Learning How To be a Badass

On Monday the 18^th I arrived at work. When I walked in the site trailer, my dad’s co-worker Stanislav (Stanley) Vrba told me that we were going to climb the Diamond on Longs Peak on Wednesday. I looked at him and laughed because I thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

Stanley is definitely one of the coolest people I have met. He has such a cool history. He came to the US from the Czech Republic many years ago. He has spent a good deal of time in the Midwest, Texas, and here in Colorado. One of the coolest things about him is that he is an excellent mixed route climber. This means that he climbs rock and ice in the winter. Some of his climbing stories have given me the shivers because of how insane the trips have been. One relevant one is from this past winter when he and a friend set the speed ascent record of the Diamond. In the winter he is always climbing, and he is staying in shape in the summer by going to the rock gym and doing endurance sports. Stanley is always training, and it is pretty cool to see how much effort he puts in even though he has a full time job. His determination and commitment is one of the strongest I have seen in any one.

So the Diamond trip came up earlier in the summer. He wanted to take me to do the route called D7, but after a couple of training climbs together he decided that we would take it down a notch and climb Pervertical Sanctuary because it is mainly a crack climb. The climb is classified as an alpine route because you have to hike in and it involves an actual mountain route. To be honest, I was pretty darn scared. A part of me wanted to back out and not take the risk of not being able to complete the route and having to rappel down mid-way through the climb. I ended up just telling myself that the experience would be worth it and that I should just go ahead and do it. That’s what I did.

We left my house on Tuesday the 19^th at 7 and drove a little over two hours to Longs Peak. We got there a little after 9, and immediately hopped in our sleeping bags to rest up before the adventure in the morning. At 2:15 a.m. Stanley’s alarm went off. We woke up, grabbed a bite to eat, chugged a Nalgene, popped on our headlamps and started off at 2:30. We went at a fast pace that had us both breathing, and we passed some hikers around forty minutes in who had started around 1:00 a.m. After that we continued passing hikers. It was not too cold because we were moving. Around 4:30 we got up near the base of the wall. We passed by a large boulder with people camped underneath, and continued up the boulder field to another large boulder where he hid our main backpacks. When we got there it started to snow. Needless to say, we were both a little ticked off and were hoping that it would not ruin our chance to climb. The forecast for the day put precipitation at around a 50% chance so we were chancing it. The snow cleared up and we geared up. We put on our harnesses and our small daypacks. We each had a liter of water, two base layers, rain jacket, and helmets.

We started up the first route, the North Chimney (which was a pretty steep scramble up some lose rock) around 4:50 with our headlamps on. It was still dark. After a few pitches up it we arrived at a large ledge. We were able to watch the sunrise! Here we placed our approach shoes under a little overhang. We then traversed over to the start of Pervertical Sanctuary 5.11a.

Sunrise on North Chimney!

Traversing over

We were climbing on trad protection/gear. That is camalots, and nuts for protection. The first three pitches were rated around 5.9 and were not too bad, but climbing pretty high above the ground already got my nerves going and I was nervous on the first two. That subsided as we got higher up the wall. The second two pitches were the hardest at 5.10c and 5.11a. They were true crack climbing and slightly overhanging so I had to really trust locking (twisting in crack for friction) my hands and feet, and the belay that Stanley was giving me. We made it up in a good amount of time. For some reason when I was belaying I could not stop looking around me and at the ground. It was just so fricking cool how high up we were and how the gear we were anchored into was protecting us from falling over a thousand feet to the ground. There were no butterflies in my stomach even when the occasional thought about how it would be a long fall and fast death if anything were to happen.

Stanley Vrba

Me!

After those two pitches it ended with a 5.9 pitch to top out on a ledge near the summit. We celebrated, and then traversed over to the rappel station. It took several rappels to get down to the ledge where we left our shoes, and then several more to get back to the snow field we had crossed in the morning. We grabbed our bags and packed up. Our descent was around and hour and a half and we were back in the car by 5 p.m.

Top out!

We got lucky that it was just a windy and sunny day. There was no rain. We were also lucky that there was only one other party of two on the wall. We did not have to worry about leaving gear and rappelling down before finishing in order to escape the weather.

Personally, I think that rock climbing is one of the most badass sports out there. The people that do it have incredibly focused minds. Sure their bodies are in amazing shape, but if it weren’t for their heads they would not be able to do the awesome things they do. When you are climbing you are battling fears and learning to control yourself under extreme circumstances. One poorly executed move or action could cost you your life. If you climb safely your chances of injuring or killing yourself are smaller, but they are still there. So there is a battle between believing in and doubting yourself. Before I did my first lead climb and my first multi-pitch with my dad the danger of climbing never really occurred to me. I was happy just hanging there on the top rope. After leading and taking my first falls it dawned on me how intense the sport is. In order to succeed you need to believe in yourself and treat each route like a puzzle. I find it so cool to see how much easier a route becomes if you plan out the moves and execute everything in the way that makes it easiest. After climbing the Diamond with Stanley I have a new-found respect for the world of rock and alpine climbing. All of those people that climb the huge mountains and big walls are risking a ton. The determination found in them has opened my eyes to another sport that is similar to Nordic because you have to make sacrifices and give it your all to be successful.

Right now I am on my way back to Maine for the start of Connor’s training camp. I am so excited and am thankful that I have had a great summer in Colorado. I will leave you with a quote.

"Mountains are not Stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion." -Anatoli Boukreev

Wade Rosko