Remembering Eddie Phay - The Stoke Engine

“Oh Eddie! I am so excited to try Pick Pocket today! The Gorge’s first route, by John Bachar no less!” 
I bubbled.

“You’re the stoke engine!” Eddie exclaimed. “Keep on fueling with stoke, sister.” 

He lifted his hand into the hang loose sign and tilted his head back and forth with his john lennon glasses. 
Eddie was of average height, around 6 foot, with shining, straight brown hair, pulled back into a ponytail. 
Not gangly nor bulky, he was of modest proportions for his size.

We walked down the narrow path, overgrown with shrubbery to Pick Pocket in Upper Gorge. A few stream 
crossings later, we arrived at the base of the route. This route was special to me. Done ground up, on lead by 
the infamous ironclad, Bachar, it spurred the development of our home crag, the Owen’s River Gorge in 
Bishop, CA. It was spring of 2014 and Eddie and I had been steady climbing partners for a month already.

I had just finished my undergraduate degree in an otherwise pointless major, Geophysics, from UC Berkeley. 
But my heart had left school long before and lived in a dream world of  big walls and mountains. My then 
boyfriend and I had bought a van and moved to Bishop to live as dirtbag climbers.

Eddie was in his early forties, and I, in my early twenties. An unlikely pairing, we took to each other instantly. 
I overheard a conversation he was having in the coffee shop. All I truly remember was that he was stoked, 
REALLY STOKED.

“Want to climb Tuesday? I’m new to town and my boyfriend works a lot, and I’m SUPER PSYCHED!” 
I said in one breath.

“Yeah, sister!” He replied. We shook hands and met in the Gorge a few days later. Over days and weeks, 
we became good friends. 

Eddie’s true passion was mixed climbing and development in Alaska. While my knowledge of this stuff is 
as good as biology, therefore completely lacking, I do know he kept a well documented webpage called 
CragAlaska, where he would divulge all of his experiences.
 
He drove down in his white 1998 Chevy van nicknamed ‘The Honey Badger.’ With his John Lennon 
peace-and-love energy, and a van named The Honey Badger, I was certain he was a weirdo. His furry 
companion was a black  legit-part-wolf dog, Morgan, who, he clearly stated, was not to be trusted. She 
had a temper and would bite and growl frequently. On our climbing days, she was sentenced to the van 
and while I see that now as some violation of dog rights, it didn’t seem weird at the time. Eddie had a 
fire inside of him, a deep well of passion and drive to live. His rest days were spent paragliding, drooling 
over his next climb, and occasionally doing some of his computer programming work.  

“So I’ve done twenty five 5.12’s since I got here two months ago.” Eddie said as he flipped through the 
guidebook, observing his ticks.

“This one is next.” He pointed to a beautiful, shallow left facing seam, Crybaby (12c).

“That looks nails! Psyched to belay you, crusher!”

Before every redpoint, he would take a few minutes to breath and quiet his mind, as if he already knew 
he was going to do it. This stillness carried through onto the route. A few warrior cries, and thrutchy 
boulder moves later, he was into easy terrain and quickly clipped the chains.

While he continued to what I now know as “base building,” I still clung on to my traditional beginnings, 
working my way through onsights of the grades. I observed Eddie and with his encouragement, tried 
more routes that I’d fall off of, just hard enough to quickly redpoint, but not too hard, while I was in my 
infancy as a climber.

Eddie came south in winters frequently to take a vacation from his heinous passion of mixed and alpine 
climbing to hang in the sun, get strong, and fly. He reasoned that sport climbing was the best training for 
mixed climbing in Alaska and his season of ticking the guidebook only prepared him for the real prized 
gems up north.

My winter was similarly paced. Having learned to climb in Yosemite the previous two years, I felt like I 
needed to sport climb and get strong for the big, iconic lines in the Valley. We giggled and laughed our 
way into the spring, enjoying the ease of try-hard and lack of suffering, and felt our forearms get ironed 
in the fire of pump.

