Learning to Fly

by Steph Davis

  Crack climbing and moving in alpine environments were my strengths as a climber. In a way, this route seemed made for someone like me. To solo it would be taking my exploration of fear and control to another level of difficulty and risk. So that’s what I would do.

  It was early September, and the summer alpine season would soon be over on the Diamond. Contemplation and reflection were over. My mind locked down obsessively, the way it always did when I got pulled into a climbing project. All of my thoughts and decisions now revolved around Pervertical Sanctuary. I needed to climb it with a deep physical urge that was impossible to ignore. I felt a sharpening passion for the Diamond, even more than ever, a desire so strong that I didn’t even question it. I knew exactly how things were going to be now. This new, almost presumptuous dream would be the only thing that would matter in life until I did it.

  The cycle of obsession was one I knew well. It was part of being a climber, and it felt good to be in that simple reality again. Somewhat irrationally, I’d felt betrayed by the climbing community and climbing itself, on top of all the other betrayals I’d felt when I’d been thrown out with the bathwater of the arch debacle. I had walked away from the climbing media after the surprising venom that had spilled onto me in the wake of the farcical controversy, leaving me free even from the external pressure of being a sponsored athlete. No one knew or cared what I climbed now but me. That was good. But my feelings about the simple act of climbing had become complicated. I climbed solely because I needed to, but the pure joy had been bruised. I had wondered if I would ever again feel that clean, passionate drive, a fire that had fueled every major climb I’d done. Now my world revolved around this dream, as it had so many times before, and the path was straight and clear. Everything I thought and did was for Pervertical. I wanted it more than anything else, the way it should be, the way it had to be. The flames had leaped up, blazing.

  —

  Jacob agreed immediately to go back up to the Diamond with me for a recon climb, just as we’d done before on the Casual Route. I had climbed Pervertical Sanctuary years ago, but couldn’t remember much about it except the universal consensus that it was steep, strenuous, and excellent. I’d heard many climbers telling tales about their epic struggles on that crux pitch, fighting up the thin, steep crack, struggling to stay in the wide section and wishing they had more gear to use, and I remembered finding it tough and intimidating too. But that was a long time ago.

  Jacob and I slept in the rock bivy and started the climb at first light. The rock was rough and textured, cold in the early sun. My body flowed up the cracked granite wall, almost as naturally as walking. I’d brought only four pieces of gear, rather than the standard selection of fifteen or more, purposely withholding gear throughout the most difficult sections. On the few disorientingly loose sections of the route, I noted hidden holds and memorized them, making sure I never touched anything crumbly or broken. When free soloing, I couldn’t just climb casually, knowing that a rope would catch me if I fell. I had to make sure I felt beyond solid on every single move I made, that I never took a chance on grabbing a loose flake. That lockdown style changed the feeling of the climbing completely. With no second chances if I failed, I needed to be 100 percent sure of the route, the rock, and myself.

  Fourteen hundred feet above the glacier, the air was even thinner. The hardest section of Pervertical did live up to its reputation. The crack started off steep and thin, but just a little too large to catch securely on my knuckles. I resisted the urge to set a piece of gear in the thin crack, intentionally exposing myself to a long fall if I couldn’t do the moves, to heighten my commitment. I paused on each foothold and worked my fingers deeper into the crack than I needed to, searching around for the tight constrictions that would securely lock on my joints.

  At the steep angle, it was challenging to keep my body weight squarely over my feet, and my muscles worked hard as I locked my fingers deep into the crack. Still, I was an endurance crack climber above all, and this alpine environment was a familiar home. My arms felt a little tired from pulling most of my weight up the rock at this angle, but the exposure, cold rock, and thin air actually energized me. From years of experience, I knew I could jam my fingers and feet into the crack and hold myself there for as long as I needed to. I knew that even at maximum fatigue, my muscles could always do a little more.

