Day 79: I did eventually reach the summit

Posted by: Cris

On an early early morning in August my feet left the ground as I started what would be the first of 4 days climbing El Capitan with 2 friends. After 1 day we had climbed about 1500 of the 3000 foot face and were dead tired as we settled down in our sleeping bags on a ledge. The ground had gotten really far away but the top hadn't gotten any closer. On day 2, we slugged through several hundred feet of difficult climbing and continued to make slow progress. By then, you couldn't really tell if the ground was getting any further away but as the climbing wore on and on, the disheartening thing was that the top still wasn't getting any closer. This is a common illusion in big wall climbing and is often the reason people bail out and retreat because they have worked really hard and are really worn out; running short on water and running short on courage they head back down because the top just isn't getting any closer.

For Emilie and I, it feels like we are in the middle of day 2 - it's already been a long, hard climb and we are already starting to get anxious to reach the top but the top is nowhere in sight and doesn't seem to be getting any closer. We both have had some discouraging moments in the last few days...especially since it now looks like Emilie's responsibilities will necessitate that she is one of the last few out when her unit's time is up which means it will be closer to May 1st than April 15th before she is home. So, 2 weeks doesn't seem that bad but when she comes back, she will be returning with that unit to Kentucky. But, when it looked like she would be back the middle of April, I was planning on making a long weekend trip to Kentucky to be able to see her then go back to Hawaii until the semester is over on May 13th. If she isn't even going to be back in Kentucky until the first days of May, then there's no reason for me to make the extra trip which means we're now likely looking at not seeing each other until May 14th - add a month to the total tally.

Low tide today must have been especially low because this is the first time I've seen the sandbar completely above the water this much - it was like a full-fledged beach.

Nova was checking the progress on the pineapples:

Cutest thing ever!!

When I came in from working outside today, the girls were in the bathtub. When I walked in the bathroom, Nova said "Hi prince!". Juneau was immediately worried "sissy, your not supposed to call daddy by his name". When I asked Juneau for clarification, she said "Nova said 'Hi Cris!'.

Grandma was a licensed beautician in the past so who better to be in charge of Juneau's hard to handle hair.

My little princess:

Four days after leaving the ground, I pulled over the edge and onto the low angle slab at the top of El Cap. I was tired beyond words, had lost 8 pounds in 4 days and couldn't believe how hard it had been but I was thrilled to have completed one of my lifelong goals. There had been times when the fatigue or the fear would make me start to doubt whether I'd make it but I would remember the advice I had read - "Look straight ahead and focus on the 3 feet of rock just above your head". And so, even though the top didn't seem like it would ever get close enough to reach, one pitch at a time, one foot at a time, we covered all 3000 and made it to the summit.

One day at a time, we'll get through this too...