Tackling The Tower

by Steve Gardiner

My shoulder muscles tensed as I leaned back to see around the two-foot overhang of rock. It was an awkward position made more difficult because I was 800 feet above the ground on the South Face of Devils Tower, America's first National Monument, in northeastern Wyoming. I slid my right foot higher in the four inch wide crack, turned it sideways and jammed the inside edge of my shoe against one side of the crack and forced the outside edge of my heel against the other. the friction of this twist held my foot in place. As I grabbed a small hand hold with my left hand, I straightened my right leg, lifting my body out and around the overhang.

My right foot slipped a fraction of an inch so I twisted it harder and pulled myself until my waist was level with the edge of the overhang. I held tight with both hands and raised my left knee, cramming it into the wide crack with my leg bent at a right angle. Once my knee was inside, I pulled my heel up toward the back of my leg, which squeezed the muscles of my calf and hamstring, causing the area around my knee to widen and jam tightly inside the crack. I let loose with both hands and dangled my arms, relaxing them after strenuous moves. I breathed deeply and knew I could get past the overhang because, with both hands free, I could place more anchors for the rope and climb safely in the crack above the overhang.

Frank Sanders and I had been climbing over three hours by the time I reached that overhang. We were trying a route that no one had ever climbed, a first ascent. We had already tried the lower part twice before and had failed because of spring snow storms. On this day, however, the sky was clear and we were excited. Frank had led the first pitch of climbing, looking as smooth as a gymnast doing a routine. I was 150 feet high and he had climbed with one hand and one foot inside the crack and the other hand and foot to the side using small ledges and bumps for holds. The soft rubber soles of his climbing shoes stuck solidly to the rock.

As he climbed, I slowly let out rope using a process called a "belay". He set anchors for protection in the crack and secured the rope to each one with an aluminum snap-link known as a carabiner. These allow the rope to run smoothly behind him, yet would attach the rope securely in the event of a fall. I controlled the rope and, if Frank fell, I would stop it, holding him near his last piece of protection.

I had caught many falling climbers before. Like ice skaters who push the limits of their abilities and end up sprawled on the ice, climbers who test themselves, occasionally fall. I is part of the sport and I had learned to trust the system. Frank had climbed up to a large belay ledge where he set a belay anchor. I climbed up the crack behind him, removing the anchors he had placed, while he belayed the rope above me. Each time I moved up, I could feel the gentle tug as Frank pulled in the slack.

Frank had made over 100 climbs on the Monument and had pioneered many new routes. He had taken me on my first Tower climb and had taught me how to safely set the anchors, use the rope and place my hands and feet in the many ways necessary for climbing on vertical rock. He had taken me out, weekend after weekend, choosing routes that would force me to use different techniques and challenge me with increasing difficulty. After a few months of this training, I was ready to climb with him on most of the routes on Devils Tower. That's when we started looking to create our own ways of getting to the top of what one magazine called "a rock seemingly built for rock climbing."

When I reached the ledge where Frank was sitting, we ate a small lunch. After I rested my arms and put two anchors above the overhang, I wrestled until I had my whole body above it. Although I couldn't remember it, I had scraped my knuckles on my left hand. I wiped the blood on the bottom of my T-shirt and climbed up and through a smaller, second overhang.

We climbed the easy section, to the summit, where we shook hands and cheered. Six hours after we started climbing, Frank wrote a description of our New Route in the summit register. We talked of our two failed attempts and how our determination had led to our success this time. We agreed- the name for this route was a natural - PERSISTENCE