On one of our last climbing days in the Gorge, I belayed Eddie on his redpoint of Yellow Streak (13a). 
While I tried my best to not let grades dictate my motivation, rather the aesthetics of the line, 13a was 
a benchmark in progression, a level where the elite hovered. In my humble state, it seemed as distant as 
Mongolia. Eddie was my first steady climbing mentor and watching him peak on his hardest redpoint 
that season was nearly as emotional for me as it was for him.

He tried hard, really hard. Through a succession of small crimps and dynamic movement, he yelled his 
way to the chains.

“How was the climbing!” I asked.

“Well, it’s some pathetic crimps to a dyno for a jug out left! It’s fucking savage… but it was FUN, 
REALLY FUN!”

In a few seconds his expression re-lived his moment of focus and then cracked into a joyful laugh. His 
unbridled and genuine psyche for climbing was so contagious. It’s like watching Peter Croft talk about 
climbing; the energy of a person like that commands attention.

Eddie left shortly after that ascent of Yellow Streak, ready for some rest and a change of pace after a 
paragliding accident, but we had made plans to climb in the Valley together in May. He had warned me 
that his crack climbing skills were lacking, so I was to be his guide there.

He arrived near the end of  my season in the Valley. I had already blown my onsight of Astroman, cried 
my way up my first Nose in a day, and slept on top of Watkins. I was content. I was tired. Eddie had hardly 
climbed since the Gorge and was ready to move north so we had one day to climb together.

Though he was a goliath in strength to me, I knew I understood the subtleties of granite a bit better. We 
decided to climb the Voyager (11c), a new at the time in 2014, Dan McDevitt route. With a splattering of 
bolts and gear, it seemed best suited for our skills. He would lead any bolted pitches and I would sew up 
the cracks.

Eddie climbed well, but his endurance for all day climbing was lacking. He fell on both crux pitches and 
was gassed by the time we reached the last pitch - a thin hands splitter that started on a chair sized ledge. 
Without much thought, Eddie started climbing the pitch and after a few moves, fell out of the crack and 
thankfully landed on the ledge. His spectacles were crooked and dehydration foam crusted the corners of 
his mouth.

“Eddie… what the fuck? You really don’t know how to crack climb.” I laughed.
 
He was laughing and smiling and cursing at the same time. “Yeah, Alix… I’m beat.”
 
“Why didn’t you place a piece dude?”

That was the last of his energy. Since my hands were smaller, I shouldered the rack and got the rope up the 
last pitch. I finally felt like I taught Eddie a thing or two on that climb, like how to place a piece off the belay… 
or set up a two bolt anchor in under 5 minutes. Those months in the dusty gorge, when he inspired me with 
epic tales and a warrior mindset, instilled a sense of belief in me and my climbing, and led by example in 
his own pursuits.

Sadly, Eddie died in 2015 due to ALS. I had just returned to the Gorge since our season down there and 
was deeply saddened to hear my quirky Alaskan friend had died.

Last week, I redpointed Yellow Streak, following in Eddie’s footsteps. I had tried this route in the fall to no 
avail, left and went bouldering, and came back this spring to give it another crack. I channeled his try-hard 
on every go and nearly peeled off on the exiting moves to the anchor like he did. Nothing like a little extra 
screaming! Yellow Streak was my second 13a, after the Westie Face in Yosemite in 2017. And it was fun, 
REALLY FUN.

I had my doubts with climbing in the past few years, especially with nebulous health issues, but I am so 
happy and grateful I had friends and mentors like Eddie who believe (d) in me during the darkness.

Eddie once wrote this in his blog and it’s so telling of his personality: 

“The what and who we are, are shown perhaps by the games we play. As long as we pay attention, our waking 
like sleeping dream has this creative-like power to reflect what one is. It's a simple fact, we require a physical 
body to exist here on this planet and it's this body that allows us to learn so much about ourselves. It makes no 
sense to me to not explore this planet's elements. This planet is fricken’ epic people!” 

Someone recently asked me what I’m most proud of in my life, and the first answer that came to mind was my 
friends. I’m so proud and grateful to have friends that live with integrity, are honest and trustworthy, passionate 
in their pursuits, and selfless in giving. Maybe my life’s greatest achievement is my ability to choose good 
company. Eddie was no different. He was the true stoke engine. 

