The Popes Nose

         It’s the craziest thing, thinking about something for years, dreaming, and watching the shape of the dream change and become a thing so detailed it becomes a memory of it’s own. Then, finally, it all happens in real life and it’s so striking because the version you actually see feels more dream-like than the dream itself. Realization, that’s the word for it. The Real-izing of something that was previously un-real. In September, I had a Realization.

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It was raining. The valley seeped with cold water and mist, mud and leaves sticking to everything and a chill, persistent current of air snaked above the pine river like a shadow. I shivered and looked up to the clouds hugging the peaks, the spitting rain in my face soaking me to the bone. Trains of pack horses passed us, cowboys astride them in long canvas jackets. The miles wore on, weighed down with wet packs and heavy climbing gear. When the clouds finally broke, it was over a meadow laced with a winding river, glittering granite all around. Ahead of us, a tumble of mountains, and in there somewhere a perfect dome: the Popes nose. It was the furthest I’ve ever made it to the top of that shining wall of stone, one I had been dreaming of for years. I smiled at Kim and Micah, as if to say can you believe this is real?  

Finishing our hike, I felt the feeling one gets when everything is working perfectly: the strange sensation of needing to look over your shoulder because something feels wrong. The last of the summer aspens passed overhead, glowing and staring, softly and slowly turning yellow. I breathed in, smelling the dust in the forest of watching eyes and seeping rain and wondered why I have such a hard time believing that I can do the things I dream of doing. Only two miles more and we reached a muddy track through the grass along flint creek and spied through the trees a thousand-foot-tall monolith. It was so large when I saw it in June, but I’ve climbed bigger walls since then. Today it looks small. I try to explain to the others how all the other rocks on the mountain, the crags and minor walls, fit together and form an unmistakable face, as though a titan had fallen and lay with it’s head hanging off a table. They can’t see it, and I laugh. There is pleasure in knowing your experience is unique.

We camped in a meadow below the wall. An elk skull hung from a tree, marking the camp, and ashes filled a fire-ring of cracked rocks. We pitched camp and the sun glided behind the ridge, encasing our valley in shadow. Flint creek roared as the fire burned, and for the first time in months I saw my breath cloud outwards as we laid our things out to dry on the hot stones. The moon rose with a nibble of shadow in the corner and we ached to know what it was. As we later found out, it was a lunar eclipse. As I fell asleep in the bitter cold I was struck with an image: the scattered reflections of texture on a sea of rock, a hulking mountain opposite the glowing blemished moon and below sat Micah, wrapped tight against the chill, staring intently at the last embers from the nights fire, gentle stars poking through the fabric all around as the frost gathered on the last summer leaves. Two great forces lay in opposition, each one astounding in its own right and Micah, shielded from the chill, paid them no mind. The glow of the fire was captivating enough.

I hardly slept. I woke up shivering and donned all my layers, shaking Micah awake in the gray light of early dawn. We decided to wait for the sun to melt the frost. I left camp and hiked back and forth on the trail, trying to warm up enough to stop the shivers. Light peeked over the ridge and refracted in the crystals of frost, as though each stalk of grass were holding a glowing gem of red, yellow, orange or blue. I was entranced. When the sun hit, we all moved to the fire ring. We ate breakfast, racked our gear and went over the plan one last time. Micah and I said goodbye to Kim and took off our shoes to cross the rushing creek. From here on there would be no trail.  

The forest was thick and slippery and took twice as long as we hoped. We arrived at the base of the wall sweating and in high spirits. We made it. It was going to happen. I racked up and put on my rock shoes as a minor breeze buffetted against the wet stone. I started upwards, trying not to look up at the expanse of stone ahead of us, afraid of the distance we had to travel. The first pitch was loose and tricky. I wound my way through wide cracks and ledges, over seeping overhangs and loose flakes. I found a belay on a ledge and Micah made quick work of the pitch, meeting me on the loose grass below a steep crack. Above us a pillar hung in the silent morning light, all sound drowned by playful, levitating winds. Micah lead upward, climbing smooth and fast through two hundred feet of cracks. I followed with the backpack, keenly aware of how hard it was to climb with that much extra weight: we had brought a hammer and drill, bolts and water for a whole day on the wall. The cracks grew stronger, the stone began to dry and the exposure accumulated. At the base of the next pitch, I looked upwards at a varied crack, dirt and loose rock mixed with clean, open faces of pure stone, high above the valley. For the first time that day, I felt fear.

