I spent my childhood going to the Pinns, (and J-Tree, Yosemite, Death Valley, Red Rocks, etc.) with my father (a herpetologist who taught at USC, UCSF, and other lesser known institutions) and spent all of my time there, hiking, and catch/releasing lizards and snakes. There were a few memories that I have of seeing climbers up in the high peaks and my father scoffing at them and calling them thrill-seeking who destroy the natural resource experience for everyone. It never occurred to me to climb or even see another side to the coin and so my life went on.
It wasn’t until I became a teacher at the age of 26 that things changed. I had my summers free now and wanted to get back into the summer camp work that was an important part of my upbringing. The camp I chose was Shaffer’s High Sierra Camp near Tahoe and when I got the job I was informed that I needed to take part in one of the 3 core activities of water sports, mountain biking, or rock climbing/ropes course. Being 120lbs and prone to hypothermia, I did not want to go into any alpine lakes and having ridden my bike on fire roads before and thinking I would die painfully the entire time, I decided I would be an “instructor” during that summer in rock climbing. (This is rather uncommon for my camp as most of our activity staff are well versed in their activity area. I was a special case due to my vast camp counseling experience and experience teaching)
When I got to the camp, I threw myself into learning everything that I could about climbing so that I would not be a burden to the climbing crew and so read John Long’s Rock Climbing and Advanced Rock climbing cover to cover over and over until I could quote the texts verbatim. Though I lacked practical experience, within a week I was able to instruct on theory quite well and left the practical application instruction to my peers.
On the staff was a couple of guys (Grizz and Silvo) that became my climbing partners and ended up teaching me everything I knew by taking me out all over Tahoe and roping me up and telling me to “go for it” My slab instruction consisted of “just step on the rock and trust it.” my crack instruction consisted of “shove something in and twist it till it hurts then stand/pull up on it” My rope work instruction consisted of “WTF are you doing? Don’t do that anymore, do this.”
Within weeks, I started to see rocks and boulders and outcroppings in a new way. When Tuatara, the facilities administrator at my camp, caught me running my fingers over a boulder near the dining hall at the camp, trying to feel different ways to use friction on the rock face, he yelled, “J-Tree’s got the bug, it’s all over now!” (My summer camp has all its workers have nicknames and I chose J-Tree because of my hiking and camping experiences there with my father as a boy; of course, it has new meaning to me now)
After that summer I climbed around the Bay Area and Yosemite every weekend that it didn’t rain from then until today. My first Bay Area Rock Climbs book is littered with notations and comments in the margins (many of them angry insults hurled at the author concerning approach and descent info) My Climbing Director at my summer camp had no winter job and so every weekend I could go he would go as well. We pushed each other and I pushed myself remembering telling one of my friends, I’ll be climbing 5.11 by next summer to which he replied, You’ll be lucky to be climbing 5.9 by next summer. I only respond one way to a challenge and so dove into climbing like nothing else before in my life.
I would meet with Grizz at the Touchstone climbing gyms in the bay area after school every other day. We would climb until we couldn’t anymore, go get food, eat, then return to the gym to climb until they closed or we couldn’t move; which ever came first. I have very distinct memories of getting into my car at the end of the night and not being able to work the stick shift because my hand and arm was still sore and seized up from the days workout. I would sit in the seat listening to the radio and reading guidebooks for 30 minutes or so before being able to drive home.
During this time Grizz and I decided to check out the Pinnacles. He’d never been and I remembered it from being a kid.
“What’s the climbing like?”
“I don’t know, the lizard hunting isn’t very good though, but I know that snakes will bask on the side of the freeway at night to catch the last of the warmth and if the night is windy enough you can go out there and see them rolling down the side of the road.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I don’t know about the climbing”
So we went to the East Side for a Thanksgiving break and climbed at the Monolith and Discovery wall for a few days. I remember climbing Portent on Thanksgiving Day specifically so that we could eat a “feast” of turkey jerky while on a multi-pitch route. During the time we met some climbers from Kentucky who were there because their family lived in Hollister. They were climbing while tied into the harnesses via a square knot and trying to climb some of the sport routes on the right side of Disco wall without knowing what they were rated. I showed them the guidebook and Grizz showed them a better way to tie into the rope. Later they almost froze to death because all they’d brought to sleep in the campsites was a thin blanket and a hammock.
The Pinnacles changed my climbing though. A week there taught me how to pull myself into the wall with my feet and legs, how to high step, hand/foot match and so forth. The next week we were at the gym and where I was stuck on climbing 5.10c’s for the last month or two, all of the sudden, I was able to climb 5.11b’s. The Pinnacles had internalized a style of climbing that used my whole body instead of my legs. I continued my gym workouts and weekend outdoor climbing in places like Castlerock (mostly at Summit Rock pre-closure) Indian Joe Caves, and the Grotto.
Later in the year, right before going back to my summer camp, we took a road trip to J-Tree and ended up at Wheeler Gorge on the way home. I led my first 5.11 on the last day of my trip. Called Silvo and told him to suck it. What kind of person does that make me to let an angry desire to disprove someone control so much of my drive and emotion? A shitty one, but whatever, I lead a 5.11 sucka!
Up to this point, my main and only climbing partner had been Grizz. We spent the summer with Silvo climbing more in the Tahoe area and put up some insignificant FA’s in the hills an hour north of Tahoe where the camp proper is, but nothing worth talking about. After that summer, we went to Yosemite and everything changed.