The Romantic Warrior

It had been raining for days in the Valley. The first big storm was set to hit at the beginning of November and that had sent the crowds fleeing to the desert. The sodden, saturated Valley floor was as desolate as the I-50 Highway from California to Utah. Camp Four had one elaborate tarp set up near the bathrooms. This was Camp Brussel, coined by Nico, Belgian native and big wall goliath. A group of strong and soulful climbers from Belgium weathered the storms of November in hopes of blue skies and crisp temperatures on the great heart stone, El Capitan. A few smaller teams speckled the muddy pine forest. Rangers abandoned their post for the season and only the committed were lingering.

I biked around aimlessly. My stomach had ballooned after an unfortunate gulp of bad water on El Capitan weeks before. My body was failing me and my mind, frazzled. I felt weak. The fall season hosted a series of deaths, a bad fall on the Nose, and the Nose speed record broken. I was due to climb Freerider on El Capitan the following day. It would be my final attempt for the season.

The bulky flip phone, in the shoe box next to my seat,buzzed. Drew’s calling…

“Hey, I think we need to go look for Niels. His car has not moved since Monday.” It was Friday. The anxiety in his voice filled my heart with fear. Something was wrong. Niels missed his date to climb with Nico on Tuesday so I had filled in. Knowing Niels and his wandery ways, I didn’t think much of his absence.

“Copy. I’ll bike over in a minute.” Harnesses, jumars, ropes, cordellete, food, water, and headlamps were heaved into our packs and this materialized the reality of this event. Leaning against his blue cargo van in the wood lot near the rescue tents, Drew’s eyes widened with confusion. He, uncharacteristically, rolled a cigarette. Like a countdown into battle, each drag thronged our departure.

“Hey Drew.” I gulped. “This could be ...really bad. He could be dead.” We both knew this already.

We trudged up the dank, talus field with knotted stomachs on that somber afternoon. We found a fallen friend tangled with fallen leaves and fallen ropes, hardened by the weather of the storm - a swollen corpse folded over itself with the sharp image of his sculpted arm draped flat and that rattlesnake tattoo; a memory forever etched into my mind.

He had fallen.

Niels was dead. His spirit vanished into the ether in a wink. His brief existence ended because of a mysterious rappelling accident that hurled him to the ground like rock-fall on El Capitan. The force he was, so grandiose and larger than life, halted, altering the lives and landscape of those he cherished and cherished him. It really could happen to anyone.

Niels was a romantic warrior. Experienced in tragedy and having lost both of his brothers, he spent countless days and months roaming the Utah desert and dry, arid mountains of the Sierra pondering life, death, and purpose. He was known for his poetics and flowery vernacular. His presence was felt by everyone.

Niels and I had only known each other a year and a half before he left this world, but our experiences together were passionate and volatile. 

The first day I spent with Niels was on Freerider in the Spring of 2016.

“You climb like a kitten riding a unicorn!” He playfully mused up to me while we were simul-climbing moderates pitches. A few minutes later, he took the reigns, delicately balancing his way across to the monster off-width with only a few draws and a #4 camalot.

Of course, his feats on the great heart stone, as he would call it, were only a mere glimpse of his character, but so adequately described him in life - bold, humble, playful, confident.

Later that Spring, he invited me to stay on Timbuktu Tower with him. This ledge, on the left side of El Capitan, was nearly half way up the stone. He spent his season attempting to free climb an old aid line here. Knowing he was leaving soon, I seized the opportunity to spend an evening with him. Ascending up 5 fixed ropes in the evening light, I found him equipping the route with more bolts. 

He was surprised to find me as it didn’t seem likely I would do such a foolish act before a big day of climbing! But emotions, those powerful, impulsive emotions, lacking any rationality, led me surprise him with chocolate, strawberries, and yogurt, though I knew that my climbing day would suffer. Infatuation, love, whatever you call it, ignores obligations and goals. The heart reigns.

 Niels volleyed off my jester, as he was every bit romantic as I, by building a fire. 

“Can you believe this?” He gasped. A gift it was to share the view of the birds, perched high in our nest.

“Life doesn’t get much better than this. El Capitan, a tent, a fire, dessert.” 

