Been working on a TR for a while now, I want to make TRs that are more like creative nonfiction, something more like art and less like a retelling of events. Anywho, it takes a bit longer than I'd like (things would be so much better if I didn't have a job wasting all my time.)
Here's an excerpt of what I'm working on for my premeditated TR.
"Once I’m in the crack, protection works in almost a predictable cam, cam, nut pattern. My memory reminds me of an obvious behind-the-head-on-the-right-sidewall placement in a pocket that took me 20 minutes to find on my last attempt. My memory did not remind me of the aura of fractures extending out from that same pocket. Bodyweight bomber, but who knows for a lead fall. I decorate the cam with a yellow and green screamer and move on.
Climbing clean is always the intent. The main reason is to keep the rock in the same condition as you left it, very Boyscout motto-esque. The Pinnacles brings a different issue to the table. My very presence changes the route, mini gravitational pulls as I stand in my aiders rips the dust from the wall as I pass by. My finger placed into a horizontal crack to feel the inside walls makes the entire bottom of the crack fall down to the ground. What is left is a gaping mouth, mimicking my own as I halfheartedly yell “rock.”
Dixie had started out belaying from 20 feet away from the wall but gave up that position quickly once rocks started chasing her on the ricochet. From beneath an overhang at the base of the climb, she is protected as she stares away from the wall towards the saner routes on Machete Ridge and The Citadel
I wonder how much of me is here to climb the rock and how much of me is here to retrace the steps of those that came before me. Bridwell, Mucci, Mungeclimber, Brad Young, all climbers whose trip reports I have read over and over again. In the case of the Bird, reading books, articles, watching videos, and tracing my fingers over lines on topos like painted highway lines left behind for others to follow later.
This idea of history is turned on its head on this route. I attempt statistical equations in my head. What percent of the rock that falls to the floor is part of that highway touched and paved by those before me? To carve out a new placement with the barest touch of my finger can be seen as holistic retrobolting as the path that Bridwell made with tied off bongs and angles crumbles to dust and spreads out into the wind between my feet and the ground.
Aiding at the Pinnacles allows one to gain a first ascent with every step. Second ascents and all other ascents are made at the base of the climb as you step on the fallen past while flaking rope and preparing the rack."
