Birthday Challenge (a.k.a. Cam's Big Day), June 15, 2006
This year I am turning 30 years old, and when my friend Ryan was out visiting this spring, he enlightened me on the concept of a "birthday challenge", where you prove your worth despite your advancing years through a feat of physical endurance that coincides with the number of years you have been in existence. I thought this was an awesome idea, and what better year to start than when you turn 30? In a few years I will may have to accept that I will never win le Tour (although I still have a couple of good years yet, Vino is my main concern this year), so what better way to lift the spirits then to thrash yourself into a state of complete exhaustion and have some good fun along the way! For my birthday challenge I decided that I would attempt to lead 30 different routes in one day. This would also serve as the first step in my Tommy Caldwell apprenticeship program. The original plan was to go to Skaha and do them all on the Claim it All Wall, since it has over 30 routes, mostly in the 5.10 to 5.11 range, but that trip was scuttled thanks to Uncle Sam and some visa issues, so a revised plan was drawn up to besiege the immaculate limestone buttresses of American Fork.
My preparations started the night before when I wrote out a plan of what routes would be done and in what order, trying to plan it to hit the majority of the routes in the shade, or at least early in the day for the sunny ones, since I knew that it was going to be sunny and 96 degrees F (hot!!!). I then packed up my provisions for the next day:
I had convinced my friend Chris to do the morning shift of belaying, despite the fact that he normally goes to bed at 5:00am. The plan was for me to arrive on my moto at his place by 6:00am, then buzz down to American Fork, and be on the first route by 7:00am while the canyon was still nice and cool. So, with all of the preparations in place, I finished off by packing my suitcase full of courage, and then hit the sack around 10:30pm to try and rest up for my big day.
The next day dawned bright (well, not that bright at 5:20am) and early, and I ate some breakfast (1 cup raisin bran crunch, 1 cup cinnamon toast crunch, 1/3 cup french almond granola, half soy milk and half fat free milk: the breakfast of champions) and set off on the scootie for Chris's place. I arrived a few minutes late at 6:05am, just in time to wake Chris up, since he had mistakenly (or not? the jury is still out!) set his alarm for 6:30am instead of 5:30am. No matter though, he quickly suited up and we set off for the Fork. We arrived around 7:15 am, and were up at the crag and ready to climb at 7:30am. Here are photos of my bleary eyed belayer, and me, ready to make some good climbings!
You can see that we are in the shade, but the early morning light is starting to filter through the trees on the right. Time to get going! We started on a mild climb called Rockapella (5.7) (a note on writing conventions: if a climb's name is written in Red, that means I sent it cleanly, if it is in Blue, that means I fell or had to take, I led all the climbs, hanging the draws as I went) which went well, only taking about 10 minutes, making up a bit of time. My ideal schedule had me doing 3 climbs per hour, and finishing at 5:00pm. As the day progressed this ideal schedule would fall by the wayside, but at this point it still seemed reasonable. We followed that up with another one to ease into it, Stoic Calculus (5.8), also taking about 10 minutes. I then upped the ante a bit, doing a long one called Platinum Blonde (5.10a). This was the first one I had to try on, and when I started to realize that I had ahead of me.
We then moved on to the Escape Buttress which has a bunch of climbs in the 5.10 range and is South facing and gets tons of sun, so I wanted to knock it off early. We started on one called Jug for Joy (5.10b) which felt quite hard and got me a bit pumped, and a bit worried, I couldn't be getting pumped now, with 26 climbs still ahead of me! I then moved down the line and the next three climbs on the buttress: Monkey Meet (5.10d), Inside Information (5.10d), and Twist and Shout (5.10a). There aren't enough 5.10s at American Fork to do them all at that grade, so I had to work in some 5.11s, so I decided to start knocking some of those off, and did Body Bag (5.11a). To this point I had been taking about 1 to 5 minutes off between climbs depending on how hard the previous one was, and I was feeling pretty good still, sometimes getting pumped, but never having to take. I followed this up with Awakening (5.10a), and then dived back into the 11s with Dead on Arrival (5.11b). I got really pumped on this one, and had to take just before the end of the steep part. Darn!!! I had hoped to send all of the climbs. I had done many of these climbs about 5 years ago, but didn't really remember anything which meant each climb was an "amnesia onsight", making it a bit tougher than if I had the moves wired. Oh well, I figured this was an isolated incident, and jumped right on my 11th climb, Steel Graffii (5.10b). In retrospect I should have rested after acquiring the super pump on the last one, and despite this one being a full number grade easier than the previous, I had to take twice. That hurts!!! I took a bit of a break to recharge the batteries, then finished off the Escape Buttress with Denied (5.10c) and Motherload (5.10b/c), which went down without any problems. I was now sitting pretty with 13 climbs under my belt, and we headed back to Hard Rock which was shady (in stark contrast to the blazing sun that was now beating down on Escape Buttress where we had been climbing) to continue the onslaught.
