"Just put your junk in and hit cruise control" Or: Don't stop to help gumbies.

The quote in the title is from someone who was giving a climber beta on how to climb the offwidths on Freerider.  As with any good quote, its utility extends beyond the original context.

So I had a bit of an adventure on Saturday night.  Joe wanted to climb Astroman, and wanted to climb it with me because apparently I'm good support (who'dve thought?). We were going to meet at Curry between 9 and 930, but got a late start.  I think we probably made it to the base around 11, and started climbing around 1130.  No matter, the Enduro-corner is just going into the shade around then, with the rest of the route following.  It was a pretty hot day, so starting late was the way to go.

The climbing went well, we linked 1 and 2, 3 and the enduro-corner, 5 and 6.  Joe crushed the Harding Slot; it was very unexciting.  I even climbed into the slot for the first time.  I used Alex's official sanctioned beta and all of a sudden I was like "huh, I'm in the slot. crazy".  However the slot proved a bit too physical so I took and then sort of climbed the outside.  Whatever.  

The rest of the climb went well, we cruised and Joe onsighted every pitch.  We topped out around 730 probably, maybe earlier, and we were like "wow, what a great day!  I think we might even make it to the pizza deck!  We had some water left over, I knew where the gully to go down was...totally cruiser.

Until we were halfway (or maybe not quite half way? It's difficult to say how far we made it given what happened next).  We came upon a couple in the dark who were hunkered down next to a boulder.  Apparently they'd started up Royal Arches at 6:30am and were now be-nighted on the descent.  They had no headlamps, and it was her first rock climb so she was in full panic mode.  They were going to sleep there because she wouldn't move anymore, but they saw our headlamps and the guy (Jason from Bakersfield- sorry, but I'm going to call out this douche-bag) decided that maybe we could help them get down.  I'm so sure that he was trying to impress her by taking her on a rock climb.  FAIL! Joe mentioned later "I'm going to be so bitter if that guy gets laid".

Um...ok.  It shouldn't be too hard to help them down, we have 2 headlamps, there is a trail and if you can see it, no problem.

Well, the girl (Ellen from Sweden) but-scooted and crab-walked the whole way down, moaning and whimpering the whole time ("I'm so scared, I'm going to die").  It was okay at first. I was emotional support and Joe was finding the trail, Jason was shutting the fuck up, which was appropriate I thought.  I felt pretty good about helping them out, honestly.  They were going to spend a miserable night up there.  It's just that it took for fucking ever.  At one point Jason put in a piece of gear so that Ellen could use it because she wouldn't go any further.  Really, she was largely incapacitated by fear.  I understand where Ellen was coming from. It wasn't her fault - I'd be scared shitless if some loser took me on my first rock climb and fucked it all up.  I love his excuse: some other parties slowed us down.  HA!  Royal Arches is probably the most popular solo in the valley - meaning that there are plenty of opportunities to pass.  He should have just said "I suck" and it would have made more sense.

At one point when we were waiting for them to catch up I turned to Joe and said "My soul is dying right now because we aren't walking on this BOMBER TRAIL."  We are just WAITING!!  Just sitting there waiting for them!  Joe and I kept looking at each other saying "should we leave them? Would we be bad people?  They have my headlamp, we can leave right?" 

And anyone who's ever climbed knows that when you are done, all you want to do is get down, get your shit, eat, drink beer and go to sleep.  To be stalled that much, with a panicked girl and a douche-bag, made my soul hurt.

We eventually left them with a headlamp to follow us at our pace, but we ended up not finding the packs.  I wanted to talus-hop and get to our packs, but Joe didn't want to without two headlamps.  In hindsight I think we should have gone for it, but when you are tired, hungry, cranky and all the rest of it, the thought of wandering around the talus is pretty uninspiring.  

So we went down to the base (somehow we ended up on the horse trail), and looked for the trail back up to Astroman so Joe could go alone and get the packs, but it was hard to find in the dark and we settled on going back to Curry to get Joe's hide-a-key, which may or may not be still attached to his car.  I have to mention here that my cart key was in my pack, and Joe's wallet and car key were locked in my car.  Also locked in my car: food, beer, therma-rest, sleeping bag, wallet, phone, down coat, etc.) 

