Heroes and California Ice

As we down climbed moderately technical terrain in the South Fork I casually mentioned to my much younger partner that Reinhold Messner preached the importance of being able to quickly descend technical terrain. The youth responded “who”? Thinking he obviously didn’t hear me I responded back “Messner”. With a blank look he asked “Who is that”? For a moment I thought he was joking then I quickly realized he had no idea who I was talking about. “You have never heard of Reinhold Messner? How about Buhl, Bonatti, Scott, you know Doug Scott, the Brit, the Ogre epic, Shishapangma South Face with MacIntyre and Baxter-Jones”? Nothing but a blank stare and a slight smile that said what the hell are you talking about.

I said nothing more about it, but I felt frustrated, these names represented to me not just men but ideals, dreams and inspiration.

One of the climber’s active today that I admire is the Swiss Alpinist Ueli Steck. Ueli is the fastest and boldest climber on the planet today. With solo speed records on the Eiger North Face, 3970m in 2:47; Grande Jorasses North Face, 4208m in 2:21; and Matterhorn North Face, 4477m in 1:56. I try to emulate the training Ueli does and what the others used to do, but honestly it’s hard, if not impossible. I read Ueli runs 3 hours a day. By my estimation that is close to a marathon every day and that is just his cardio work. What about his strength and climbing workouts? And Messner once said, “Every morning I run 1000 meters up hill on my toes and every afternoon I ski tour above 3000 meters. My doctor tells me everything that I put in my body, he says I am superman”. No shit your superman, but some of us have jobs.

This all brings me to a climb I did Friday morning called California Ice. I use the climb as a mental and fitness test to measure where I am in my training and to see if my training is working. The California Ice approach takes fast parties 2 hours and involves a lot of WI2 & 3. The fastest I had ever done the approach was last year with the physical mutant Stan Price, we did it in 1:45. Yesterday, I did the approach in 1:24 then soloed up and down the first pitch of the headwall, WI4. Then, down climbed all the WI 2 & 3 of the approach, about 2,400 ft., and made it back to the trailhead with a car to car time of just under 3 hours. It may pale in comparison to what a Ueli or Messner could do, but for me, a mere mortal, I was happy with the result. With more training I know I can do the entire climb to the plateau and down in a very fast time. However, nobody gives a damn what you can do, it only matters what you do.