daxegraphix
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I am no climber in any sense of the word. Just a 50 yr old hiker who occasionally gets a whiff of some intriguing new food and follows the scent right into the frying pan.
The Tulip Slide is billed in Rock and Ice as being the easiest of all slides in the western bowl of Giant. I've been up the Finger Slide in this bowl and that was much easier than Sunday's trip up the Tulip. I have to call this a "hike" rather than a "climb" so my wife won't freak out. But honestly, this is more of a climb than a hike, especially at this time of the winter. The slabs aren't dry enough to walk up with sneakers or rock shoes, and there isn't enough snow or thick ice to allow you to walk up with reasonable safety.
In short, this is a lousy time of year for slides for someone with my limited experience.
I began the hike on the Roaring Brook trail. About a mile and a quarter up the trail I began the bushwack.
I won't bore you with the details of that. A bushwack is a bushwack. Some easy going, some nightmarish. After at least an hour and a half, I found the Tulip's gully that streaks up the side of Giant towards the ridge. I wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted me. The nightmare of blowdown and slide debris continued up a steepwalled ravine covered with icy ledges. I fought my way up and over the piles of logs and branches sometimes tightroping across limbs that were frozen into the muddy icicles that wept down the gully walls.
Finally I reached a transition zone where the open slide was partly visible overhead. I plotted my routes up the snowiest cracks and veins and headed up. After 20 minutes I had spiked and scrambled and clawed out of the transition zone onto the slide proper. The only problem was I had drifted to the right and was now on an island of boulders, logs and cripplebush. Realizing I was not going to be getting any breaks today from the the mountain, I peered over the top of my perch toward the LEFT side of the slide. That's where I need to be, I thought. It looks easy enough to head across the granite over to the snow trough on the edge of the slide....
My crampons creaked as I cautiously stuck my left foot out toward what looked like a horizontal crack that ran for 15 feet or so toward the left. That would maybe work for my feet, but what about a hand hold? I dusted away the powder that covered a small patch that I could just reach with my ax, hoping to see another crack or depression that would offer some protection if my crampon point slipped out of the tiny crack that I planned to entrust my entire well-being to. Nothing. Smooth granite, no crack, no nothing. I hemmed, I hawed, I reexamined my spot. Stuffed. I looked back down the gully and could see a hundred or so feet down the 45 degree slope. No protection, no nothing to stop a fall.
I can't say I was scared in the traditional sense of cold sweat fear and trembling. I just started to think about how warm my bed is on mornings like this. My mom would be of no help whatsoever, so no point in calling for her.
I remembered reading a web posting about a trip up the North face of Gothics where a couple guys were in a similar situation (way down low on the face).
The narrator was watching the lead guy hemming and hawing above him. The guy finally threw himself upward across the bare rock with crampons screaming as they scratched their way up the rock in frantic thrusts.
I thought about doing this and then I got a little scared. It's one of those do or die moments, quite literally. What if I can't do it? What if I get half way across this 30 feet of open granite with no protection from a fall and my f*****g crampons slip? I'm stuffed!
Probably bolstered by the fact that the guy in the TNF Gothics story made it,and the fact that I really wanted to make it home that night I threw myself out onto the face. I'm quet and reserved normally, and often get embarrassed easily if I show emotion by shouting or yelling. In the split second before the decision was made to go, I cringed at the prospect of having to give a do or die yell in order to accomplish this move. What if someone up on the ridge heard me yelling,? I thought. That would be as bad as falling--well no, I guess it wouldn't. Well I'll give it my best manly terror yell and go for it. No retreat, no surrender. It was a flurry of cramponed feet and clawing gloves, my tethered ax banging on the rock--and the yell, it was kind of an AHHHHHH yell that went on for quite a long time and ended with a gutteral RRRGGGG when I collapsed into the snow trench on the side of the slide, right where I wanted to be. It was then I realized that was the hardest thing I had ever done. Adrenaline is to thank. I rememberd that half way across the clambering, my left arm gave out. That must have been when the yell got gutteral. My arm became as strong as Larry the Lobster's.
