Page 131 of Valley Girls
—Josie McKee, YOSAR veteran, wilderness medicine and rescue
instructor, alpine and big wall speed climber. McKee climbed
The Nose solo in 23.5 hours, seven Yosemite big walls in
seven days, and holds five Yosemite big wall speed records.
Thirty Nine
Rilla stood at the bottom in the dark, her borrowed jacket zipped to her ears as a light breeze touched her face, and the black oaks quivered behind her. The ground that El Capitan rose from felt alive, with a beating heart deep down in its granite belly that thundered through her feet and pulsed in her ears. The stars were still out. The moon was waning and blue.
It felt like she’d come full circle. She lifted her hands and began.
They climbed, the first two hundred feet un-roped. Familiar from the many treks to haul the gear they’d need and stash it farther up the climb. The wind picked up and the sky lightened to purple. It was easy scrambling, but the higher Rilla went, the more aware she became of the trees, and the sky, and the start of the biggest thing she’d ever done.
They began up some crumbly rock, into a wide corner crack. The climbing wasn’t hard, and feeling well, they climbed easily in a quiet rhythm. At the top, they set up the anchors on the bolts.
Rilla led the next pitch, into a left corner, using a little tri-cam to slip into the crack, double back a piece of webbing, and clip herself it. The movement felt easy and fluid, and it filled her with confidence—almost as if she just watched herself do something she’d never expected. She swung over to another crack, moving up to the bolts.
As the sun rose bright and clear, they reached Sickle Ledge, where they had stashed their haul bags—thepig, Adeena grunted, lifting hers. The wind whipped against their skin, and the sun was so bright off the white granite she squinted even behind her sunglasses. After hauling everything to the ledge and making sure anchors were secure and untangled, they sat three across, legs sprawled on the thigh-wide ledge, and dug through the bag for food. Rilla chewed on a few pieces of jerky and a nutrition bar. After some water and waiting to let another group get off the ledge as they hauled things for their climb the next day, they stood and began to push on toward their first night bivy.
On the next pitch, a burst of wind caught the rope at the end, yanking it toward the flake.
“Nooooooo!” Adeena yelled.
“I got it.” Rilla yanked harder. The rope pulled up just before catching.
“Crisis averted,” Petra called.
The climbing was easy. The sunshine was hot and the wind cool. They pushed on at a pace that made Rilla feel like there would be no way they’d spend four days on this rock—half of it was already done?Rilla kept tipping her head and trying to match it to the route map, but she felt sure they were way ahead.
“The Nose,” she scoffed. “The Nose is going down.”
The Nose was going down. Until it was time to haul the pig—the huge bags lashed to the rope that carried all their food, gear, and water—up to them at the top of the pitch.
Goddamn it, why had she thought they would go fast? Sweat drenched her shirt and the sun broiled her shoulders, and her lips and mouth became so dry from the wind she kept sucking down water, which made her have to stop and pee, and then wind caught her pee and splashed it on her hand and ...
“Goddamn it,” Rilla snapped when the pig got caught again as she hauled it up. Hauling required her to pull and walk a length of rope down the wall, and then, holding the tension, slide the ascender back up. It was a constant fight. Her fingers were continually in danger of getting smashed into the gear on the up, and her thighs and stomach straining to pull down. Impossible when the bag got stuck. She leaned down and wiggled the line.
“It’s your lead,” Petra called.
And just like always, it switched back to being glorious.
Rilla led. Then Adeena. Then back to Petra for the pendulum over to the start of the Stovelegs. Rilla’s neck ached as she watched Petra lower out. “Why is it called Stovelegs?” she asked Adeena, eyeing the long, straight crack of pitch seven, eight, and nine-ish.
Adeena adjusted her sunglasses. “Before this was first climbed, a climber—working on the route with Warren Harding—went to a scrap yard to find something he could use for protection in the cracks. This was the fifties, so there wasn’t much. He found some legs from, like, a woodstove, and shaped them into a piton that would fit this crack and be easy to carry. It’s been the Stoveleg crack ever since.”
“Lower me,” Petra yelled.
Rilla shifted the hard candy in her mouth, trying to rewet it. The afternoon light waned. Hopefully Petra would be quick on lead. She tipped her chin again, shoulders screaming from the hauling and the sun.
Petra’s long legs furiously pumped against the rock, the gear clinking and her silhouette against the sky. She swung, hopped over the rise, and reached.
“Got it,” she called.
Rilla exhaled and peeled a clementine she’d meant to save for farther up. “I’m just going to eat all the food now, so I don’t have to haul it,” she said to Adeena.
Adeena laughed while she kept feeding out rope for Petra in the Stovelegs.