  I stopped to shake the weariness out of my arms, one after the other, and slow my breathing. Finally the difficulty eased slightly as the crack became wide enough to slot my whole hand inside and the steep angle relented back to vertical. My feet slid comfortably all the way in and twisted snugly into the crack. I was safe. I allowed myself to place a piece of gear, knowing I would never fall here, ever. But I wondered how it would feel to climb that thinner stretch of crack with no rope, with absolutely nothing between me and a death fall except my fingers, feet, and mind. And I wondered again about fear. I felt completely unbothered climbing with a rope on, even though I was creating risks of dangerous falls for myself by choosing to limit the gear I placed. I knew from experience that everything felt different when the rope was gone. Everything became starkly exposed with nowhere to hide and no way to find safety. I’d have to be 100 percent sure I could climb this route without falling to come up here alone. Right now I was about 90 percent sure.

  I locked into the crack, climbing as slowly as possible, stopping after every move to look down at the rope flapping below my feet and then past it to the glacier hundreds of feet lower. I soaked in the exposure intellectually, noting how safe and how solid I felt with my hands and feet fully jammed into the widening crack. “Remember this,” I told myself.

  At the notorious wide section, I wiggled in, quickly wedging my whole leg inside the crack. Though many climbers dreaded wide cracks and the unfamiliar technique they required, I’d been wriggling up them for years in Yosemite and in the mountains. I welcomed the chance to get my shoulder and thigh shoved deep inside the rock as I shimmied up the large gash. I felt absolutely secure, knowing there was no way I could fall out.

  Almost as soon as Jacob and I returned to Boulder, I went back up to climb Pervertical again with a rope and another partner—another bivy in the granite cave and another day on the glorious, lofty face of the Diamond. By the end of the week, I was 100 percent sure of the climb. I knew the shape and texture of every handhold I grabbed, and I also knew the width and the feel of every crack I put my hands and feet into, from the base of the North Chimney to the top of Table Ledge, seventeen hundred feet of vertical terrain. My legs and my lungs were strong from running up, down, and around the Diamond. The air didn’t seem thin at all anymore, and the three hour hike uphill to the base felt like an easy stroll. I was ready.

  Back in Eldorado, I tidied up the cabin, making sure each small thing was in its place. My clothes were neatly folded, the sheets turned down on the mattress in the loft, the coffee things all washed up and placed neatly in line. It was peaceful and clean. I looked inside one last time as I pulled the door shut.

  I had one stop to make in Boulder. Fletch grinned at Jacob, but wagged a little halfheartedly as I handed him her bed, food bag, and bowls. Jacob’s house had a big yard, and he was a dog lover. He’d watched Fletch for a few overnights, and I knew she was safe with him.

  “You be a good girl. I’ll be back soon.” I buried my face in her fur. “She loves you, Jacob. Thanks for taking care of her again.”

  Jacob smiled and scratched Fletch’s ears. “No problem. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He gave me a fast hug and took her things.

  I got in the truck quickly before I got all emotional, and drove toward Estes Park, winding up the familiar curves. Fletch was in good hands. I’d left everything clean and tight, in perfect order. I wouldn’t be going up there if I thought I wouldn’t come back. But I also wouldn’t be going up there if I didn’t have a clear-eyed understanding of all possibilities. When setting off alone up a sheer wall of granite, it would be foolish to deny that not making it to
the top is one possible outcome.

  The trail to the Diamond

  It was well before noon when I pulled into the wooded parking lot and hiked quickly up the trail, enjoying the warm pine smell of the forest. Above the tree line, the smooth, jewel-shaped face of the Diamond jolted me hard, its muted hues blending across the lofty face. I couldn’t wait for tomorrow, to be climbing among those shimmering colors in the cold, bright sun. It was the same Christmas-morning excitement I had felt before I started up to free climb El Capitan in a day, one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I felt the desire rising inside me. I stood, just gazing at the Diamond, then felt the sudden chill of the higher elevation as I cooled down fast. My hands went numb. I pulled on my windbreaker and thin gloves and got moving, over and down the small pass that led to the stream-braided meadow below Chasm Lake. Columbines bobbed beside the high trail in thick blue and white patches. I skirted the jumbled boulder field around the clear turquoise water and watched the Diamond grow larger and darker above me as I followed the final narrow foot trail to the bivy cave. I was relieved to see empty dirt inside the rock shelter instead of another party’s backpacks or sleeping bags. It was just me up here in this cirque of granite walls, snow, and boulders. I sat down on the soft peat and unzipped my pack to get another layer on before I cooled off again.

