RAINBOW WALL - PART 3
(Click HERE for Part 1)

Saturday, October 4th

Saturday morning, we were up and at 'em early. I think we were all psyched about getting to the top of this puppy and getting to one of the many buffets in town before dark. I lifted off the ground
on the 9th pitch around 7:30am. The initial part is fairly easy, but there wasn't any really decent place to put any gear in for the first 45 feet or so. A small pedestal thing sticks to the wall which is climbed to it's tip. From there, the climbing is supposed to be "5.7PG", but I wasn't in any hurry to try and free climb this section with tons of gear on me and only one lousy piece shoved behind a loose block between me and the ledge below. I went left, I went back, I went left, I went back. Finally, I just pulled out a hook and made a couple of half-free, half-aid moves across the section while adrenaline shot through me. Sheesh!!!

Once across that, I was on a little lower-angle rock leading up to a large right-facing corner tagged at "5.9 A1" in the topo. The first thing I noticed when I got to this thing was that it wasn't really a corner system at all, but a huge detached flake perched on the side of the rock, held by unknown forces. The whole thing reverberated with low echos when I smacked it with the heel of my hand before placing a cam behind it. Oh boy! I did a couple of jams under it, placing a #2 and #3 Camalot before it pinched down to a 1/2" crack and I was back on my aiders. It's always such a pain swapping back and forth between aid and free climbing. The flake thing went quickly and I back cleaned as much as I could. The rope drag was getting to be a pain and I could also see the small cams might come in handy above. I did a couple of free moves to the top of the flake and then tried to find a way to the right and up. The goal was to gain a left-facing corner system that led the last 45 feet to my belay spot, a large tree sticking sideways out of the corner. I finally settled on a tension move to the right and a really dicey mantle into the corner where I thought I was going to fall over backwards from the pull of the rope drag. I made this and then climbed the corner to the tree, one move at a time. I came across a fixed Lost Arrow in the corner and clipped it. Before using it, though, I gave it a pull and the thing was limp. I cleaned it with my fingers. The hammer was in the haulbag, so pounding it back in was out of the question.

Tim (L) and Bill (R) packing up on Over The Rainbow Ledge - day three.

           "TIM!!! STOP HAULING!! STOP!!! STOP!!"

This was probably as close as I have ever come to getting creamed on a climb. The block probably dressed out at a hundred pounds or more and would have done some serious damage. I wasn't even looking up for the most part. I just happened to glance up to see if the bag was making progress. Geeze! Tim had stopped hauling, so Bill quickly got his jumars on the rope and jugged up to the bag, which as far as we could tell, was holding the block in place for the moment. He carefully held the block and pushed the bag to the right while Tim hauled it up and out of the way. He said he didn't think the block would go if we didn't push it anymore, so he jugged up to a set of ledge above and set up an intermediate fixed anchor for me so I could get out from under the block. I jugged the 25 feet up to a ledge (where, incidentally, I would belay and haul from if I ever did this pitch again). The bag was moving up the corner above. At the top it got stuck, so Tim was working on wrestling it over the lip while Bill finished jugging to the ledge. Next thing I know, a football sized rock goes firing off (dislodged by the bag) and into the void. We all screamed "ROCK!!" for the guys below us. Luckily the rock shot off to the left and hit a ledge where it shattered into smaller pieces. I don't think any of the pieces were close to the party below us, but I'm sure we were immediately taken off their Christmas card list. Sheesh!!

I was able to jug up to the ledge while Bill started up what we hoped would be the last pitch of the day. This pitch gets a "5.5X" rating by Swain in the guidebook. Bill moved out on some ledges and then up a shallow left-facing corner, disappearing from view. The rope payed out steadily and Bill made the top without incident.

He was soon hauling the bag as I was traversing out to the right from the belay ledge, pushing my jumars ahead of me. For a while there, I thought the bag was going to knock me right off the wall when it straightened out to go up the wall, but Tim was able to hang onto it long enough to get it over my head. After looking this pitch over and talking to Bill, the rating for it would probably be more accurate at "R" instead of "X". Bill was able to get in a few decent piece of pro here and there during the length of the pitch. I ended up nursing the bag up the pitch as I jugged to the top of the wall. The uneven nature of the rock there means the bag gets hooked by one thing or another every five feet or so. When the bag and I arrived, I helped Bill fling it up over the last step and I was back on flat ground! We reached the summit about noon. Tim jugged the last few feet to the summit while I took photos of him from the rim. The belay on top was from a mostly crappy tree, a good #3 Camalot and a sorry #2 Camalot with a couple of backup small cams near the rim. Evidently, the #2 popped out while Bill was hauling the bag (and I was jugging). Youch!!!

