Lander Wyoming, yea, I’ve heard about this place for some time now. How far? Kelly says, “seven hours”. We decide to shoot out there in a rash decision. It’s 9 o’clock at night and we’re in the western part of South Dakota. July is coming to an end and we both were intrigued by the International Climbers Festival flyer. A piece of propaganda promising free beer, climbing competitions like “table bouldering” and “hand jam pull-ups”. Steep pocketed climbing on white limestone at a cool 9,000 feet elevation also did not sound so bad. We are in the dog days of summer.
A text comes in, Abraham is coming up from Texas! Not only is he going to be at the festival, he mentions the “Rock Rodeo”. The “Rodeo” starts in the morning with a shotgun blast. That’s when all the two person teams signed up for this torture-fest start running from the starting line high atop a Wyoming meadow to the climbing crags nearby. You get 8 hours to lead 12 pitches from 7 “sectors” within the Wild Iris climbing area. Both partners lead 12 pitches, the hardest grade they can handle.
With four hours of sleep the night before, I was feeling wrecked. A quick breakfast with Abraham and we jumped on the bus that brought us into the high country half an hour away. On the drive up we poured over the guidebook, building a strategy. The comp. had more rules and bonuses than Monopoly. Strategy talk continued up to the destination. “Yeah that route looks good, but we can only score up to three routes in this sector, how about this area… We forgot about this area!” Some questionable gun handling skills from an official and the shotgun goes off. We’re running in the high meadow towards our first limestone wall a mile away.
The Rodeo
Today is NOT about winning the rope or gift certificate or whatever, it’s about how much of an ass kicking we can take…from ourselves. As we keep up the Oregon Trail’s “grueling” pace, I can’t help but smile. Lost, we’re lost 20 minutes in. An hour in we’ve managed to tick off a couple routes each, accidently climb on a much harder route and dial our system in. Not bad.
Half way through and Abraham is getting tested. The route, Pocket Hero, climbs beautifully. We discuss strategy, “you think you’re going back up for another go at it?” I ask not knowing exactly how pumped his forearms really are. “Yea, I’m going to try one more time” he states, desperation painted on his face. I watch from my belay stance as he cruises through the opening crux for the third time now, a high left foothold that doesn’t feel like it will stick as you pull down with tenuous handholds. The leftward traverse comes next, dancing your feet over to a final steep headwall.
Abraham launches up powerful moves between two and three finger pockets, his legs starting to shake. He pauses at an overhanging stance with 10 more feet left to the anchor, it is not a good place for resting. With the next bolt to clip three feet above his head, Abraham makes a decision to clip the rope. I feed out three feet of line, he takes it, I feed him the last two feet he needs.
As Abraham pulls the bite of rope to the apex of his reach, I brace myself. He’s off, flying through the air and Oh do we have a lot of rope out! I’m pulled off the ground by his counter mass, a nice 20 footer; clean, just how you want all your falls. I lower my defeated climber the rest of the way down, defeated on this route is all, we have the next route to climb ½ a mile down the gully.
We manage a few more good pitches, running between cliff bands, scoring routes, getting lost. A final push for that last sector sees us running ragged, after a final pitch, our scorecard is full. It was a 7 ½ mile day, 19 pitches climbed. We sample a few gourmet hors d’oeuvres at the finish-line tent. Two thoughts cross my mind. This was way better than sleeping in. Abraham’s been guiding hikes in the high New Mexico mountains all summer; dude can run like a cheetah up here.
