A story of adventure climbing becoming an adventure
Grant Hartman leading the final pitch on a previous climb of Brogan’s Spire.
Photo by Xander Culver
Once upon a time, it was a sunny day at Smith Rock State Park and the climbing was good. Of course it was also Memorial Day weekend—which meant that the park was crowded—so our little group was up at the Marsupials where we hoped to stay away from the crowded walls of the main park. The Marsupials are a collection of spires and cliffs up on the hillside behind and above the main park areas that take about an hour to hike to, resulting in the area rarely being crowded. Mostly known for adventure-style climbing, the Marsupials are becoming increasingly known as a challenging sport climbing area as more routes are being developed.
It was nice to be climbing with a large group of my friends, all in the same spot. Joel Wagness worked his way up a 5.10 and Tyler Humphries chalked up as he prepared to work his 5.12 project. I was glad to be having such a great day as I soaked up the sunshine and ate some snacks. Alex Nelson and I decided to try out Tyler’s project. Alex was successful. I merely flailed around, my fingers not quite up to the task of holding on to the tiny holds. After a try or two, I decided my arms were too tired to keep sport climbing and I suggested to Alex, Joel, Emily Nuss, and Wylie Schlemmer that we go climb Brogan’s Spire via the Cave Route, a short multi pitch climb just around the corner from where we were. I had climbed the route a couple times before—in fact, it had been my first multi pitch climb, so I was feeling up to the three short pitches of 5.6 on some cool, featured terrain.
On a multi pitch climb, when the first person gets to the anchors they do not lower to the ground; rather, they belay their partner up to them using special techniques and then continue climbing upward, leaving the ground below them one rope-length at a time. The first pitch of the Cave Route leads to a large ledge the size of a basketball court, about 30 feet off the ground with a cool natural arch at one end. All five of us climbed up to the large ledge, and then we walked through the arch as I started leading the second pitch up a gentle ramp to the crest of the sharp ridge. Once I reached the anchor at the ridge, I began belaying Emily and Joel up to me. Sitting on the crest of the ridge, the exposure suddenly became apparent, as the other side of the ridge is not a gently sloping ramp like the one we climbed up but rather a several hundred foot drop. I enjoyed the exposure, and similarly enjoyed watching the excitement grow in the eyes of my partners.
The Natural Arch.
Photo by Xander Culver
As Wylie and Alex began climbing the pitch below, I began leading up the final stretch to the summit of the pinnacle, known as Brogan’s Spire. Starting with a walk along the sharp ridge, the final pitch suddenly reaches the base of the spire where it climbs about 50 feet to the small, flat summit. The final stretch of climbing is easy, but it is exposed and runout (there aren’t many bolts or places to protect from a fall), so it was with an increased heart rate that I looked back at Joel and Emily and noticed that they were starting to shiver. I looked up and noticed that the sun was gone, and I also started to shiver as I felt the wind pick up. As I clipped the summit anchor, I felt the first drop hit my arm.
“Uh-oh,” I thought to myself, “I hope everyone has rain jackets.” I quickly set up the anchor, but took a second to double check that I tied everything correctly and locked each carabiner. “Climb quick!” I shouted down to my compatriots. I started to wonder how long it would take us to rappel as the droplets started to increase in frequency. As Joel and Emily reached the summit, I noticed that they were wearing shorts and not the warmest of jackets. At this point, Wylie and Alex were starting the final pitch and the rain had increased to a slight drizzle. By the time they reached the summit, only a few minutes later, the storm had progressed into real rain and the gusts were miserable. We tied the ropes together and prepared for a double-rope 70 meter rappel—in the rain.
Normally to rappel, you pull half of your rope through the anchor, rappel, then pull on one end of your rope and the other end goes up through the anchor, then back down to you. When you are further than one rope length from the ground, you can do what is called a double-rope rappel where you rappel with two ropes tied together with a special knot. You rappel the length of one full rope, instead of just half the length of the rope like normal, then you pull the rope and try to keep the knot from getting caught on something as it comes back down to you. It is not a difficult skill, but it is one I recommend having someone trained teach you to do, as rappelling is much more dangerous than climbing. We had to do a double-rope rappel because we were so far off the ground—it took two ropes to get back to the ground, almost a full 70 meters!
After setting up for the rappel, we threw our ropes, but because they were wet and tangled, they did not go down nicely to the ground. Instead, they got stuck on the several small ledges between us and the ground. I decided I would go first to untangle the ropes so that everyone else could rappel easily. As I hooked up my rappel setup, complete with backup autoblock (always rappel with a backup, as rappelling is dangerous!), I realized that the task was going to be a wet one as water started running down the cliff. I rappelled over the lip of the spire and gritted my teeth as I struggled with the wet ropes. As I descended behind the ridge, I felt relieved to be out of the wind and deluge but also felt sorry for those waiting for me above.
As I reached the ground, I shouted up, “Off rappel!” so that the next person could get down. As Emily started rappelling, we found out that she had never rappeled before, making this a very exciting introduction. As challenging as rappelling cold, wet ropes is, Emily lowered herself carefully and safely. As she reached the ground and sheltered in the small cave under the cliff we had just rappelled, Joel started his way down. With Joel grounded, and each of us soaked to the bone, Wylie and Alex rappelled, bringing our entire ill-lucked party to safety. We coiled the wet ropes and began the soggy slog back to the car, feeling fortunate that our only discomfort was our packs made heavier by water-logged ropes.
From this adventure, I learned the importance of always being prepared—both in my knowledge of how to climb and rappel safely, and in the gear that I carry with me. While it is tempting to leave the rain jacket behind on a sunny day, it can make a huge difference if you are caught high off of the deck when the deluge starts. It is also very important to have a wide range of knowledge when adventure climbing (my favorite type of climbing) so that you can safely get yourself out of situations that happen unexpectedly. I encourage you to try out adventure climbing some day, but as a caveat, make sure you do so with someone that is skilled and experienced because you never know when the situation will change from sunny to stormy. Even experienced climbers get caught in the rain occasionally.
Stay safe out there everyone.
- Xander Culver