We both sighed, appreciating this fleeting moment together. I wished that feeling of closeness with a person, that all-consuming appreciation of another could last. I was smitten for Niels, like many women before me. I fell asleep listening to him read me Cormac McCarthy, feeling content and alive though my heart ached knowing he was soon leaving with no plans to return.

He was good at that, savoring each day and making the experience full of life. Tragedy and trauma do that to a person. Not knowing when or how long we have on this Earth allows one to appreciate the richness of the moment. He knew, better than most, that everything was impermanent and our time, precious. 

His parting words cautiously warned me to take care of myself and he, the same; that he might never see me again, though he intended too. Then, for the first time, he kissed me, saddled up into his truck and road East.

Niels snuck a note into my van with “Don’t break too many holds or hearts this season. Stay gold.” 

I was bewildered, frustrated, swooned. Who the hell is this guy? 

As time passed, Niels emailed me nearly every week he was abroad with tidbits of his life and philosophy. His writings subtly suggested a future between us, yet we never made any plans. I was as disoriented after a drive on the narrow roads in the Spanish countryside. 

'Heart like a hippo, hands like an orangutan; these are my wishes for you on the great rock phallus.'

These were words written from an email to me just prior to my first expedition-style trip into the Purcell Wilderness of Canada. I spent two weeks deep in the wilderness. It was the most remote, untouched area I have ever been to all while mulling over every email he sent me, wandering if we were to connect again. I pined over him to my partner, Jenny. 

“Jenny, that’s what he wrote me. What the fuck, really? What does all of this mean?”

"I do like heart like a hippo.” She chimed.

Puzzled by his nebulous writing, we chuckled over his words with us on that trip. Subsequently, Jenny and I named our first, first ascent, ‘Heart like a Hippo.’ My heart expanded on that trip to the towers. Expanding my comfort zone far beyond Yosemite had taught me, Jenny patiently guided me through the mountains with her extensive knowledge in snow and glacier travel. 

Fall came and the strings of my heart tightened, stretching and expanding beyond its capacity to care for myself and let go of others. Niels and I continued our courtship immediately when he came back to Yosemite, though where Niels and I stood was as unstable as a game of Jenga, always on the brink of disruption and failure. 

“Wouldn’t it be amazing to sit on a plot of land and make an meager living selling wine?” he mused as we sat 10 meters high in a tree filled with orange, yellow, and red leaves the sizes of plates. This stand-out tree we had to climb lived across the Chapel in the Valley. 

“Niels, have you ever had to financially struggle before? It’s not glamorous.” I huffed.

These dreams he had, romantic and simple, yet dreams of one with more privilege than he could handle. 

Again, when the season came to an end, we went separate ways. While I wanted something more concrete with Niels, he was unavailable to commit so after many arguments and headaches, we parted ways.

Many moons later, he met me in Estes Park, CO to climb the Diamond on Long’s Peak, an adventure we’d both share for the first time. 

Alpine flowers trimmed the trail we followed as we passed the tree line. Niels and I chatted about life and love and discovery along the approach. It seemed like time had healed our wounds.

“Always awesome Alix,” he would say tongue-in-cheek. Compliments were never given without insult.

At 3:00 AM, like all alpine missions, we peered out of our nook to see if clouds were billowing over. I secretly wished the storm was overhead after our evening of bickering. But it wasn’t. My ratty old trainers did nothing for steep, packed ice approach. Every few steps upwards, I would slide back down,  desperately clawing at the snow to stop my descent. Niels had left me far behind as he scurried upward with stiff shoes and our only ice axe. Eventually with lots of cursing and frustration, I reached the base as the sun rose with brilliant shades of pink and purple and it’s reflection was seen in Chasm Lake for a double effect. There are few things I love more than a sunrise in this world.

In the morning, we climbed an immaculate granite slab climb weaving our way up with delicate traverses connecting features, spicy protection, and creative downclimbing. Swapping leads and whooping calls, we were ecstatic to be climbing this iconic formation without another soul in sight.

