Pitches 19 and 20, in the Gray Bands

Aaron led the next pitch, linking the second half of pitch 19 with pitch 20. This brought him to Camp IV, a small blocky ledge that had been one of the original encampments of Warren Harding's team on the first ascent. The pitch started with relatively easy traversing, but finished with some harder climbing, much of which Aaron free-climbed, which helped to speed things up. When he reached Camp IV, however, he realized that we had a new dilemma to deal with. Since we had linked this into one long pitch, and since most of it was horizontal, we would again have a very difficult time lowering out the pig. Furthermore, hauling up to Camp IV looked nasty.

Aaron studied the topo, and found the perfect solution. I would leave the pigs where they were and follow the pitch. He would then lead pitch 21, which traversed back to the right, leaving him almost directly above the pigs. I would partly follow the pitch, then rap back down to the pig, tie the haul line to it, and release it. I could then jumar back up to the end of pitch 21 as Aaron hauled. Another big wall puzzle solved.

This photo makes it clear why this section of the climb, roughly pitches 19 through 21, is known as “The Gray Bands”. But it is also intersting for another reason. I am on the far right side, standing above the pigs. Aaron is on the far left side, a little higher up, standing on a ledge (Camp IV). So you might be wondering who the person in the middle of the picture is. First, a little backstory.

When climbers need to bail off this route, they need to be able to rappel all the way back down to the ground. If the route went straight up and down, they could just rappel the whole route, using the bolted anchors at the end of each pitch. But because the route traverses back and forth so much, this isn't always possible. Thus, some nice guy many years ago installed additional bolted anchors in between some of the pitches, so that climbers could get from basically anywhere on the route all the way to the ground. The man in the middle of this picture is that same guy. I believe his name is Tom Rohrer. He apparently comes back every few years and inspects his anchors, and others along the route, and replaces old crappy bolts where necessary.

We had heard from someone on the ground that he was on the route, somewhere in the upper pitches. Aaron's mom and dad had spotted someone through the scope the previous day, and they figured it was him. All morning, we had heard clanking above us, growing ever closer. (Apparently he had an old bong piton tied to the end of one of his ropes, and it sounded like a cowbell as it bounced around against the wall.) As I followed this pitch, I went right by him, sharing a small ledge with him for a moment. I talked to him for only a minute, but long enough to determine that he seemed like a pretty crazy old dude. I did, however, tell him how much we appreciated the work he put in up there. I remember him saying at one point, “I'm gettin' too old for this shit. I'm 71 now.” Wow.