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| My team (Levi, Romi, Jemmy) resting at the ridge of Carstensz Pyramid (2011) |
It was
good that we started late, around 3 a.m. instead of 1 a.m. It was miserably
cold and wet out there. Being cold was one thing, being cold and wet was
another. The latter was worse!
It was
still dark when we started climbing the wall. At night we only saw the
immediate area that we were tackling. If
I had seen the huge, endless vertical black wall towering over us, I’d have
mentally surrendered out of stress.
We
slowly, cautiously and meticulously moved up the wall, taking deliberate steps
or holds. The wet wall, constant rain and numbing cold made the climb harder
and trickier. After hours of laborious vertical climbing, I exited the couloir, a little vertical passage or
corridor in an otherwise smooth rock face. The next wall section was smoother
and didn’t have many good holds. I had reached the most difficult section of
Carstensz, the crux. If the wall and our
hands were dry and if we were using rock climbing shoes, the crux would’ve been
manageable.
I
climbed the flat wall’s first meter or so and found it challenging. I “read the
wall” and tried to find a good route while holding on for dear life, but I
couldn’t figure out my next move. My legs were tiring. Desperate, I decided to
rope climb by pulling the fixed rope with my wet gloves and moving up one or so
meters. There was more to go,
and the giant wall didn’t seem friendly.
I
realized that what I had done was stupid. One mistake and I could’ve slipped
and fallen to the last anchor point, or worse, down the entire length of this
thousand foot wall! I aimed to climb the Seven Summits, not die in one of them!
I
looked up and calculated that I’d be out of the crux after a few more meters of
hard climbing. A few more after that and I’d be at the summit ridge.
With a
failing safety device and challenging rock wall ahead of me, my next wrong move
could be my last. Rope climbing was out of the question. I came up with
alternatives while trying to keep my balance on tiny foot and hand holds. Levi
was below me, figuring out what I was up to.
I
pulled out a thin flat web
loop and thought that a prussic knot was better than my failing Jumar. I wrapped around my string around the rope
three times and tied the end of my prussic knot to my second karabiner that was
attached to my harness.
I
pushed and pulled the knot through the rope to remove small particles of ice
and get a good grip. I moved the knot to a maximum distance forward, prayed,
then resumed climbing upwards. I relaxed my weight on the rope. The knot locked
and held! Yes!
This
technique was safer than my Jumar.
I finished the section with that prussic knot in place until I reached the top
of the summit ridge.
Soon
Levi followed and reached the top of the ridge. He solved the crux puzzle
challenge on the way up, but it was easier for him. We rested before resuming
the walk to the exposed ridge.
Visibility was a few meters. I could see the silhouettes of the next
higher sections of the ridge.
Along
this route, we had to pass through three gaps. The ridge wasn’t a continuous
walk the way some gums had very long sharp teeth. Some sections had a missing
tooth. Managing a gap was something I’d not done in my life. It reminded me of
images that I saw in climbing magazines but never seen for real or tackled
first hand. There was a 15-ft gap and in between and a little low was a small
protrusion of rock wide enough to rest your butt on. At about 14,000 ft of
altitude, there was an abyss below.
I took
an attitude of bahala na while executing the jump. I
had to trust that those remaining ropes were still okay. I clipped on to one,
then jumped towards the small rock.
The timing was right, the rappel device locked so I wouldn’t go over the small
life-saving rock. This small rock protrusion was barely four square feet of
semi-flat resting space! My precarious landing was spot on. I took a good
breath, momentarily reflected on my life, on my sins and my possible spiritual
destination, then jumped again, trying to catch a good hold of the other side
of the ridge, while pushing up and locking my Jumar ascender to prevent a fall.
I felt like the stunt double of Sylvester Stallone in his movie Cliffhanger.
The
longest gap was still to come at 50 feet. Read again: 50 freakin’ feet! That was way too wide. Over the years,
climbers and operators in Carstensz realized that it was better to put cables
and ropes to simplify the traverse instead of rappelling down and climbing up
the other side of the gap.
When
we got there, there were
five inches of solid ice dangling on all the ropes and the main metal cable.
Jemmy almost aborted our climb. In his eight years of guiding, he hadn’t seen
ice that thick on the ropes. At first I didn’t understand when he said, “Going
back.” I thought he meant that we had to come down after the summit. He
considered going down from that point. I might have pushed him over the cliff
if the message was clearer.
He
prepared for a traverse, clipping his cow tails or safety line with karabiners
into the parallel ropes. Then he clipped his harness-attached pulley on the
main metal cable. He seemed to hesitate. Maybe he was saying a prayer. He suddenly
jumped and started his traverse. He violently pulled his cow tails to remove
all the dangling ice. He was partially successful. When he got to the third of
the section, he stopped, hooked his arm on one rope to rest and started panting
hard. I thought it was a funny scene, not realizing that what he had done was hard. Levi and I
observed, partly awed, partly anxious. We captured Jemmy’s moment on video.
Levi shouted, “Go, Jemmy, kaya mo yan!”
I
couldn’t recall how much time Jemmy took to cross. It was at least
15-20minutes. I had done this type of traverse, normally called Tyrolean, many
times in local adventure racing and knew that I could cover a 50-ft gap in
maybe a minute. Two minutes at most. It worried me to see a strong guide
suffering in this traverse and taking a longer time to do it.
My
turn came. My technique to avoid fear of heights was to not to look down and
focus on the rope works. I’d have time to look down after! The going was super
tough. The remaining few inches of ice on the ropes prevented me from hauling
myself properly. I couldn’t remember that a Tyrolean Traverse was like an
injured monkey’s crawl. It was a slow rope crawl with the added challenge of
iced ropes as stoppers. Like Jemmy, I rested by hooking my arm on safety ropes
so I could somehow pull myself into upright position, except that I rested too
frequently. Rope traversing upside down with a pack, with ice stoppers on your
supposedly smooth rope, at an altitude of 14,000 ft wasn’t easy as I thought.
Finally,
I reached the end of the gap, panting like hell. I thought, “Wow! I didn’t
die!” Any rope traverse that I had ever
done in my life paled in comparison with what I just did!
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