Sweet, very sweet. I knew I was going to make it now. MORE later.
It's a cathartic thing, not ego. I'm no climber and that's exactly the point.
I'm old and I need to know that I'm still alive.
Anyway, I dusted myself off and started to head up the left side. The clamber across the face had bolstered my confidence. Still, I was acutely aware of the steep slope behind me unbroken by any benches of vegetation, or patches of deep snow. [ I tend to minimize the angle of hikes and slides when I get home. I look back and wonder what the big deal was. This one however, really was, is steeep.]
Everyone who hikes and goes to our mountains knows how beautiful they are in the winter. I paused for breath every few steps and would look up and across the slide. The trees are all frosted and rimed, the ledges above the slide on the right side are covered with small ice yellow ice falls. And the golf course is a little white patch way down there with the slim line of the road just visible. Hours before I had been there looking up to this very spot. Then I looked down the slope. Death, I thought and shook my head. It was kind of matter of fact. I tried to figure at which point and on what rock down there would I be dead by as I banged and bashed my way down to Roaring Brook.
After I was dead, I thought, maybe I would slide down like Sylvester the Cat in the cartoons, wafer thin and supple, just flowing down the hill, conforming to the features and bumps of the granite. It was funny at the time but I don't remember laughing a lot. I knew I had a job to , namely get home in one piece. I was done taking risks today. If I had to bail at some point above me and tear through the bush to the ridge, I would. It's not worth taking any more risks. I'm safely on the side of the slide. And so I kept moving up. In and out of the bush where the falls on the sides kept me from travelling safely out on the edge of the slide. I think I was pretty near exhaustion. Many times as I hauled up on the trunks of cripplebush with my left hand and swung my ax with my left it was all I could do to make the one move. I'd rest, sometimes in a contorted position with my left leg still hung up in cripplebush and my ax hooked around some little trunk. Thank God I made a nice long leash with a strong loop that allows me swing that 70cm EMS ax from the bottom near the spike. That ability saved my neck a hundred or more times on Sunday. I could hang on the loop with my hand frmly gripping the shaft near the bottom. Then as my leg would spasm I could haul up and straighten it out, and get ready for the next move.
I repeated this procedure for a long time. I was amazed at the strength of the cripplebush. Using it as kind of a fixed rope (I imagine) I swore that I would never again swear at cripplebush. God bless it. I also became aware that I was entrusting my life to a couple of crampon points, or a quarter inch of ice that my ax was in, or a half inch diameter spruce trunk.
When I came to a tricky looking spot that would require me to swing out onto the slide completely, I would look down to check the exposure. 9 times out of 10 there would be no protection in the event of a slip, so I would heave my self into the thick bush and crawl up the 40 degree slope getting hung up by my hat, my pack, my jacket, my pants, my crampons--everything was resisting my upward motion. I accepted this after a while and kept moving.
Arrest on this slide at this time of year is not possible. The only arresting to be done is the cardiac kind when your chest gets crushed as you fall. There just isn't enough snow or soft ice. There is however, just enough powder and trickles and veins of ice to make barebooting on the slab an act of true insanity. If there were a few feet of consolidated snow with a little bit of powder, this trip would have been an enjoyable, cautious walk up a steep slope.
But it wasn't. In fact, when I rounded a small bit of bush and scratched with my ax for a hold late in the afternoon, I couldn't believe that the ground was suddenly level. Holy crap I had made it. Strings of creative curses poured out as I practically ran the last 10 feet up the edge and dove into the flat cripplebush at the top. A two minute crawl had me out on the Ridge Trail on all fours. It was strange in a nice way to see all those footprints and wide open trail spaces. This 3 miles was going to be a walk in the park down to the car.
At 5:30 in the moonlight I turned on my headlamp to sign out. I would never forget this trip--so much so that I will never climb a slide again in the LEAN conditions I found today. For me, it is too risky. For some, it might be a blast. For me, it was neccessary to do it for some unkown reason -- one that pushed me to go in conditions I knew would be less than optimum. For some, that would be no great obstacle. I am coming to know my limits. But as I discover them, I'm also exploring my possibilities. That's a melodramatic way of saying that I'm glad I had luck on my side.
