Imagine you were a sax player. You’ve played for years and are passionate about it, its a part of you. Now imagine you got to jam with John Coltrane in a New York club he had never played in before. How cool would that be! Or imagine as a wedding photographer you got to hang out and spend a day shooting with Denis Reggie at a top drawer location. That’d be amazing!
As a Sierra Mountaineer Doug Robinson is a living legend, and last Sunday he accompanied modern Yosemite and Sierra visionary first ascentionist Sean Jones, freshly infatuated with climbing and on his first peak climb Graham Hunt, and myself on a wondrous adventure on Mt Emerson, surprisingly a mountain Doug had never climber before. After more than 50 years of climbing in the Sierra, there’s not so many mountains left that haven’t been graced by Doug’s cheery presence. It was an incredible crew we had and the love and excitement was contagious. They call Doug the father of clean climbing and he’s a natural born storyteller, being one of the most respected and revered authors in the outdoor world. He has so graciously taken time to write a guest blog recounting our adventure. Hope you enjoy!
Mt. Emerson and the Long Now
Guest Blog from Doug Robinson
“I hate rock climbing!…” Sean Jones was spouting off again. One of the
things I love about him, he just lets it fly. And he had good reason: the
Tuolumne stone in his grasp was pretty intractable. Flat unclimbable for
most of us. Sean powered up the workable pieces, Shawn Reeder got the shots
that stunned us later, and we bailed for Bishop.
There, of course, we eagerly sought out more rock climbing to hate. Straight
out to the Buttermilk for the evening glass-off, moonrise, and cracking open
the cooler in deepening twilight under the Iron Man Traverse.
The next day — this is the golden day I need to tell you about. Mt.
Emerson, South Face, over 2000 feet of stellar, solid granite. There are
four of us: Sean and me and Shawn Reeder and our young friend Graham, just
bursting with the discovery of his first year of climbing. Three
generations, solid.
A short chimney gains entry to inviting slabs. The slabs sport a scattering
of holds stretched upward, on and on. Soloable, yes, but don’t fall. We need
not bear down too hard, the climbing flows. But don’t ever for one second
lose attention. This stretches out to hours. Options tempt us back and forth
on a broad expanse of possibility. I think of John Gill and his practice of
“option soloing.” Maybe I’ll try that crack. Oh, check this mantle. Four of
us, each in his cocoon of focus, weaving upward.
This is the magic. Focus and flow welded together into that alchemy that
makes climbing so special and so sweet and way before the summit brings us
riding a long rush of positive power, amped perceptiosns and overflowing
vibe. We gush words that are more honest and tender than we can manage on
the flatlands, words I won’t repeat here ‘cuz their tone doesn’t quite
translate to this, uh…flat screen. Just say that the love flowed.
Later, ridge erupts out of the slab. A symmetrical tower, then sharpening to
knife-edge. Hand traverse territory. Or a few steps upstanding in balance on
the razor’s edge. A last cleaver becomes the summit. We’re almost surprised.
Above 13,000 feet. It’s almost dark. Still, we linger on the view, and the
summit register: “I just came here for the sex.” Graham reads it out from
among the entries. This is his first mountain, first day of mountaineering
in a climbing trajectory that is blazing after a mere nine months. Hooked
bad, his stoke is firing all of us, three generations of addicts at play on
the fields of stone.
Darkness looms; long bounding strides down scree.
I shot my first wedding for the season tonight and it was amazing!!!!!! Somewhere over the rainbow. I’ll be posting about it soon. Hope you had a wonderful solstice. Welcome summer!!
