and turned into long and fairly desperate offwidth. Joe then led up through the wall as it became more broken, blocky, and loose. Dave finished off the route with a short and easy summit pitch. We christened the route with a hot beer, and decided to descend down a gully to the climber’s left because of the rock fall potential at the top of the route. While descending Suffer Pony, Dave and I spotted another potential line on a nearby wall. We made it back out a month later in mid-July, when it was stupidly hot. Despite the heat, Dave fired up the first pitch, which was a surprisingly fun and strenuous hand crack through a roof. We decided one pitch was good for the day and immediately booked it for the river. That night, Dave cooked up one of the most disturbing and delicious piles of desert goulash I have ever experienced. We woke up refreshed and ecstatic to see a partly cloudy sky. We repeated the first pitch; above, the climb eased slightly in difficulty but unfortunately increased in looseness. The climbing was extremely varied and involved fingers, off-widths, roofs, and everything in between. The route cleaned up well overall, though, and after four total pitches we were at the top of the wall. We rappelled the route and both vowed to never visit the desert in July again! Summary River Road, Moab, UT Suffer Pony Ties the Knot, III 5.10+, FA (Forrester-Hoven-Irby) Desert Goulash, III 5.10+, FA (Hoven-Irby)
Phantom Sprint John Thomson (‘07)
Over three days in the beginning of September, I soloed Phantom Sprint (IV 5.9 C2) on Echo Tower. As far as routes in the Fisher Towers go, this one follows a natural crack system nearly the entire way, giving it an unusual feel-good quality. I went to Echo Tower to be alone and reflect. I was one year into business school at Northwestern and far from the mountains and the mountain lifestyle. I had a growing feeling that my time was no longer mine. Life at business school moves at Mach-speed, centered on landing a good job. Everyone is always running around with 50 pots on 50 burners on high heat all the time. It had become a struggle to stay out of the rat race; I had serious doubts where I fell.
I wanted to climb to make sure I hadn’t forgotten what my former life was all about. After lugging my rope and rack to the base, I climbed up the first pitch-and-a-half. Only after I was back at the base that afternoon did I realized I hadn’t fixed as high as I intended, but those couple of pitches went well, and relatively quickly. The next day, Wednesday, it rained. On Thursday I came back and re-fixed higher—admittedly not a bold strategy, but I lacked the confidence to commit and punch it to the top on that second day. On Friday, I woke early, made coffee, jugged, aided a traverse with over 500’ of exposure, ascended the most physical squeeze I’ve ever encountered, climbed the lone pitch of fixed gear, walked the last bit of ridge to the summit, and soon after, took in the wild exposure of the variety only the Fishers can deliver. On the summit, I yelled out, utterly alone. During those few days in the desert, I was accountable to no one. If I didn’t get to the top, no one would care. There was no partner to let down. I reclaimed time as my own, and reaffirmed that my technical skills and love of climbing hadn’t completely eroded away. On route, intuition took over; I thought only of the next pitch, transitioning belays, eating, drinking, and moving upwards. Back at the campground, looking up at the Milky Way, I was tired and validated. I managed to hold out just a little bit longer from caving beneath the pressure surrounding the search for a respectable job, and as my classmate’s say, “To leave the workforce again, ever.” My time time on route was lonely, though at the same time, liberating. Back in Chicago a few weeks later, on the first day of cold weather, I dug my belay jacket out of the closet and pulled it over my head. It was still zipped halfway—just how I had left it on my last route of the summer, the Southwest Corner of the Saber in RMNP. This was my final alpine route after returning from the Fisher Towers and before leaving Colorado to return to school. It was cold that day, too—late summer, up high around 12,500’ with lifelong climbing partner Austin Badeau. Walking to class, the smell of sweat and the part of my life spent in the mountains washed over me. I was brought back to routes in the Park this summer, trips to the desert, and the period in my life spent climbing, a little part of which I reclaimed on Phantom Sprint. Summary Fisher Towers, Moab, UT Phantom Sprint, IV 5.9 C2
[Facing Page] A day in the climbing life. Campfire in Onion Creek, UT. Joe Forrester (‘06) 42
CCAJ