[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

in the haul bag until, and only if, he needed them. "You seen it?" he asked
John.
"Not yet." For weeks now there had been only one It. The Visor. Tucker was
horny for the rock, nervous as a kid with his first foldout. Carefully backing
up against a stone bench to unsaddle, John gave his camel groan as the weight
eased off. He unbuckled the belly band and flipped off the shoulder straps,
then stretched his back. A single
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light crack wormed out of the ground, too thin to wedge
in so much as a fingernail. Fifteen feet up it gradually opened up to finger
and then fist width.
"This the start?" he asked. A typical Tucker selection. Desperate from ground
zero.
"Yeah."
John trusted the boy. Tucker had been up here on lone-wolf reconnaissances a
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dozen times and more. Not even Kresinski could accuse him of not doing his
homework.
John started pulling gear and old taped Clorox bottles filled with water from
his pack. They were starting thin, even for a climb demanding only four days.
They'd talked themselves into believing four days because neither wanted to
haul more weight. Four days was a lie, though. That would mean covering five
hundred feet a day on territory that was unexplored, but that promised some
interesting complexities. Still, figuring two quarts per man per day, their
four gallons could be stretched to six, max seven days, by stopping down
consumption. Water Discipline:
No one liked it, everyone practiced it. Hauling it or doing without. One way
or another, you suffered for your desires. At least the face was in shade,
that was worth an extra day of water in itself.
John eyeballed the crack to where it disappeared two hundred feet higher. He
patiently hunted and found a crack that could be pendulumed across to, then
lost that one, too, and sniffed. He was scared and excited and happy. They'd
find all the answers once they got to the questions. That was the extra high
you got in doing a new wall route, the opportunity to prod the unknown with a
style all your own. No maps. No preconceptions. The one undeniable certainty
was that however they got there, the Visor was waiting two thousand feet
overhead. It had been waiting since the last Ice Age for him and Tucker. John
bent to the gear, psyching up, psyching down. He was on the verge of
adrenaline and didn't want to waste it. They were going to climb, he told
himself. Keep it basic.
Tucker had already converted his pack into a haul bag by unbuckling the
shoulder straps. Now John made two padded rings on the interior with their
foam pads, and on the floor of the haul bag carefully arranged items they
would need least, last, or only at night, such things as an extra jumar
ascender, some extra bolts, three outsize spring-loaded cams called Friends,
and their ground shoes, John's pair of Nikes and
Tucker's Reeboks, which they'd hiked up in. They were thin on water, but
loaded for bear in the hardware department. Never could tell what you might
need in the terra incognita. On top of the miscellaneous extras, he nestled
their water bottles. One of the wall climbers' guaranteed ulcers is the water
bottle that springs a leak, dooming an otherwise certain ascent to hasty
retreat. Therefore John checked the tape sealing shut each of the Clorox
bottles, and nested them inside the padding with a prayer.
The next layer above the bottles held the hammock that one of them would be
sleeping in and the collapsible Porta-ledge the other would use, eight pounds
of food, more hardware, and waterproof clothing, and the layer above that
their sleeping bags
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Jeff Long - Angels of Light and parkas. John's pack would be carried on the
belayer's back and it would contain little more than a snack for lunch, a
quart of water, John's big Pentax camera, a cagoule each in case of snow, and,
bundled in plastic, their roll of precious toilet paper. He hefted the haul
bag and grimaced. A hundred pounds, easily.
Tucker was uncoiling their three ropes, two nine-millimeters for leading and
one eleven-mil for hauling. The racks of pitons, nuts, Friends, hero loops,
hooks, and carabiners were already neatly laid out beside a dozen red, green,
and yellow runner-
slings on the broken scree. John pulled on the legs of his harness and tied
them to his waistband with a water knot, then squatted down to ensure a
comfortable fit. Unless they hit a major ledge, the harness wasn't coming off
until the summit. You climbed with it on, you slept with it on. It was a
trick, but you even shit with it on. He pulled on his French climbing shoes
with their bright-green tongue and leather panels, but didn't tie them. They
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were regulation gangrene-tight for "feeling" the rock with his toes, not
exactly meant for leisure wear. Tucker obviously had this first pitch in mind
for himself, and depending on the severity of the climbing any single pitch
could consume hours. John stood up and exhaled with a whistle.
"How you doin'?" he said.
"I'm about ready," said Tucker. His harness was on, his shoes were tied, and
the two nine-mil ropes were knotted at his belly with a figure eight. All he
had to do was set the racks on across his chest. But John sensed something was
stopping the boy. At last, with a critical glance at John, Tucker turned
around and pulled his sweater off.
He was wearing a T-shirt underneath, and when he turned John's mouth almost
fell open. Emblazoned across the front of the shirt was Katie's "This Ain't No
*#!!**
Wienie Roast." Indeed, it was
Katie's T-shirt. It was tight across Tucker's barrel chest and the sleeves
came almost up to his shoulders, but it fit well enough. Tucker defiantly
waited for some comment. Obviously he'd lost his cherry, fallen in love, and
found a broader biological purpose for his energies, all in one girl in one
night. It made John miss Liz all the more.
"Water?" John offered, careful not to bat an eye.
Tucker looked grateful. "Nah," he said. He scooped up one rack of gear, draped
it over his head and under one arm, then placed the other rack under his
opposite arm.
Last of all he hung the orange, blue, gold, and green runner-slings over his
right shoulder. The hardware crisscrossed his wide back like thongs of armor. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]