The Tulip Slide is billed in Rock and Ice as being the easiest of all slides in the western bowl of Giant. I've been up the Finger Slide in this bowl and that was much easier than Sunday's trip up the Tulip. I have to call this a "hike" rather than a "climb" so my wife won't freak out. But honestly, this is more of a climb than a hike, especially at this time of the winter. The slabs aren't dry enough to walk up with sneakers or rock shoes, and there isn't enough snow or thick ice to allow you to walk up with reasonable safety.
In short, this is a lousy time of year for slides for someone with my limited experience.
I began the hike on the Roaring Brook trail. About a mile and a quarter up the trail I began the bushwack.
I won't bore you with the details of that. A bushwack is a bushwack. Some easy going, some nightmarish. After at least an hour and a half, I found the Tulip's gully that streaks up the side of Giant towards the ridge. I wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted me. The nightmare of blowdown and slide debris continued up a steepwalled ravine covered with icy ledges. I fought my way up and over the piles of logs and branches sometimes tightroping across limbs that were frozen into the muddy icicles that wept down the gully walls.
Finally I reached a transition zone where the open slide was partly visible overhead. I plotted my routes up the snowiest cracks and veins and headed up. After 20 minutes I had spiked and scrambled and clawed out of the transition zone onto the slide proper. The only problem was I had drifted to the right and was now on an island of boulders, logs and cripplebush. Realizing I was not going to be getting any breaks today from the the mountain, I peered over the top of my perch toward the LEFT side of the slide. That's where I need to be, I thought. It looks easy enough to head across the granite over to the snow trough on the edge of the slide....
My crampons creaked as I cautiously stuck my left foot out toward what looked like a horizontal crack that ran for 15 feet or so toward the left. That would maybe work for my feet, but what about a hand hold? I dusted away the powder that covered a small patch that I could just reach with my ax, hoping to see another crack or depression that would offer some protection if my crampon point slipped out of the tiny crack that I planned to entrust my entire well-being to. Nothing. Smooth granite, no crack, no nothing. I hemmed, I hawed, I reexamined my spot. Stuffed. I looked back down the gully and could see a hundred or so feet down the 45 degree slope. No protection, no nothing to stop a fall.
I can't say I was scared in the traditional sense of cold sweat fear and trembling. I just started to think about how warm my bed is on mornings like this. My mom would be of no help whatsoever, so no point in calling for her.
I remembered reading a web posting about a trip up the North face of Gothics where a couple guys were in a similar situation (way down low on the face).
The narrator was watching the lead guy hemming and hawing above him. The guy finally threw himself upward across the bare rock with crampons screaming as they scratched their way up the rock in frantic thrusts.
I thought about doing this and then I got a little scared. It's one of those do or die moments, quite literally. What if I can't do it? What if I get half way across this 30 feet of open granite with no protection from a fall and my f*****g crampons slip? I'm stuffed!
Probably bolstered by the fact that the guy in the TNF Gothics story made it,and the fact that I really wanted to make it home that night I threw myself out onto the face. I'm quet and reserved normally, and often get embarrassed easily if I show emotion by shouting or yelling. In the split second before the decision was made to go, I cringed at the prospect of having to give a do or die yell in order to accomplish this move. What if someone up on the ridge heard me yelling,? I thought. That would be as bad as falling--well no, I guess it wouldn't. Well I'll give it my best manly terror yell and go for it. No retreat, no surrender. It was a flurry of cramponed feet and clawing gloves, my tethered ax banging on the rock--and the yell, it was kind of an AHHHHHH yell that went on for quite a long time and ended with a gutteral RRRGGGG when I collapsed into the snow trench on the side of the slide, right where I wanted to be. It was then I realized that was the hardest thing I had ever done. Adrenaline is to thank. I rememberd that half way across the clambering, my left arm gave out. That must have been when the yell got gutteral. My arm became as strong as Larry the Lobster's.
Sweet, very sweet. I knew I was going to make it now. MORE later.
