Songs of a Weekend Warrior

Presidents Day weekend 

Sandstone Mission: Redrocks, NV and Zion NP, UT

Winter lets up, I awaken friday morning to birds singing shyly in the bushes near my window. It's still cold in Salt Lake City, but my thoughts drift further south to sagebrush country and sandstone. I am a simple human animal. I eat, sleep, work and scratch out my existence in the city. I have dreams, visions the backdrop of my existence. Too much time in the city makes the human animal unhappy. What is it that keeps the spirit alive and well? It is nothing more than a possibility, a dream or believing that around the next corner something unexpected will happen, good or bad it doesn't always matter; change=opportunity. The weather here is changing, the sun shines and temperatures in the desert are favorable if not ideal for climbing. Zion NP and Las Vegas appear to be the warmest, that is where we will go. Always take what is graciously given, go with the current of life.

 

Fishes are born in water,

 man is born in Tao.

If fishes, born in water,

 Seek the deep shadow 

Of pond and pool, 

All their needs are satisfied.

If man, born in Tao,

sinks in to the deep shadow 

Of non-action

To forget aggression and concern,

He lacks nothing

His life is secure.

-Chuang Tzu     

Saturday, we crag.  Crowds of tourists park their cars along the Redrocks park road. We find a spot and then find a narrow canyon, not far from the road where there are no other people. It is peaceful, we climb 15 degree overhanging walls until we cannot hang on any longer and our cups are full. Night time and we are relaxing with a friend in LV. Our generous host has a reputation for being able to pick locks, we get bored, he teaches us. Turns out I have a knack, I picked six different locks in three hours, which was at times very aggravating work. Eleven-o-clock in the evening, Las Vegas shows no sign of slowing down. Brendan on the floor is carefully folding, creasing and packing his parachute. Jess is snoring on the couch. I am sitting having a beer. 

One-o-clock. Jess is up. Brendan is stuffing the last folds of his chute into the pack/harness. 

Three-o-clock in the morning. I sit chain smoking cigarettes in the parking lot across the street as my two comrades make final preparations to jump off an unfinished skyscraper with parachutes. Actually they are going off the crane, which is anchored to the building and overhangs the Las Vegas strip. I get a text message "were at the end of the crane." 

I am smoking and very anxious, keeping a watchful eye on the street, revelers with drinks are walking by never looking up. With a sore neck and eyes fixed on the end of the crane, two very tiny and barely visible black figures, silently one begins to bow forward, then the other until they're off the crane...slaves to gravity's will. 

Little sleep saturday night. Early Sunday morning humping packs through Oak Creek Canyon in Redrocks. We are alone with pools of green, clear water, moving smoothly over boulders, under branches. Upward through manzanita, mesquite, cactus, oak, dwarf agave; right turn at ponderosa pines. The buttress now looms heavily above, initiate daytime samurai movements. 

Yonder ice is breaking off in chunks and exploding hundreds of feet below and across the canyon, the sounds of Oak Creek Canyon. Back to the car as night falls.

Redocks, NV to Zion NP. Late arrival. Sleeping bag dreams. 

New day. Early morning. Cold, Cold, Cold! Mean Bean Coffee...Warmed insides, cold outsides. Parking lot. Oatmeal. Warmed insides, cold outsides. Rack. Helmut. Shoes. Water. Sooo coldddd. Look to the rim of the great wall to the east where the sun will come up soon, it is cold but still no sun. Arrive at the base. Quick sort. Brendan off on lead, aid ladder to clean-aid crack on first pitch. As brendan launches off the ground, the earth trembles, the sun rises. Coat comes off. Sweater, off. Tee shirt, stays on for extra toasty feel. The day has begun its arc across the sky, bracketed by immense sandstone walls on either side. Off the ground now. The magical Zion Canyon over our shoulders. An 800 ft splitter fingers to hands crack rises just off to my right as we hang from the anchors, and eventually splits the capstone at the top of the Cerebrus Gendarme. 

My legs shake a bit as I maneuver to put on rock shoes for the next pitch. My mind? There is no mind only confidence and warmth bathing the eggshell consciousness, as my body's hands attach cams and snap links, and mini traxion to the harness, slings go over the shoulder. One last awkward shuffle around Brendan's shoulders to bring fingers into contact with the crack. Chalk bag open. Irregular breath ceases, deep breath up from the heels this time fills the spirit and marks the gateway into 'The Zone' and the beginning of the end of self.

"Fishes are born in Water"  -Chuang Tzu

Jefe