by Abram Herman

Unfortunately Anne's ankle is hurt and I couldn't find another partner to go with me, so yesterday I went out by myself to hang a toprope on an old practice aid climb in Boulder Canyon. It's called Dark Magic, and Mountain Project consensus rates it at a C2, which I think is fair—there are some good placements, and there are some... "other" placements.

I'd bought some new hooks on Saturday evening, so I was anxious to try them out. If you've never tried it before, using hooks can be terrifying. Mind you, I've taken quite a few falls on gear, some not so good, and countless falls on bolts both in the gym and outside, so committing to a fall is not something that I generally have a problem with. Aid climbing, however, presents a new challenge in this regard. The anticipation, the tension—I haven't perfected moving between aid placements yet, so I have a hard time feeling like I can bounce test a piece without just committing so much weight that I'm along for the ride, if and when something pops (NSFW language).

I place the first hook of my climbing career on what seems to be a decent little bulge on top of a miniature arete up above. I clip the aider and shift a bit of my weight onto the piece in a small bounce test, just to see if the hook wants to move at all. It doesn't, so I steel myself—noticing that it's taking a little longer than usual for me to commit—and I step off of my solid piece below, and into the unknown.

I hang on it for a second, hesitating, and get ready to climb up.

                                         *PING!*

This seems like the most horrible sound you can hear during that moment of tension; rock dust flies, and my knuckles scrape against the rough granite as I fall. Aid climbing lesson number one: Always wear gloves.

by Anne E. Williams

I don’t know when the idea of climbing El Cap first started to take shape in my mind. From very early in my life as a climber, I have loved the history of routes. My heart yearned first for the great classics in Eldo like The Bastille Crack, The Yellow Spur, and The Naked Edge, and for routes like Durrance on Devils Tower in Wyoming. Something like El Cap has always been out of my league—a dream to be put aside like the idea of being a jockey (until I got too big), or the idea of being a ballet dancer (until I got too big), or the idea of being an actress (until the professors at college pointed out that I couldn’t act). I have always known that Abram would climb El Cap, but I assumed he would do it with one of the more accomplished members of our climbing “tribe” like Tyler, Arthur, or Ronie. 

On October 28, our climbing anniversary, I tell him outright that I want to climb El Cap. We’ve been drinking and he’s just had a giant steak so maybe he’s a little less sensible than usual because when I say it—“I want to climb El Cap”—he smiles and shakes his head yes.