Rain spat on and off all morning, but hardly enough to dampen the granite or our spirits. We continued up the main face of the Diamond via D7, a John Bachar route, fitting for a couple of Yosemite elitists. Still, we were the only team out there. 

The wall was steep and though we followed a natural crack climb, the fractures in the wall also created big, in cut rectangular jugs nearly the entire way up. The climbing went fast and smooth, though the clouds kept building and building.

When we reached the summit, we received the last slice of sunshine before the clouds engulfed us. Somehow, we felt like we cheated and won that day with the stormy weather and a beautiful summit. On the rock with Niels, I always felt safe and we managed to summit the mountain, and attain a glimpse of absolute freedom in the wilderness. 

Though within minutes of our descent, the storm unleashed and we hiked down through torrential rain. We meandered down through the path of least resistance. One rappel made our descent easier as the waterfalls were building. 

Niels pulled the rope down and the end cracked in his eye. Like a marred bear, he aggressively picked up the ropes and chucked them as far as he could. His screams were loud enough to match the thunderous mountain range. 

“Fuck! FUCK!” He belched. Anything I said was received with anger so I remained silent. 

Panic moved through my body. His outburst was similar to the aggressive outbreaks of my father. My heart started to beat faster and all I wanted to do was run away. 

This moment, on top of a 14,000 ft peak as flashes of lightning pierced the sky and thunder echoed in the distance, had somehow instilled the fear I lived with as a child hiding from the anger, sheltered underneath my bed with my puppy. What a contrast to feel this fear in the most expansive place I could be. His outburst brought back the anxiety that plagued me in my childhood.  

But that was part of the beauty in Niels. Everything surfaced with him. All of my pain anxiety, faults, frustrations as well as joy, love, and presence were given and received. We continually challenged and questioned each other, though I always thought we’d drift in and out of each others lives into the greying age. 

To truly experience life, to feel fully alive, one must feel everything, including the murky waters of pain, anxiety, sorrow, and fear. With Niels, I did just that. 

In our final conversation before he died, he challenged my intentions for flying to Tasmania. Niels, trying to mask his smile as he always did when our eyes locked, rode up to my van on a unicycle with a beer in one hand and an its-it ice-cream, a Yosemite staple. His handlebar mustache and cut off vest exposing his rattlesnake tattoo made our interaction all more the absurd.

“Are you flying there for a boy?”  He prodded.

“No, Niels. I want a change.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“…You and I both love a good romance. Are you really sure?”

“Yes, Niels. Listen to me, damnit.”

“You know, I don’t regret anything that happened last year, Alix. I think you’re an incredible person.”

Yet again, I felt heaviness in my stomach, similar to the feeling of finding him five days after this conversation. I reflected upon my distance and hostility - had I been too harsh, to unforgiving with Niels? While I pushed further away, he still accepted and cared about me. 

I sat with the overwhelmingly feeling of guilt. My heart was still tender for that wild man with his elusive ways. I laughed thinking about the time we spent together. His eyes were softer, smiling that day. 

In Niels’ passing, I have had the gift of experiencing the whole range of human emotions and to question and closely examine everything in my life. The loss of Niels was a great tragedy, yet somehow, sadly beautiful and expanding. 

Our time on this planet is short. Impermanence and change are the only constants we have. So, too, these feelings of confusion or sadness, anger, resentment, all things associated with loss, won’t last forever either. Niels was a resilient human who endured more than most. Yet with time, was able to continue his story with grace, honor, and joy. 

Last year in Australia, I was sick and heart broken, blundering through grief. It seems like a distant memory these days. My simple existence in Bishop has been so enriching and filled with joy since I’ve been home. I don’t understand our world and I don’t plan on trying to anymore. I guess I have learned to take everything in stride, good and bad. Niels taught me that. 

Reflections from Freerider

The sun traces the landscape in the fall, hanging low on the rim of Yosemite Valley, greeting the many south faces with warmth. Freerider on El Capitan is south-facing. Therefore, by 9:00 AM, the sun sears into one like a cattle-brand.  We packed for six days, intending to climb the 31 pitches of Freerider in five days with a day for leniency. The bags weighed more than Bronwyn and as much as I. Thankfully, we had stashed two bags on the wall to minimize the amount of hauling.