Having rested on the walk over, I started on a harder one, sending the classic Juggernaut (5.11b), following that up with Punch the Clock (5.10a). By this point I was halfway done, with 15 climbs in the bag, and it was 12:30pm, 5 hours after we started, putting us right on schedule, at this point Chris had to leave to get home before the stock markets closed and make sure he didn't lose all his money while belaying me, so we headed down to the cars where the reinforcements for the belay duties (my lovely wife Roanne) were conveniently on the way up the trail to the buttress. Here is a photo of my new selfless belayer, and me after having done 15 of 30 climbs:
I then continued climbing in the shade on Hard Rock buttress, attempting Primal Magic (5.11b), but unfortunately I botched a sequence and took a sizeable fall, so no send on that one. I moved on to some easier stuff to try and recoup, doing Gas Boost (5.8) and Vaporous Apparition (5.9). I then decided to sack up for another harder one, and did Suicide Blonde (5.11b), unfortunately it was a bit too much for me again, and I had to take a couple times enroute to the chains. Darn!!! I was really starting to feel the effects of all those climbs in my forearms, now whenever I raised my arm above my head to clip, the outside of my forearm would cramp up. This made clipping a bit more interesting, but luckily the phenomena didn't manifest itself when I was desperately holding on to the rock, so I was still in the clear. I decided to take it down a notch and finished off this buttress with some easier ones, starting with Name Unkown 1 (5.10a).
This marked the 20th climb, meaning that there were only 10 more to go, and we decided to mark each climb of the countdown by having me pose for a photo with my body or some accessory in the shape of the number of climbs still remaining. Here is the number 10:
I then did another easier route to finish off this buttress, Name Unkown 2 (5.10b). We then moved on to the mostly shady Division Wall, with only 9 climbs remaining!
I started off with a harder one here since I had rested during the transfer, and surprised myself by sending Deep End (5.11a) without any trouble, meaning there were now only 8 climbs remaining.
I then did an easier one adjacent to the previous, dispatching Black Hole (5.10a) to whittle it down to 7 climbs to go.
At this point there was a bit of cloud cover coming in, so I went to do a climb that would have other wise been in the sun, and again discovered some hidden inner reserves to send Remote Control (5.11a), knocking off another to bring it down to 6 climbs remaining.
I then moved back around the corner into the shade and did an easier one to recuperate, sending Physical Therapy (5.9+) to bring it down to 5 to go. High five! Very nice!
I did one beside the previous that was a bit harder, but slabby and so did not present much difficulty: Teenagers in Heat (5.10c). The emerging theme was that if a climb was less steep or had decent rests I could probably send, but any sustained steepness and I had the turbo pump and was getting spit off faster than you can say "get back on the wall, you pansy". Of course, this meant there were now only 4 climbs to go (looking a little tired now).
I then finished off this wall by climbing another one in the blazing sun, Les is More (5.10a). The worst thing about climbing in the sun was how it heated up my shoe rubber, which made my already sore feet scream for mercy by the top of the wall. Oh well, only 3 more to go!
We then moved on to The Membrane, which I had been confidently describing to Roanne as the coolest, shadiest crag at American Fork, and much to my dismay it was in the full blazing sun, and way hotter than Division since the trees blocked any breeze. Stinker! Oh well, nothing to do but get after it! I started out with a steep and pretty hard one called Steel Monkey (5.10d) which shut me down pretty hard, having to hang a couple times on the crux section. No matter, just 2 to go! Note the similarity between the photo below and Richard Virenque's victory salutes when he takes out glorious solo stage wins in the Tour de France! So awesome!
I then did the previous climbs neighbor and due to the relaxed angle had more success, sending Caress of Steel (5.10a). This, of course, meant that there was just one to go! I wanted to pose for the next shot with the rate inverted handstand (also known as standing up), but Roanne made me do a standard handstand, so here it is. And no, of course my feet are not resting on the cliff behind me!
For the final climb, we had planned on having me cruise up a shady 5.9 around the corner, the equivalent of taking a few laps around the Champs d'Elysee while drinking a glass of champagne, but unfortunately that climb was in the middle of being siege climbed by a group of four gumbies, so there was every indication that it would not be free until early the next day. We had celebration plans for later in the evening, so I asked myself, what would Tommy do? After thinking long and hard, I said "come on Beth, oops, Roanne, let's go do another 5.11!". So I headed up Riptide (5.11a), and after the rude interruption of one sizeable fall I was clipping the chains and tasting victory. Great success!!! Here is a photo of me with my medal of victory, celebrating my great success, and also a summary of all of the climbs that I did. Again, blocks of red represent climbs that were led cleanly, and blocks of blue represent climbs where I had one or more hangs or falls.
It felt pretty good to take the climbing shoes off for the last time and wade back across the river to the car (what ever happened to the log crossing that was there 5 years ago!). We headed to Lone Star Taqueria for some fish tacos, and then on home where Roanne had some birthday surprises waiting for me, including a chocolate mint cake, very nice! So, that brought to a close the best birthday I have ever had, what could be better than packing a weeks worth of climbing into one spectacular day! Many thanks to my belay crew, Chris and Roanne. Now I'll get busy planning next year's challenge!