We were moving fast. I didn’t want to halt our progress and I certainly didn’t want to give up on a dream I had held onto for nearly five years, but damn. It looked scary. I took the cams from Micah and shoved the fear aside, pulling up into a seam that widened, lacing through loose flakes into a hand crack, then a chimney. I grunted as I pulled myself upwards into the flaring slot, thankful to no longer be hanging out over the exposure. There was little gear to be had, and I climbed upwards still, pulling into a cave inside the pillar. I placed a bad cam to make myself feel better, then pressed my back against the pillar, pushing with my feet and wriggling upwards. The rock was smooth and my feet skittered. I found a good cam placement halfway up, then aimed for the roof. My muscles ached but I pushed through, sliding and skittering, until I could just barely reach a crack above me: the place where a boulder had been trapped midair. I jammed the crack with both fists and cut feet, Dangling above the cave. I grunted and shouted to myself , “Work, Eli, COME ON” and found purchase with my feet, pulling into a broken crack leading to the blocky, sloping summit of the spire. I belayed Micah as the light rounded the corner, wind whipped all around and the valley below glowed with spots of gold. It would be autumn soon. I had imagined this ledge of rock for five years and was surprised to see that it was different than I thought it would be: It was scarier, more intense, wind scoured and sunburnt and more beautiful than I had imagined.

We made good time. We had climbed the first six pitches in three and arrived at the spire on time, but the bulk of the work lay ahead. Above us, a mix of rusty bolts and hard, over hanging cracks arched gently over the valley floor. The aid pitch. Our goal was to replace an old bolt on the upper section of the pitch and, if we had time, clean it and try to free climb the final section, a feat that hadn’t been accomplished by any climber since the first ascent of the central buttress nearly fifty years ago. Micah racked up and worked the lower crux, finally sending it and pushing up into the overhanging crack, crumbling pieces of rock as he went. It took him a while to finish the pitch, even with the help of the stick-clip we had brought to help with the bolts. I took even longer to follow the pitch. By then, I could feel the fatigue setting in and even though I was on toprope, it still took effort the pull through the gear and over the bulge to the ledge where Micah waited, smiling, playing Chappel Roan from his phone speaker. It was warm enough to stand still without a jacket, and we relished our moment in the heat, now only two pitches from the summit. I thought about the sun, how great the difference was between light and dark, day and night. Some days I hardly pay the sun any mind, but there, we were immersed in it, kept alive by it. From that ledge it seemed as though the sun was time itself, light itself, the most important thing in existence.

 Micah took the bolt kit and rappelled back down, pounding into the rock with a hand drill. Soon I joined him, and together we took turns twisting and pounding, hanging above a monstrous drop for two hours. I kept myself clipped to the old bolt, but the loose, rusty hanger was hardly comforting. We quickly realized that there wouldn’t be time to free the crux, the sun had gone behind the ridge again and we were both desperate to get off the mountain. Micah led one more wide pitch to a ledge, one that supposedly allowed us to walk off without climbing the final crack. We were both worked and the cold and exposure had done a number on our morale, so we took our chances to avoid vertical rock. Micah lead along the ledge, The two of us simulclimbing along the exposed outcrop until we reached a gully leading to the summit. After climbing through loose rock, dirt, slabs and dead trees I found Micah atop an expanse of blank granite, his silhouette framed by stars and the gray light of dusk in the far distance. The valley was silent below us and we could see a bright orange beacon where Kim had built a campfire. We finished our food and water, glad we had brought so much. I went searching for a summit register, the moon rising above the black forest in all it’s commanding glory, this time whole and unblemished by earth’s shadow.