It's a cathartic thing, not ego. I'm no climber and that's exactly the point.
I'm old and I need to know that I'm still alive.
Anyway, I dusted myself off and started to head up the left side. The clamber across the face had bolstered my confidence. Still, I was acutely aware of the steep slope behind me unbroken by any benches of vegetation, or patches of deep snow. [ I tend to minimize the angle of hikes and slides when I get home. I look back and wonder what the big deal was. This one however, really was, is steeep.]
Everyone who hikes and goes to our mountains knows how beautiful they are in the winter. I paused for breath every few steps and would look up and across the slide. The trees are all frosted and rimed, the ledges above the slide on the right side are covered with small ice yellow ice falls. And the golf course is a little white patch way down there with the slim line of the road just visible. Hours before I had been there looking up to this very spot. Then I looked down the slope. Death, I thought and shook my head. It was kind of matter of fact. I tried to figure at which point and on what rock down there would I be dead by as I banged and bashed my way down to Roaring Brook.
After I was dead, I thought, maybe I would slide down like Sylvester the Cat in the cartoons, wafer thin and supple, just flowing down the hill, conforming to the features and bumps of the granite. It was funny at the time but I don't remember laughing a lot. I knew I had a job to , namely get home in one piece. I was done taking risks today. If I had to bail at some point above me and tear through the bush to the ridge, I would. It's not worth taking any more risks. I'm safely on the side of the slide. And so I kept moving up. In and out of the bush where the falls on the sides kept me from travelling safely out on the edge of the slide. I think I was pretty near exhaustion. Many times as I hauled up on the trunks of cripplebush with my left hand and swung my ax with my left it was all I could do to make the one move. I'd rest, sometimes in a contorted position with my left leg still hung up in cripplebush and my ax hooked around some little trunk. Thank God I made a nice long leash with a strong loop that allows me swing that 70cm EMS ax from the bottom near the spike. That ability saved my neck a hundred or more times on Sunday. I could hang on the loop with my hand frmly gripping the shaft near the bottom. Then as my leg would spasm I could haul up and straighten it out, and get ready for the next move.
I repeated this procedure for a long time. I was amazed at the strength of the cripplebush. Using it as kind of a fixed rope (I imagine) I swore that I would never again swear at cripplebush. God bless it. I also became aware that I was entrusting my life to a couple of crampon points, or a quarter inch of ice that my ax was in, or a half inch diameter spruce trunk.
When I came to a tricky looking spot that would require me to swing out onto the slide completely, I would look down to check the exposure. 9 times out of 10 there would be no protection in the event of a slip, so I would heave my self into the thick bush and crawl up the 40 degree slope getting hung up by my hat, my pack, my jacket, my pants, my crampons--everything was resisting my upward motion. I accepted this after a while and kept moving.
Arrest on this slide at this time of year is not possible. The only arresting to be done is the cardiac kind when your chest gets crushed as you fall. There just isn't enough snow or soft ice. There is however, just enough powder and trickles and veins of ice to make barebooting on the slab an act of true insanity. If there were a few feet of consolidated snow with a little bit of powder, this trip would have been an enjoyable, cautious walk up a steep slope.
But it wasn't. In fact, when I rounded a small bit of bush and scratched with my ax for a hold late in the afternoon, I couldn't believe that the ground was suddenly level. Holy crap I had made it. Strings of creative curses poured out as I practically ran the last 10 feet up the edge and dove into the flat cripplebush at the top. A two minute crawl had me out on the Ridge Trail on all fours. It was strange in a nice way to see all those footprints and wide open trail spaces. This 3 miles was going to be a walk in the park down to the car.
At 5:30 in the moonlight I turned on my headlamp to sign out. I would never forget this trip--so much so that I will never climb a slide again in the LEAN conditions I found today. For me, it is too risky. For some, it might be a blast. For me, it was neccessary to do it for some unkown reason -- one that pushed me to go in conditions I knew would be less than optimum. For some, that would be no great obstacle. I am coming to know my limits. But as I discover them, I'm also exploring my possibilities. That's a melodramatic way of saying that I'm glad I had luck on my side.
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