Light and Fast, Lost and Lonely, and Freezing

“I thought we were sport-climbing in the Dihedrals?” Steve asked as I heaved my bulging pack from the back of his shaggin wagon.

“Yeah, that’s right” I wrestled the haul bag onto my back, casually forgoing buckling straps or waist belts. He picked up his pack with one finger and deliberately adjusted it to his form.

I disapprovingly assessed his clothing. Hyper high tech undersized pants three inches too short, exposing critically technical approach shoes, tightly laced. On top he had some sort of wacky prototype R10.37 shiny shaggy fleecy thing stretched across his perfectly defined chest and biceps. I shook my head in mild disgust. How could he not know that hemp jeans, threadbare cotton tees and bikini tops were protocol? I scuffed down the trail in sloppy, unlaced sneakers checking my cell phone to see if I had any missed calls or texts.

At the base of the climb, I upended my pack and dumped half of its contents in the dirt. Quick draws, a Gri-gri, belay glove, harness, flip flops, beanie, shorts, wool cardigan, sun hat, sweat pants, ibuprofen, three types of lip balm, giant fake Gucci sunglasses, thermos, half eaten burrito, and four pairs of climbing shoes cascaded out of the big wall sized haul bag.

“Four pairs of shoes?” Steve yelped, uncontrollably astonished.

“Yee-ahh” I coolly responded. “One for warm-ups, a pair you are currently trying to break in, your red-point pair, and a prototype pair you are testing. (like, duh)

“Oh, I see” He said with mild, genuine interest.

Accommodating Steve’s alpine inclinations, I had planned on climbing a ‘long route’, a four pitch 5.11d (author’s note: Steve House CAN rock climb, very capably, in fact). The rack consisted of twelve quick draws. Call it a fluke, (I’m convinced the alpine Gods were smiling down on Steve) but by the time we reached the fourth pitch, weather had come in and we were in a full-blown storm. By Smith Rock standards that means flurries and twenty mile an hour wind.

We topped out and quickly began the rappels (two whole ones). We reached the ground and Steve systematically began coiling the rope and before I could point out that I had a rope bag, he had everything packed and was pointed in the direction of the trail out. “Steve, it’s snowing, I’m not going anywhere” I contently sat down under an overhang and pulled out of my pack a down coat, dark chocolate and two beers. Steve’s eyes widened.

“BEER!”

“It’s a long hike out” I explained.

“It’s seven minutes” he gestured toward the parking lot, his van visible.

“It’s uphill.” I protested.

He squeezed in next to me, out of the elements and accepted my beverage offering.

“Oooh, this is good”

“Told you” I said flatly and handed him chocolate. I noticed he was shivering and enviously eyeing my shroud of down.

“Rookie mistake, Steve” I said mercilessly.

“But it was seventy-two degrees, high pressure and sunny when we left the parking lot” he whined.

“Light and fast, fucked and freezing, lost and lonely” I preached and handed him the last beer.