The bag was as big as her! Photo: Jacob Cook

“Bronwyn, it’s so $%#@ing hot right now. What do you want to do? … My vote is to move to the alcove and come back down in the evening.” I nudged a bit.

“We should just try it. The heat isn’t too bad. Besides, the breeze is helping.” She encouraged.

I had tried the Freerider in the spring. I knew that more time spent in heat meant more fatigue, less energy, and generally a harder time for the rest of the wall. But I didn’t want to control the situation, so we decided to give it a go.

Placing the yellow alien at the edge of the crack before the downclimb, I took a deep breath.

“Oh boy, it’s hot Bron! But I’ll try. I’m nervous!!!” I glanced up one last time.

And off I went, reverse laybacking, under-clinging, and smearing my feet to a small seam for a finger lock. Ping! Off, I went.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!” I screamed, swinging hard right through the air. Bronwyn shot a jumar down to me, and I jugged back up to the beginning of the pitch. Again, I tried - this time making the reach into the monster offwidth. Ping! Again, I was propelled back to the belay. I tried, and tried, each time with regression.

“Want me to try?” Bronwyn offered.  

“Sure, I’m tired. Need some rest.” I handed her the two sixes, a four, and a finger piece with some draws to protect the beast.

With ease, Bronwyn danced to the end of the traverse and came off. Instead of coming back to the belay, she rehearsed each section of the traverse as best as she could. On her next attempt, she latched the crack, but could not get in. She attempted the down climb a few more times, and then opted for a rest.

I went again, fighting and falling reaching to the crack. Our screams echoed in the Valley corridor. Bronwyn wanted one more attempt before continuing up to the alcove. She took a single six. And it worked. Her effort was heroic, inching and squirming up the 7 inch crack for nearly 200 ft.  

***

Our alarm went off at 5:00 AM. We rappelled down to the crux pitches. Bronwyn and I were newly acquainted climbing partners. Her patience and support were unrivaled. While I often doubted our efforts, Bron’s fighting spirit drove us up that wall. Like a musician picking apart a song, Bronwyn felt each hold on the Boulder Problem with great attention to detail and body positioning. A ripple in a small seam, when pulled down on, was useless, but pulling it sideways and pushing the rock away with your feet allowed for a passage to the flat edge up and right.

I went next, pushing and pulling, balancing on this foot, falling into that position. With rope tension, I figured out a likely sequence. By 9:00 AM, we were in the full, blazing sun. The rock was warm and greasy like a well-deserved burger, except we hadn’t earned that burger yet. I attempted the puzzling Teflon corner and strung it together with a few falls.

A glimmer of hope, I thought. We ascended up to our sloping ledge bivy, the Block, to hide from the big yellow dot in the sky. We moved slower than we anticipated having spent half a day fighting to get into the Monster Offwidth. It was our fourth day on the wall and every hard pitch had yet to be sent. We planned for five days, packed for six - maybe we would even consider a seventh.

***

Five days did turn into seven with the help of our friends. Ledge life and exposure became as comfortable as lounging in the El Cap Meadow. We found ourselves gazing at the buzz of the Valley floor, wondering who and what people stared at all day. With the sun as our compass, time was irrelevant. The time was now, surrendering to total presence. The moments between darkness and light were the windows of trying, a window so small, yet so remarkably beautiful. The light would bend, refract, and sweep up the wall as darkness gave way to light in the quiet times before the daily toil.

We chilled a lot on the Block Photo Credit: Jacob Cook

We were there, small and fragile, bruised and swollen, cracking the puzzle and focusing on the minutia. Push, keep pushing. Higher. Find the dimples. Hardly a hold to work with except for ripples in the rock. Body position, faith, tension. 

Try. Try again. Keep trying until the sun hit the rock. Retreat. Escape, siesta, and wait until the time of transition when the alpen glow illuminated the stone and the last rays of warmth faded into darkness. Into the darkness we climbed, again trying so hard our fingers may explode. 