  It had taken me just a few hours to get there. I had plenty of daylight in which to organize and get rested. There wasn’t much to do, just the normal, simple tasks of preparing to sleep and climb. I laid out my thin pad and small sleeping bag and screwed a fuel cartridge to the ultralight stove. I used my empty pack as a clean surface on the flat dirt for my spoon, titanium pot, tiny espresso maker, lighter, and food—a few tea bags, coffee, powdered soy milk, lentil soup and nutritional yeast, six Clif bars, and some dried fruit and nuts. The food all fit into a single Ziploc bag, fuel for dinner, breakfast, and a climb up an alpine wall. I set out my climbing gear: rock shoes and a chalk bag. I liked having the barest minimum of equipment and food, only what I needed and nothing more to exist in the rock shelter and climb up the granite face of Longs. I checked my watch to be sure the alarm was still set for three thirty. Without fail, I’d always woken up one minute before my watch rang for an alpine start. But I always set it.

  It was still early afternoon. Going to bed at seven would give me more than eight hours of sleep, the minimum I needed. To fill my water bottle and the tiny pot, I walked down a few hundred feet to the open spot in the boulder field where water ran out from the glacier. Back at the bivy, I heated water for the lentil soup and stared out at the rocky ridgeline across from me as I ate.

  This too was part of my plan, this time alone below the Diamond to think. I needed to be sure I belonged up there on the wall tomorrow. A considered, honest meditation of this question had to be made before setting off on a long free solo climb. I didn’t want to be thinking about any of this tomorrow. I needed to ponder it now, get my answer, and then I wouldn’t have to think about it again, freeing all of my focus for climbing. If I decided to go. I had confidence in myself, and I knew I was fully capable of safely climbing the route. I had the ability, and I’d done all of the mental and physical groundwork I’d deemed necessary. I also knew it was extremely possible for me to fall, for any number of reasons, and I had to decide if that was an acceptable outcome for me. If it wasn’t, I had no business being up there without a rope.

  The light had moved behind the Diamond, and the cirque was in shadow. I looked at the texture of the gray granite boulder above me, the stacked stones that climbers had built into a small wall around the sides. Three months ago, climbing without a rope had almost no meaning for me. The stakes weren’t high because I didn’t want to be here anymore. Now I felt positive and hopeful, and I was looking forward to the future. I wasn’t looking for an escape. But something had shifted inside. Although I didn’t want to leave the world, the idea didn’t unsettle me. I felt at peace with the possibility of falling from the Diamond at this positive moment in my life. The thought of death had become tangible to me for the first time, and I’d realized it was the one thing I could be sure of in life. Death was the only certainty in an uncertain existence, in some ways a comfort to know. The only questions were how and when.

  Thinking over the last six months, I realized that it would have been sad for my life to end when I was desolate and hopeless, rooted in misery. The idea of stopping things right here and right now, when life was positive, seemed like a much better way. I knew how easy it was for things to go spiraling down, for life to turn in a minute. I felt oddly ambivalent as I considered the chance that I might fall and die tomorrow. Life might spin upside down again in the future; it seemed that it would almost have to. To stop at a good time seemed better. Looking up at the darkening face, I believed I could be content with either outcome. Though I accepted the reality that I could die on the Diamond in the morning, I believed I wouldn’t. For that reason, and that reason alone, I felt I belonged up there tomorrow.

  I needed to think more thoroughly on fear. I knew that I could become intensely gripped by it. I still felt unusually free from emotions, but I had seen that the shell could crack. I knew all too well that engulfing fear is the ultimate performance destroyer. On my second solo of the Casual Route, I had no problem with the climbing itself, even when the rock was wet. If I had fallen the first time I’d climbed it ropeless, it would only have been because I’d been taken over by fear. While I felt able to accept death, I wasn’t here looking for it. I especially didn’t want to die because I’d lost to fear. That was exactly what I was trying to extinguish. To climb this harder route safely tomorrow, I would need to be so in control of my mind that fear would be unable to seize me without warning and cause me to falter. Climbing without a rope wasn’t dangerous if I didn’t fall. Quite simply, the fear was the danger.

