"I'm OK!"

The most adventurous day of my life

During a recent trip back East, I had a chance to reminisce with several of my old climbing buddies about our halcyon days in the mountains. Those were some good times.

I spent two decades as a rock climber. I owe a lot to that activity. The discipline I learned from training to climb paved the way for a career in physics. I'd have never made it through grad school without knowing that you can make it farther than you think in tough going if you just put your head down and keep moving.

Some of our tales from those days are pretty good. One of them dovetails with a question that I get a lot from friends who know something about my history. “What do you think about the film, 'Free Solo'?”

I happen to have climbed several routes on El Cap (the location of "Free Solo") most notably the Nose Route back in 1984 with one of my oldest friends, Larry Day. We had a blast. The Nose was literally the first thing I climbed after getting out of the hospital where I was recovering from injuries sustained, wait for it, free soloing a route in Red River Gorge Kentucky.

During that time, I visited Yosemite regularly and at one point found myself on a route known as The East Buttress of Middle Cathedral Rock — a Valley classic.

Even by the standards of the day, the East Buttress was not overly difficult but for a brief crux. My buddy Grant and I decided to solo up to the crux pitch, rope up for it and then solo the rest of the route. We anticipated that it would take about 90 minutes for the 1,200-foot climb.

These days, with the crowds of climbers on all popular Valley routes, you'd get in line for this. But those were different times. When we rolled our of our sleeping bags and up to the base of the route at the crack of 10 a.m., we unexpectedly found a party of four roping up for the first pitch — a scramble up easy slabs. This did not portend well for the future.

Back then, it was considered the height of poor manners to climb past someone without permission — no matter how much faster you were than they were. We asked, they declined, so we waited.

After spotting them 90 minutes, Grant and I climbed 500 feet up to the crux without a rope. Climbers have been free-soloing routes for a long time before “Free Solo.” The reason that you haven't heard much about them is involuntary early retirement. You have to take some incredible risks and then live long enough to get famous free soloing. This rarely works out.

High up on the wall, I stopped to appreciate the view and while I was looking around several bees crawled out of the crack I was using for purchase onto my forearm. It was in that moment that it occurred to me how hard of a time I'd have explaining how I managed to throw my life away by taking an already risky activity — rock climbing — and upping the ante by doing it without ropes.

We caught up with the group in front of us again and nothing would convince them to allow us to pass.

Because the weather was good and we knew that we could do the route quickly, we hadn't brought with us much in the line of gear for a night out. We managed to extract one concession from the party in front of us — a promise to wait at the top of the route so that we could negotiate the tricky and very dangerous descent together.

When we reached the top just a few minutes later, they were gone. Grant and I were left to negotiate the notorious “Kat Walk” ledge to the descent gully in gathering darkness sans headlamps.

The Kat Walk is less of a ledge and more of a series of dirt hummocks, that vibrate noticeably when you land on them, loosely attached to the cliff more than a thousand feet above the ground. In daylight, there's an optimal route that's marked and easy to follow. In darkness, all bets are off.

After nearly blowing the leap from one dirt hummock to another, we rummaged through our packs to see if either of us had any kind of emergency light. Between us we were able to tape together one working light from spare parts, which I taped to my forehead. It provided a feeble glow for only 20 seconds at a time, but it was enough to get us to the descent gully. I still have that light, held together with 35-year-old athletic tape.

We took hours to descend a thousand feet down the Spires gully. Normally there's enough starlight to see dimly at night in clear mountain air, but not way back in a narrow slot. There are supposed to be two rappels but we didn't find either of them — our light having given up many hours before.

Finally, around 4 a.m., we saw a car go by and ascertained that we were very close to the Valley floor. A bit later, we found what we thought was Terra firma — a large flat space in the trees. At least that's the way it looked illuminated with the glow from our Timex watches.

Grant and I drank the last of our water in a congratulatory gesture and started walking. He took two steps and disappeared with a loud whoosh. I was mortified. After a pause, from about 20 feet below, I heard, “I'm OK!”

It turns out that we were close to the bottom of the gully but not quite there. After climbing down to Grant and dusting him off, we hiked the short distance to the road.

It was then about 5 a.m. It was a 5-mile walk back to our camp. We were so happy to have made it to the Valley floor that despite being hungry, thirsty and dead tired it was all good.

A few minutes later, a car approached. Your odds of getting a ride from anyone when you are a Valley climber are low at 5 a.m. So when the car pulled up and stopped we didn't know what to expect. But the last thing we expected was for someone to say, “Grant, Martin — is that you?”

It turns out that a friend of ours in Denver learned through the grapevine that we were in the Valley. He'd hopped on a flight after work, rented a car in the Bay area and drove straight to Yosemite where he was planning on finding us in the climbers camp that morning.

After a nap, we looked around for the group who'd left us in a lurch. They'd have had some 'splaining to do if we'd found them.

That was probably my best day ever as a climber and all these years later I still remember it well. I remember the smells in the air, the rough texture of cold granite in the middle of the night, the chill in the air. But more than anything else, I remember what if felt like to walk up to a big, intimidating granite wall and not be afraid of what was up there.

The fact that we took off unprepared for anything other than a short romp on a sunny fall day was probably a bit foolish, but spoke more to our confidence than anything else.

Everyone should get to feel like they are 10 feet tall and invincible at least once, even if just for a little while. It’s more, in my view, than just a privilege of youth - it’s an indispensable element in a full and happy life.

If you live through it.