The Masters of Stone triptych (part 1)

I'm completely absorbed, so when Marie comes into the room she catches me off guard. I slam the laptop shut so she can't see, but in doing so I have inadvertently drawn attention to it. "Are you really watching it again?". Her expression is somewhere between disapproval and disgust. "It just came on because of the algorithm!" I exclaim, but my tone is too earnest so it ends up sounding like a bad excuse instead of a reasonable explanation. "What's so special about it" she admonishes me further "the lycra? The jazz-rock? Or the unacknowledged androgyny?" She walks out the room before I can answer.  She must have come in for a good reason, but whatever it was has been left unattended to. I have an urge to call after her, but anything I say now would only make it worse. I sigh, but despite it all I can't help myself. I open the laptop again and wait for the video to buffer, allowing me time to wallow in my shame. It finally loads: Masters of Stone, 90's American climbing titillation at it's best. But honestly, I was only watching it for research.

Panic in Detroit, Donner Summit
Okay okay so this first route only gets a cameo appearance in the outro of Masters of Stone (number one, I think), but it looks great on video so it made it on the list. See, research.

In my idle fantasies I'd imagined onsighting this. Little did I realise how optimistic that was However the whole crag is festooned with top ropes, so not wishing to buck the trend...

First lead go and I'm nervous. I really want to do this but I'm a hapless headpointer and I've forgotten one of the cams I need to protect the crux. Yesterday our new friend, Christian, had been having a raucous time doing a jolly good English accent, just for our benefit, all afternoon. He then ripped a cam out at the crux of this route and took a right winger. Climbing past this cam myself, I'm unable to put this image out of my mind. It's a bugger of a placement, all wrong-handed, blind, and in the middle of the crux, just when you want to be moving quickly. I wiggled it in and immediately felt boxed. I fought on a few more moves but soon was falling through the air, albeit far less dramatic than cam-ripper Christian

Round two. As soon as I pull on, I can tell that I'm already spent. Oh no! We're leaving Lake Tahoe area the day after tomorrow. I muse to myself that a wiser man would give up at this stage. But the problem is that there's a crowd at the crag and I don't want to look like I'm just giving up. So, choosing pig headed stubbornness over wisdom, I continue. Quickly up past the diagonal rail, stretch to the sidepull and into the jam. Cam. Fingerlock, sidepull, stretch for the break. Two cams in case I mess up the next placement. Don't stay here long, it's a false rest. Left sidepull, feet up and lurch... urgh only just caught it. I've never fallen from that move, that's not a good omen. Into the upside down finger jam, grab the cam and stuff it in under my hand, red-lining now no time to check if it's properly in just go! Feet up, finagle a weird twisted lock in a pod, feet only just holding true. But I'm already committed to the idea that I will fall, so with nothing to lose, I stand high and push hard into the sloping footholds. This is not because I have faith in friction, this is because I have no other choice. But it works, and now I'm setting up for the lash to the jug and... gotcha! But it isn't over yet, as I remember the maxim that no hold is a good hold to a sufficiently pumped arm. Shouting now, I claw my way onto the ledge and meet eyes with Marie, shaking her head in disbelief and smiling; success truly snatched from the jaws of defeat.

In the car, driving back to the campground, arms still burning, Marie turned to me and said "why don't you play one of your songs from that climbing film?" Maybe she secretly like it too.

films?

Snowshed wall at Donner Summit. This is a view from the side, PiD is on the front face.

Electric Africa, Tuolumne Meadows

Ron Kauk, California's answer to Jerry Moffatt, casually show-boating his way around Tuolumne... "it's like a choreographed dance, you're making these little movements and you've got to be absolutely precise" all dark locks and white flares dancing on the breeze. How could this not be #2 from the films?

Tuolumne Meadows is best known for runout smearing up endless slabs: not proper climbing (i.e. too scary for me!). Electric Africa however, hides around the back of Pywiack Dome, set in a beautiful and secluded valley, a steep wall of orange and black striped stone. Without a guidebook, it took me an hour of hunting around before I stumbled across it. I was immediately besotted and intimidated in equal measure so I ran back to the car to get Marie.

In much the same way that Stanage is one big hold, this climb is one long sloping seam. It differs from Stanage in that it isn't, to me at least, big. Not in a useful way anyhow. However it is long, but that only serves to musks it harder. A discontinuous crack, dinks for feet, four bolts and some small gear. I top roped it (or, in the American parlance we are trying to adopt, had a sweet TR). Normally pretty good at remembering sequences, mind drew a complete blank when trying to recall any section of it late that night. You see, it's all the same! Yet each section is crucially different. Left hand always lay backing, right always a gaston, but the feet! Ron wasn't making it up.

Two days later, walking in for the fifth time (finding the place, coming with Marie, coming again but it was too hot, coming again but forgot my chalk bag, now walking in once more...), I pat the pair of Jeffrey Pines to say hello and walk across granite slabs. I remember reading about Peter Croft soloing Astroman and his desire to walk-in as carefully as he intended to climb, so I take my steps on the steep granite slabs with the same conscientious attitude as I hope to apply to my climbing. The intentionality in my mental preparation goes well so long as I discount the mindlessness of forgetting my chalk bag.

First go from the floor: 5 metres up and it's going terribly. Marie can never remember her own sequences let Stone mine, yet I'm relying on her to tell me what to do! Come on Reeve get a grip. A deep breath and I start to find a rhythm. Short sprints between bolts or a microcam help me sink deeper in. Like falling asleep, there's no effort, but unlike falling asleep,  I'm trying really bloody hard!
Crimp-gaston-foot-foot; crimp-gaston-smear-edge-smear. On and on; taking no time at all. Until abruptly I'm at an easing. Only the top 20' runout left to do. Earlier, on the TR, I climbed this dreadfully, but now, in step with the rock, it feels like a gift.

Tuolumne: Pywiack Dome is the small one in the centre. Tenaya Lake in the midground.