I found a cairn containing rusty can. Inside, a neoprene glove encased a packet of paper. Intrigued, I opened it, finding a watercolor painting and a rolled cigarette. I let out an audible snicker, over the moon with joy that I had found a cigarette in my hands. It didn’t last long. I flipped the painting over and found a handwritten note. It was a goodbye, from a grief-stricken climber to his deceased partner. Micah came over and we read it together, both in awe of this strange and beautiful shout into the void. I folded the note and replaced the cigarette, tying them back into the plastic glove and tucking it all back into the old tin can. I stacked the rocks as best I could. As we packed our things for the walk down, I couldn’t help but think: some items have power.  

The way down was almost as hard as the way up. Micah and I traversed the moonlit granite, squeezing down chimneys and across ledges until we found ourselves in a thick forest bounded by sheer granite walls on either side: fern gully. The going was slow, picking our way through dense tangles of thimbleberry, tall ferns and thick branches of spruce. We often had to jump or slide between ledges, hoping beyond hope that what we could see with our headlamps was all that was there. The gully grew steeper, and soon we found ourselves sliding down granite slabs, traversing a wide system of creeks and waterfalls, aspen saplings choking the ledges and margins in between. Everything glowed in moonlight. Soon we were cliffed out, too tired to look for a way down. We rappelled off a group of aspen saplings and down into the forest below.

For the next hour we navigated steep forest and granite slabs, climbing down old aspens and walking across steep moonlit ledges. Every time we peeked out of the trees, Kims’ fire blazed in the distance, a perfect reminder of how far we had to go. Eventually, we made it to a massive boulder field, where we picked our way through caves and bridges of loosely stacked stone. The river was dark when we reached its edge, Micah and I didn’t hesitate to doff our shoes and chill our aching feet in the flow. We chatted and laughed on the trail, only minutes from that warm blaze, food and rest.

When we arrived at camp, Micah and I picked up into a jog, shouting and laughing, loudly announcing ourselves to Kim, who sat peacefully by the fire. We had planned to be back at camp by ten o’clock and it was nearly eleven. We regaled her with the story of the day and settled into conversation as we heated water and rehydrated our food, laying our socks out to dry again.  She had a calm day of solitude by flint creek, watching from a distance as we slowly climbed higher on the face above her, where more than once I imagined how nice it would be to read my book in the meadow. My food was crunchy and half cooked when I ate it, but I didn’t care and soon enough I was crawling in bed, struck again by that peaceful image: the mountain, the moon, the boy and the fire.

In the morning, the sun struck against crystals of frost, peeked through the trees, warmed and illuminated the living and dying colors of autumn. As we sat and ate breakfast, I watched as the frost melted, the texture of bright and shining jewels changing shape, as though the fabric of the night were dissolving in the stare of the sun. Breeze blew around and the granite above us shone bright and pink in the heat of noon as we hiked down the trail, each of us saluting that wonderful mountain as we turned and walked out of view. My whole body hurt, and I was thankful to have a trail at all.

We stopped at a creek to swim and were surprised to see a middle-aged man appear from the woods and head our way. A lone backpacker, the man appeared lonely and awkwardly hung out with us as we ate snacks and basked in the sun. When we told him what we were doing, what we had done the day before, he seemed not to hear us.

“wow” he said, standing nearby with his hands in his pockets, “the polka nose, huh?”

We held in our laughter until far down the trail. It was the second time I had been accosted by a well-meaning middle-aged man from Alabama on the pine river trail.  As we walked onwards, we fell into conversation. Shadows grew and animals appeared within them; garter snakes, flickers, deer and yaks at the ranch by the parking lot where we collapsed and gleefully removed out shoes in the gentle cool of evening. Every time I make it back to the pine river trailhead, I find myself lost in the view: open pastures fringed with red Seussian ponderosas, tall cliffs crumbling into the perfect, wide valley of the pine river and evening gold washing across it all. It is a place that looks the way rain smells, a place that smiles when you’re not looking, a place the western sky calls home.