“Yaaaaaaaaahooooo!” I screamed and screamed, adrenaline rushing and limbs shaking. Tears framed my smile creased face. By headlamp, I free climbed the Teflon Corner after dozens of attempts. I was so psyched! I didn't even care to finish the route, happy with my effort and determination on my hardest redpoint. I put my heart into that pitch, that route. That experience beamed with light.

PSYCHED! 30-40 attempts later, and a send! Photo Credit: Bronwyn Hodgins

*** 

Click. My headlamp turned on. Bronwyn handed over some draws, a #4, and a few small pieces. The slab below us extended beyond the roof above. This was the last technical pitch on Freerider. Calling it 10d is laughable, downplaying the difficulty this short, stout scar-ridden roof traverse. I stemmed my way past a small seam of pitons in a corner. Strenuously, I clipped the pitons in the horizontal roof and down-climbed back to the stance. My fingers searched for something to hold, small crimps an inch below the roof allowed me to reposition my feet, balancing over to the flat ledge at the end of the roof. Full extension, my arm caught the hold, but I fell.

My mind was consumed by fatigue. Every part of my body was reluctant to climb, to move upward. Yet we were so close. I lowered back to the awkward belay stance and pulled the rope. I tried, again. And again. And again.

“Bron, can I use your headlamp? Mine is dying.” I needed everything I could get. My hand latched the flat edge around the corner. My left leg extended to the same rail allowing myself to toe hook the corner next to my hand. Matching both hands, I moved the toe hook into a heel hook and mantled onto the ledge. It was far from graceful, but just barely worked. My body fell into the rhythm in the wide crack and I wiggled my way to the anchors of the last pitch on Freerider.

Epic adventure with Bronwyn Almighty, the darkest of horses! Photo Credit: Jacob Cook

***

We summited in the darkness on our seventh day of effort. Bronwyn got a near free ascent, coming short of one pitch. I managed to achieve my lifetime dream of a ground-up free ascent of Freerider. A few asterisks blemished my ascent to others, but it didn’t mean much to me. Two slab pitches were done from no-hands rests, and due to circumstances, neither Bronwyn nor I lead the second Enduro Corner. Such is life.

I could barely comprehend my own experience when we reached the summit. I was in disbelief. I felt empty. What I thought would be a many year project turned into a season of effort on my second free attempt.

Nothing had changed. I thought there would be a summit celebration. I thought my friends would be excited for me. I thought I would get to share this experience with those I held dearest to me. But I was wrong.

Instead, I felt lost, empty, directionless. Years of expectations and excitement about this ascent built its own fantasy - a fairy tale where witch turned into princess. Maybe I thought my life would change drastically and I would be a shiny, new Alix as an El Cap free climber. My life would be categorized as pre- and post- Freerider. I would have earned the respect of my elders, peers, and myself. I would have had an ‘AHA,’ this is it moment.

But that all differed from reality: I was an emotional whirlwind, destructive and depressed. My problems before the experience didn’t evaporate with the early season rain.

It was November 11, one day after Bron and I returned to the Valley floor. Teary-eyed, I frantically packed up my kitchen from the El Cap Meadow bear boxes. Back and forth, back and forth, I went. Chris, English/Canadian wall hero with an amazing ability to make people feel good, tried to lift my spirits.

“You should be happy right now Alix… You just free climbed that!” pointing up to El Capitan. “Soak it in, mate.” Even still, his truths didn’t strike a cord. I continued to tear apart my van, mirroring the raccoons pillaging Camp Four bear boxes. Tears turned into sobs and that dark cloud followed me out of the Valley.

During the previous week, we were fully immersed in the moment. It felt right to be up there. But a day later, I was shoveling my life into my van, heading somewhere foreign to earn a buck because I was in debt. 

It was the most anticlimactic experience I’ve ever had. 

A bit of a shit show all the time 

I was still a dirtbag scraping by -  stressing about relationships, where my next paycheck was coming from, and how I was going to fulfill my commitment to meeting Katie in Spain for five weeks. Nothing changed. My reality was starkly contrasted in two days. How could one go from feeling so alive and present to an utter meltdown in one day? 

***

It's been two and a half months since we packed up our haul bags and meandered back to the Valley floor. Bronwyn went home to Canada. I migrated north, east to Utah, back to Bishop, and out of Vegas to climb in El Chorro, Spain.

