Page 1 of Free Fall

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Dan

Sunday, Aug 22, 2021

9 weeks until free solo ascent

My earliest memoryis of eating rocks.

I was six years old, sitting on the driveway leading up to our trailer, putting handfuls of gravel in my mouth. I remember the grind against my teeth, the metallic taste, the dirt coating my tongue. Once they were slick with saliva, cleaned of whatever dust made them taste so appealing, I spit them out again. I remember the dark, gray wetness spattering against the pale, dry rocks, followed by the sensation of being smacked on the back of my head.

“You little idiot! What’s wrong with you? Mamaaaaa!” a temporary “sister” screamed for my foster mother. “He’s doing it again!”

It wasn’t my first time.

And not my last either. Though this mouthful isn’t voluntary.

Hanging against a rock wall on the western side of Lower Cathedral Rock, over three hundred feet in the air, I spit out a bunch of tiny gravel pieces.

“Dan? You okay?”

I give a thumbs-up to Peggy Jo. She gazes worriedly down at me from where she’s climbing higher up the wall, her GriGri acting as a self-belay device.

“Fine. Just got a mouthful of dirt.” I kick off the wall in front of me, swinging out over the exposure, enjoying the morning breeze. “Hell if I know how, though.”

“Climber above,” she says, peering up. “Kicked some shit down. Some got on me too.”

“Ah.” That explains it. I’d been in a precarious position on the pitch when suddenly a shower of dirt and gravel hit me and I lost my grip. The jerk of the rope had hurt as my GriGri engaged, but it’s always a reassuring pain.

“They okay?” I ask.

If the climber above sent that much crap raining down on us, it’s likely they’ve lost the wall too. Probably they’re fine. Simul-climbing with self-belay systems on a route like this one is reasonably safe for experts like me and Peggy Jo, but freak accidents can happen.

“Still moving. All’s well,” Peggy Jo says, cupping her hand over her eyes to get a better lock on the wall above and the climber and their belay partner. “You sure you’re good?”

“Yup.”

“Well, come on then. We got a lot of ground to cover this morning. The sun’s only going to get hotter and the rock slippy-er.”

Slippy-er.

I’m not sure that’s a word, but I learned ages ago not to give Peggy Jo—or anyone—grief about whether their sentences make grammatical sense or if their word choices are actually in the dictionary. It just makes people mad, and disgruntled people don’t want to help me achieve my goals.

And Ireallywant to achieve my goals, whether that’s climbing this rock, the next rock, or getting a decent shower before bedding down in my van for the night. As much as I don’t like it, my personal concept of success involves other people.

Maybe that’s part of why I prefer to free solo. Then it’s just me, the rock, and the sky. No one else matters at all.

The rest of our ascent goes well. It takes some doing since we chose to simul-climb instead of belay each other, but it’snowhere close to hard for me. Each piece of rock is gone over three times so we can free the anchor at the bottom of the rope. It’s child’s play for me, but given how Peggy Jo is huffing and straining, I’m not sure another outing like this is in our future.

I’ve been climbing with Peggy Jo since I was fifteen years old, and she’s getting to an age now where I wonder if she’s starting to slow down. Maybe this “easy climb”, one we’re both familiar with and didn’t use to trouble her in the least, is her way of starting to admit that to herself—and to me.

Although, Alex Honnold’s mother climbed the Easy Rider route on El Capitan at age sixty-six, and I think if Peggy Jo stays fit and doesn’t get injured, she could do that too. She’s only sixty now. She’s limber, strong, and tough. She just needs to train more regularly again to keep up her stamina. I’ll bring that up to her.

The chiming of our clanking cams and carabiners bounces off the rock, an ever-present “birdsong” as we make our way up. At the top, the view is nice. My muscles don’t even burn; that’s how easy the climb is for me, but when Peggy Jo sighs, I suddenly wonder if there’s another reason she’s taken me up such easy pitches. One I might like even less than the idea that she’s slowing down. Maybe she wants totalkwith me.

I take a long swallow of water and steel myself for it.