Adventure Magazine

The author and Tim Cziommer in Yosemite Valley, California, in front of the famous El Cap.
"You never truly know what you’re
capable of until you try something
that you think is beyond you."
The corner continued steeply above, with beautiful finger
jams. After 20m or so, the crack morphed into a horizontal
rail, and then moved back into a fists-corner. I climbed
higher, wary of the few pieces of protection I had left.
On the face to the right of the corner, I spied a feature
that was scarred by the familiar black rubber of climbing
shoes. Gingerly, curiously, I placed a foot into the feature,
and reached blindly with my hand into … a perfect hand
jam. I pulled over and, looking up, was confronted by a
view of a magnificent hand crack.
This time, with more moderate climbing, I could inhale
the exposure and the glorious setting, chopping my
hands into the crack all the way to the top of the fabulous
55m-long pitch, relishing every move. These are the
climbing moments that linger long after we’ve untied from
the rope and are unwinding by a campfire.
Two further pitches remained, including the overhanging
splitter crack which was supposedly much harder than
anything we had climbed up to this point. But evening was
approaching, and Yuki had plans to do a classic big wall
climb the following day. We rappelled down.
Despite not topping out, a quiet euphoria settled as we
traversed the glacier back to camp. I had free-climbed
harder than I ever had in the mountains, and had climbed
a striking feature that had been lingering in my memory
for years. It had been some of the best pitches of climbing
I’d ever had the privilege of gracing.
As I walked out of the Bugaboos the following day, the
sun warming my stride as I turned my back on those
divine spires, I contemplated the harder, longer lines
I'd tried in the Darrans, in Yosemite, in Zion and in the
Bugaboos. I still have great fun on sport climbs, but The
Power of Lard reinforced my love of longer routes in a
grander, alpine setting.
And striving for the send had also taught me another
lesson, one that alpinists allude to when they talk about
coming face to face with their true selves when pushed
to the point of breaking: You never truly know what you’re
capable of until you try something that you think is beyond
you.
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