Beads of sweat dropped silently into the void of space that separated me from death. As I looked down my eyes sensed color in what seemed to be a perfect portrait framed and signed by Ansell Adams himself. My vision seemed to pulse as though it wished to bring reality back to my mind as it perceived the landscape rush down and out with infinite speed to the horizon. The warm stone felt rough and porous to my blackened hands as only the volcanic rock of Smith Rock State Park can do. My good friend, Zach and I clung with confident respect to the stone suspended three hundred feet in the air. From the perspective of the swallows that flew like fighter-jets around us we must have looked like the colorful mountain baboons of the Andes as we made our slow ascent of this natural metaphor of beauty and beast. It was Monkey Face, bearer of some of the toughest and highest rock climbing routes in Central Oregon, and we were abreast its sheer pillar-like shape.
It was our junior year in high school, Zach and I. Since eighth grade we had been climbing together. Our adventures had led us all over Oregon as if we were hounds searching for excitement wherever we went. Together we had climbed at Horse-Thief Butte, Carver, and Smith Rocks, and up Mount Washington, part of Jefferson, and Three-Finger Jack. Everyday at school Zach would have his head in the clouds thinking about some new climb to do or hike to take, and found it quite difficult to focus on Mr. Sequeira’s instruction on how to factor polynomials. I, on the other hand always had my head in the books and he would often find it very difficult to get my head out of them. He would ask, “You wanna go climbing? I read about this new route and it sounds awesome. What are you doing this weekend?” and I would almost invariably say, “Homework. What are you gonna do?” But that was just my way of saying I wish I had the time. Even so, Zach and I had been playing around with the idea of climbing Monkey Face for quite awhile; it had loomed in our minds like a silent giant. You could plan on a full day of climbing no matter which way you decided to go up, and it required all the skills and determination that a climber could muster. Yet, one weekend in the early summer all the stars seemed to align and we realized with grave excitement that we could finally do it. With no little amount of trepidation we agreed to give it a try.
Preparing for such a climb is no small feat and requires quite a bit of planning. Ropes have to be inspected for cuts or abrasions, protective gear, like cams and nuts have to be cleaned and organized, and just enough high-energy food and liquids must be packed securely so they don’t drop hundreds of feet out of your reach.
“Did you get that rope coiled up right so it won’t be a hassle once we get off the ground?” Zach would say.
“Yeah, I think so, but we’re gonna have to be careful that it doesn’t get caught going up the first pitch or we could be in big trouble,” I piped back.
We woke up real early that Sunday morning. The air was crisp and harbored the ever-present scent of juniper. The gentle light of the sun had only begun to show its face in the distant horizon; it’s warmth welcoming yet cunning with the knowledge of its blazing heat still hidden by the awakening earth.
“We’d better get in the car and get over there before that sun comes up and eats us up on the hike in,” I said, seeing as we had stayed at a friends house a few miles from the park.
“You’re right, time’s getting short if we wanna get out before dark,” Zach said with a little excitement.
Once we had reached the base of the Monkey it had transformed from a looming but distant buttress into a towering and ominous ape above us, looking down with a scornful challenge in its gaze. We laid out all our gear there on the ground and put our harnesses on around our waists. By now, the sun was nearly up in full force and we bent under its yellow weight.
“On belay?” Zach said.
“Belays on,” I said, as I made the first few moves up and off the safe earth.
The first hundred feet slipped by with surprising ease. I moved with the flow of the rock, scanning it always for contours and shadows that might reveal a good hold to hang on with my one hand while the other searched for a notch to place another piece of protection. With each successive step I sensed everything, the grainy texture of the rock, whether it was solid or possibly loose and might break off in my hand. Every now and then I gazed up and tried to perceive the aspect and path of the face ahead of me. After a couple of hot strenuous hours we both reached a ledge where we could stand quite comfortably and take in the expansive view, let alone rest our swollen sore muscles for a few minutes.
“Almost there,” Zach said, with a tinge of apprehension in his voice.
“Yep, only one more pitch to go and we’ll be in the monkey’s mouth.”
As we rested there suspended out from the rock face by the webbing that held us I finally had a moment to pause and digest the whole experience. And that’s when I realized that I wouldn’t think of ever letting Zach do my math homework, yet only minutes before my life had been in his power. The trust exchanged in friendship is often taken for granted and abused, but the friend in whose hands you’ll put your life is a friend indeed.
From our vantage point we could see the great, mushroomed head jutting out and up, and it was easy to tell that this was going to be the hardest hundred feet of the climb. The last pitch was blank and overhung meaning you couldn’t climb the rock at all but rather had to use a special technique to ascend a long line of metal rings bolted into the rock face. I went first, clipping into one bolt, pulling myself up and clipping into another. Because the rock leaned back over top of me I was literally hanging out away from the rock connected only with a nylon rope and aluminum clips. The gentle breeze on the good safe earth would have been enjoyable, but here on the cliff’s face it was tantamount to a gale and swung you out and around with each jerk of your body for the next rung of the bolt ladder. Yet, after what seemed like ages I reached the mouth of the little cave embedded inside the spire, and waited for Zach to follow. It was quite a relief to finally feel secured to something solid once again. Luckily, Zach made it up a little while later, exhausted but in high spirits.
“Wwwhoo, that was tough,” he said as he climbed up into the cave.
“Yeah, tell me about it, but check out the view from up here.”
“Wow, that’s really amazing, but look at the sun, it’s already setting fast.”
And it was. We had been so focused on finishing the climb that we had all but forgotten the sun waning on the horizon. We ate quickly and prepared our rappel. To do so, we had to climb out and over the mouth of the cave with what seemed like miles of empty air below us, and setup our rope that would drop straight down to the ground on the opposite side of the rock spire. With this done, I sucked up all the air I could fit in my nervous lungs and began the two-hundred-foot descent to the ground. We were using two tough climbing ropes, but even so, they looked like so much spaghetti as they careened down in the open air. With a bit of unease and excitement I realized I was at least fifty feet away from the face where I had come and a hundred from the ground. I was suspended in nothing but air, motionless, like one of those cartoon characters before they plummet to the floor below.
No experience really compares with that; the sense of pure freedom with its imminent insecurity, as the sun dies like a firework in the western sky. You’re in a place that feels like paradise even though you know it can’t be home. But I knew Zach had tied the knots well and had my back all the way down. He would be following soon.