Tim launches off on the second Swainbow pitch (our 10th).

Bill babysitting the haulbag up through the loose rock on pitch 10.

Bill shortly after reaching the summit.

Bill hanging out on the top watching Tim jug the last pitch to the summit.

We probably spent an hour at the top of the route, feeling good, congratulating ourselves, changing clothes, finishing off the water, and packing things up for the descent. We reread the descent info and started off for the "obvious red domes" to the southwest. We took an obvious descent line down easy slopes, but came up confused when we came to a rocky ridgeline. The way down to the north of this ridge looked to be the wrong direction, so we (remember, we've been on this for a couple of days, so were tired and somewhat slow at this point) went up and over and found white slabs leading down the other side of the ridge. "This must be it!!"

We headed down the steep slabs until we discovered, to our mass disappointment, that we were in a deadend situation. We did a few exploratory attempts at the bottom of the gully to see if we were just missing something, but in the end, we reluctantly decided we were going to have to slog back up the friggin' slabs. We were working solely from Todd Swain's short descent description from the guidebook, which stated it was only 30-40 minutes from the top of the route to the top of the Oak Creek drainage. Using that info, we decided there was no way the descent could be further out. Suffice to say, we took another deadend trip down the next gully back the wrong way. This time, Bill and Tim stayed near the top while I went far enough down the damn thing to determine that wasn't going to go either. "SHIT!" Back to the top.

Packing up on the summit before we start hiking out.

From this point, the descent was pretty straight forward. Unfortunately, we'd eaten up a lot of energy (and water in my case) getting on the right path. For those that haven't done the Oak Creek drainage before, this is basically an endless gully strewn with huge boulders. It would be nice to say that once you got in the bottom, it was a simple hike out to the truck, but that just ain't the case. The best way to describe it is "bouldering and bushwhacking obstacle course from hell." This wouldn't be so bad, but we're still hauling the damn pig, which makes it hard to make quick progress through the boulders. Tim carried the bag down from the shoulder of the ridge to the drainage and then started down the nasty part. I took over from him after we'd been in the drainage for a bit. He fell once on a slippery slab, so I tried to spot him on anything tricky from then on. He returned the favor when I had the bag. You can sure carry a lot in a haulbag, but lateral control is a big problem. The load sways every time you move. Not a problem when you're hiking straight ahead, but when you're essentially bouldering down a gully, it's pretty screwed up.

For me, it seemed like we spent an eternity in that gully. I ran out of water shortly after we reached the top of the drainage. I'd been sweating since we hit the first gully and I was trying not to get dehydrated. So much for that. About halfway to the end of the canyon, I was hurting. I just kept slogging and jumping and lurching with the bag. After a while, I could barely hold a straight line and staggered between boulder problems. My only goal in life was to get that damn pig to the end of the canyon. When we actually came to the end of the canyon we had to stay in the drainage, looking for where the trail from the parking area started. At least we hoped that it would come to the drainage. None of us had ever been on it and didn't know really what to expect. Some time in here, Tim offered to help me out with the pig, so we swapped loads. For the first 15 minutes of carrying the way lighter pack (we should have distributed the load better to the smaller packs), I was completely overcompensating for the swaying demands of carrying the haulbag. I nearly fell over a couple of times. Of course by this time, we're all completely in the twilight zombie zone, dehydrated and exhausted, just trying to put one foot in front of the other.

e made the parking lot at about 6:45pm, just short of the loop road closure. We took about five and a half hours to get from the top of the wall to the truck. Two hours of that was wasted doing gully recons, so the descent would probably normally take between three and four hours. All I know is that I was completely messed up when we finally got to the truck. We dove into warm water and warm Mountain Dew as well as pouring the melted warm cooler water over our heads. Once we had a chance to drop out of the zombie zone, we made a firm decision to head into town and see if we could scare up some food and a shower. When I get to this point in a climb, I always have this picture of Mike "Roofman" Brodesky, dirty and scroungy looking after we did Washington Column, walking back down the hallway of the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite with a handful of macadamia cookies he snagged from the high tea gathering. Always good for a smile.