Some random guy we passed was like "you're just now getting down?" and I said "yeah, BUT WE RESCUED PEOPLE!"  You gotta do what you gotta do to preserve the fragile ego.

I reckon we got back to Curry around midnight, complete with a little river-crossing.  The key was there, but since it was a copy it set off the security system every time the door was opened. At least the alarm would stop after a few honks if you shut the door.  So naturally rangers would come by and we'd have to recount the night to them.  The first ranger asked where we were sleeping tonight.  I thought that maybe I could crash Dan's tent, Joe knew which site he was in.  Joe was going to sleep in his car in curry, and we prayed that he would not get hassled by the rangers as he attempted to sleep.

Still the hero, Joe cooked dinner and gave me his down coat, sleeping pad and sleeping bag.  Getting all that crap out required opening the car door, which prompted another ranger siting. She asked "what's going on here?"  Joe and I looked at each other.  We told the short version, naturally mentioned that we'd rescued people, and I asked "can you please give me a ride to Camp 4?"  She paused a minute "ok."  So I hopped in, forgetting to give Joe his down coat back. 

I have to say we weren't thinking on point.  So I start babbling to this ranger, it's probably 1am by now, and I mention that I know some bear rangers, Justin, etc, that my experience with her is the only good ranger experience I've had, that I got busted for camping out of bounds outside of Justin's house.  She says "oh that was you?" and then "oh, you probably know my boyfriend, Ryan Leahy?"  "YEAH!  That was one of the options I was going through when I was trying to figure out where I was going to stay tonight!!  I don't know him that well, but I was going to knock on his door and say 'can I sleep here tonight?'"  She responds "well what are you going to do instead?"  I say "I was just going to wander around Camp 4 looking at tent tags to try to find Dan's tent and then crawl in and say 'I'm sleeping here tonight'".  She says "oh you can stay at our house, he moved so you would've ended up knocking on someone else's door anyway."

What a lifesaver.  Jen (her name) took me to her house and showed me the guest room (and her guinea pigs, which she generously offered to let me play with).  I even showered!  Woke up around 8:30, took the bus to the cafeteria with all of Joe's sleeping stuff in my arms, wandered in to the caf wild - eyed looking for the SF crew.  Patti, Tim, Mary-Kate, Paul, Lyn, Becky, Ryan Moon and others were there.  I dropped the sleeping shit on the floor and asked "can someone buy me breakfast please?"  Patti gave me 10 bucks, I bought the El Cap breakfast and slandered about what had happened the night before.  

Still the hero, Joe went up in the morning and got our packs, came by the caf and picked me up to take me to my car.  We ended up in the orchard shit-talking around the bear boxes.  James came by, this guy Nick who'd just done Freerider was there, the dirty bird came by.  Beers were drunk, cookies were eaten.  Joe got lunch for being such a gentleman.  Apparently Joe spent a cold night in his car, was dehydrated but didn't want to get out of the car to get water lest he alert the rangers with his security system, and spilled beer all over himself.  However he did NOT get woken up by rangers, and that is a very good thing.  They probably would have ticketed him for out-of-bounds camping, even though we had an epic night, rescued people, and he couldn't have moved his car because the hide-a-key wouldn't start the engine.  

Joe ran into the couple in the morning, and they graciously returned my headlamp (side note: it's Drew's headlamp), and sort of said thank you.  chumps.  We ran into the guy again later and he gave Joe half a box of Teddy Grahams as a thank you.  I think that Joe said it best when he said "that guy is a fuck-ass."

I was telling Alex the story and after I finished he said "so basically Joe got fucked."  I paused..."yeah, he did."

Upon telling James the story, James said "at least you were with Joe and he gave you a sleeping bag and stuff.  I would have been like 'sorry Mandi'".

So this post is dedicated to Joe "The Crusher", aka "hot guy".