anchors of pitch one with bursting forearms and puffing like a locomotive I again thought panicking would be prudent. But I soon caught on as he downed a second gel, regained his mojo, and was back on fire. Three magic gels and 23 pitches to go -- could be close.
Half Dome was fun as always although even more so with Lenny's so-psyched-to-be-there attitude. Having a rather poor track record for teaching jugging technique to first timers on the drive up, we opted out of jugging. This did not speed us up. Nor did my silly climb-tied-in-at-the-halfway point to haul the bag fiasco. But we pushed through as Lenny kept popping the pills and downing the gels.
Now Half Dome is a winner-take-all climb: No matter how you arrive at Thank God Ledge, if you walk it with pride you win! True, Lenny wasn't completely styling it up to this point but the boy is nothing if not enthusiastic. So I gave him the pep talk and then panicked when I realized he was out of magic gels! I had to dig deep. I pulled out all the stops: "Rob will buy you a burrito if you walk the ledge!"
Rob certainly has cheered on longer odds:
And the Rob magic once again inspired, setting Lenny on fire as he sent big time!!!
Topped out at dusk and had a long hike out. Not our fastest time but definitely fun.
Home at 5am, all day meeting at 9am, no sleep for 3 days, then back to the Valley where I wouldn't have thought it possible to match Lenny's enthusiasm for unknown adventures but somehow Erika did!? As a bitten old man all this sunny disposition was working me.