Wyoming Weekend
DEVIL’S TOWER
“Are rattlesnakes nocturnal?” I shouted up into the darkness. The reply was muffled by the sound of thunder.
I had about 60 feet further to rappel and I hoped that I touched ground before I ran out of rope. Daylight had run out an hour ago.
Bill and Dan were waiting until I was down – then it would be their turn to descend. I felt the first raindrops hitting my neck. the storm had been rolling in for about two hours. I got the feeling that all hell was about to break loose.
Dan came into “The Garwood” with a grin on his face. Bill and I had just finished lunch.
“Ever seen Devil’s Tower?”, he smirked. The folder under his arm told me that if I hadn’t seen it, I was about to.
“Just in ‘Close Encounters'”
He didn’t hear the reply and started pulling out pictures of the tower. It was an awesome piece of rock rising 1200 feet above the valley floor. Most mountains have an ‘easier’ gentler slope, but not the tower. It was vertical on all sides. We all laughed at the proposition of climbing something 800 miles away.
At the border, the customs official looked puzzled: “You boys are going WHERE for the weekend?”
Friday evening came and we were on our way. It seemed the further south we got, the worse the coffee tasted.
Saturday afternoon we pulled into “Devil’s Tower National Monument”. There it stood, looking even more impossible than in the photos. The fact that none of us had slept all night during the drive probably made it look worse. We decided that after a good night of sleep, we would tackle it on Sunday. We were registering at the park office when we heard the weather forecast: rain for the next 24 hours.
That figures – take one weekend in the year to go on a trip and it rains. It was 3:00 p.m. and time to get into a heavy decision-making session. If it rains, we may as well go home. Better to have given it an attempt in the tired state we were than not to try at all.
We spent about 20 minutes gearing up and were soon on our way.
“On belay!”, Bill shouted, and I began the first pitch.
I was thankful to start climbing because the route went up around a corner and out of the blazing sun. I anchored at the top of the first pitch and began hauling the packs. They were crammed with essentials such as Mars bars, cameras, rain jackets and water. Bill climbed next. Then Dan brought up the rear and removed any of the equipment I had placed to safeguard our ascent.
We were moving well. About 400 feet up the climb we heard voices from below, cheering other parties of climbers who had ‘topped out’. Climbers were rappelling down past us. Most of the teams that had started at a respectable hour were already back at camp with Mssrs. Bud and Weiser.
The sun continued to bake us and at the top of the third pitch our water was gone.
As we gathered at the top of the final pitch, we realized that the cheering ground parties had gained their senses and gone back to camp. Gone too was ol’ sol and our curses were now directed at the cool evening air. The distant flashing of lightning was not so distant when we came to the final problem – the “jump traverse”. We had heard about “the jump” from other climbers who had described it as a psychologically challenging move. Getting past the jump simply meant jumping from one rock ledge to another – a simple task at ground level. But there was 800 feet of air if you missed. Once again I drew the short straw and leaped. Then came the packs. Then came Bill. Then came Dan in the order that had been routine so many pitches before.
We could smell the rain.
An easy scramble put us on the summit. The glow of campfires in the distance left us in envy of the early starters. Dan ceremoniously pulled the hidden Coors from the bottom of Bill’s pack while I signed the summit register. Bill was too tired to complain.
The top of the rappel route was well marked with a cairn and we soon had the ropes ready to go. I would rappel first. I tied a huge knot in the end of the rope so I wouldn’t slide off the end. I wasn’t that anxious to get to camp. About 150 feet down I was at the jump where I waited on the tiny ledge. Now it was pitch black. I heard the clanking of equipment as someone else started down towards me. Then I heard the clatter of stones.
“Rock!”
Great. There was rubble headed my way. I squeezed myself tight against the cliff face and tried desperately to make my head thin. Rocks always sound closer than they really are when they’re coming at you.
Dan and Bill made it safely to the ledge where we set up another anchor.
“I wonder how big those rattlers are?”, Bill asked no one in particular.
“What rattlers?”
“The ones that the park rangers were talking about.”
“Let’s just get down.”
We managed to finish the next three rappels in spite of the blackness and were on a giant ledge when we saw lights coming to the bottom of our route.
“You the guys from Winnipeg?”
“Yup.”
“You O.K.?”
“Yup.”
So we continued in the darkness; it wasn’t the first crazy thing we’d done, and probably wouldn’t be the last.
But I should have asked that guy about the snakes.