Katie and I were walking to the crag one day and I turned to her. 

“I should have been so happy after that experience, but I was a fucking wreck. I have put my entire life in question.” 

“Maybe it’s the gift of reflection you get from these achievements.”

She was wise. Maybe she was right. I had put everything into question. I signed up for online classes to start the process of nursing school/midwifery. I picked up a ukelele, read books on love and Buddhist philosophy. I started obsessing over the topo for the Salathe wall, hungry for more. I found closure in tumultuous relationships and ultimately, came again to the realization that I didn’t love myself and that was the root to all of my problems. 

So often, we throw ourselves into passions or distractions, narrowly skating around our reality because it’s messy. We just don't know what we want. Anxiety about the future and it's unknown and repeating patterns formed in our past plague our wakeful existence. I was hardly present last fall when I wasn’t on the wall. My thoughts drifted to people, decisions, consequences, “what ifs." I was in the thick of transition for a while. 

I lacked acceptance for “what is.” 

Wisdom takes years of trial and error, repeating the same mistakes until one day it all makes sense. I wish someone told me at a young age that happiness ebbs and flows, that our lives are complicated and messy, and that we’ll makes mistakes. And that all of it’s ok. All of it. 

Times of transition offer opportunities for reflection and growth. Climbing is not the only medium I have learned to deal with adversity, but it is the only practice I’ve engaged in that has confronted me with my insecurities, time and time again, also shown me that I carry great strength and focus - that I can love myself. 

My soul was up there on Freerider all year, hiding from the mess of my physical being. It's watchful eyes greeted me with compassion and moments of clarity on every lap I did. The irrational, fearful child inside of me could sometimes see through it all - the fragility of our environment, how tiny and irrelevant our issues were in the grand orchestra of human existence, and the beauty of the journey. 

Ultimately, it was the false expectations after Freerider that gave me the sobering view of my stressful life. I wanted someone to tell me I was awesome and worthy, to hold me close and let me know I was just doing fine. I wanted respect from our community. I wanted validation because I deemed myself unworthy of love, incapable of making decisions, and I had lost my own self-respect. I was seeking outside of me instead of within.

I gave Freerider a tall order. I asked the mountain to fix me, repair and consolidate my fragments, round out the edges, and sculpt me into that shiny Alix I envied, the one that didn't exist.

The anticlimactic ending to my dream, though hard to swallow, was the gift of reflection.

Freerider wasn’t life-changing. Climbing has never been the cure. It is the path we chose to walk for self-exploration and truth-seeking.

Climbing is the medium, the practice in which we chose to interact with the world. It's my form of introspection and these completed dreams are but a part of journey.

***

I lay quietly on my thermarest in a crumbling shack on a Spanish hillside. The floor was earthy, made of clay and fractured. Animal feces, dirt, and broken debris coated the floor. A bird flew by to its nest above me. I took a painkiller that evening because of an all-consuming toothache. It often knocks one out, but I couldn't sleep. I was up, fervently writing about my experience with Freerider.

My humble home in El Chorro

Why do I climb? Why do any of us climb? I wrote.

A physical pursuit. A social outing to complement a person’s busy life. For me, it began with pure joy and adventure. Simple. I love Freerider and the Salathe Wall - it's chimneys and offwidths, massive ledges, clean rock, movement, exposure. I am obsessed. But if it were all fun, it would lack substance. Climbing continues to evolve into a spiritual practice and Freerider served as a catalyst for deep reflection and refocus. Painful and dark as it was, I became hopeful and more kind to myself. It gave me tools to soften the turbulence of life, to come back to presence and ignite the connection between body, mind, and nature - the interconnectedness of life.

My home for a month! Love the Spanish countryside

Next to the shack is a wide, flat patch of burned grass, a clearing in the bushes and trees. Vultures swarmed overhead on the hunt for fresh meat. The birds sang their own song. Men and woman glided through the sky above. It was idyllic. Behind me were two limestone outcrops a pitch in height. I lay there naked, hands and feet rooted in the Earth, watching the bubbling life in front of me unfold. My heart sang with the birds. I was present.