  I’d started to believe the theory that whatever you imagine yourself doing is what you will do. I’d lain in my sleeping bag countless times picturing myself doing each move of a rock climb that I had rehearsed, preparing for the next day’s attempt. And if I managed to stay awake and focused throughout the entire visualization, it always worked. The problem with free soloing is that the vision of falling is always floating around, ready to be thought about. To do a long free solo, I needed to focus all the way on my mental state. I needed to believe in myself completely, and to picture everything being perfect. I resolved to take complete control of my thoughts tomorrow. I would not allow the idea of falling to enter my brain, at all. I would not even tell myself “not to fall.” I would picture myself only climbing, moving up the rock. Above all, I resolved to be relaxed and have good feelings. I would repeat those five words in my head from the moment I left the ground until I reached the top, like a track on an endless loop: “Be relaxed. Have good feelings.” I knew it could be hard to anchor my mind for such a long time, for two or more hours. The sheer mental endurance was part of the difficulty. The only images I would hold in my mind would be of my body confidently moving upward, climbing perfectly. I wanted to be calm and focused, totally unattached yet also fully present, consciously impenetrable by fear. My goal was not so much to do the climb and survive as to maintain that mind state. Tomorrow I would find out if I could.

  I crawled into the cave, zipped myself into my sleeping bag, and looked at the rough granite above my face. I thought of all the other times I’d followed those crystals and contours with my eyes. I’d spent a lot of nights in this cave. It felt good, like home. I was safe and comfortable here, alone in this high cirque at the foot of a mountain wall, surrounded by clean stone. I watched the granite turn from light gray to dark, and then it was night.

  I woke in the dark and reached for my headlamp and watch: 3:29. I sat up, propping my back against the flat rock behind me, and lit the stove. I’d set everything beside me the night before, so I just had to reach for the prepacked espresso maker and the titanium pot already filled with water. The stove roared softly with brig
ht heat. Almost immediately, the coffee started to bubble up. I boiled water for the ginger tea I always drank after my coffee to offset its diuretic qualities and added a little hot water to the espresso shot in my plastic cup, the nicely rounded cap of a thermos I’d had once in Argentina. I sipped the strong, hot coffee and watched the stars in the dark sky, still in my sleeping bag. I didn’t intend to start for another hour or two, so I could leave the cave without a headlamp. I wanted plenty of time to drink coffee and then tea and to focus my thoughts. I wanted to feel slow and calm every step of the way. As soon as it turned light enough to see, I’d start up the snow tongue toward the North Chimney.

  Suddenly voices floated through the darkness. I froze, listening, like a small animal in its burrow. As they walked past the bivy, I caught a snatch of conversation. It was two climbers. Naturally, of all the different lines up the Diamond, they were headed for Pervertical Sanctuary, the same route I wanted to climb. I didn’t want anyone above me in the North Chimney, since I’d nearly been hit in the head many times by parties kicking off loose rocks above me. And I didn’t want to negotiate around anyone on Pervertical while starting up it. That would be both distracting and possibly dangerous. I needed to go.

  I downed the pot of tea in one gulp, grabbed my shoes and chalk bag, and moved fast up the snow and talus to the North Chimney. As I changed into rock shoes at the base, I looked back to see the two headlamps far below me in a boulder field. I scampered up the apron of granite into the familiar terrain and climbed up the wall without stopping. I reached Broadway Ledge in cold darkness. I looked down again and realized my foolishness when I saw the two headlamp beams still bobbing in the boulders, not even at the base of the chimney yet, eight hundred feet below me. I should have stayed in my warm sleeping bag for another hour, as I’d planned, and I would still have been well ahead of the other party. More vexingly, it had taken me only one second to abandon my plan of starting slowly and leisurely. I had charged up the North Chimney like I’d been shot out of a cannon, and now I would have to wait for dawn in my single layer of clothing, trying not to get chilled. I lifted the hood of my thin windbreaker and cinched it tight, and popped the heels off my climbing shoes so they wouldn’t squeeze my feet and make them colder. In the dark, at this elevation, the air was piercingly cold once I stopped moving.