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There used to be an unwritten rule of hitchhiking in the States, that you can tell a good hitching spot by the amount of graffiti on the nearest armco barrier.
So here I was, standing next to an armco barrier in the middle of a desert landscape on a gentle curve in an otherwise arrow straight highway, which was covered in graffiti.
I reckoned I was about a hundred miles east of Salt Lake, dumped here after my recent ride threw me out of his car after a conversation on religion took a turn for the worse. I suppose given the direction of travel, I should have considered the possibility of a Mormon connection?
It had been four days since I left the languid warmth and curves of her bed in Greenwich Village, and three days since I'd left Mike on the outskirts of Baltimore - hitching in two's seldom works - to make our separate ways to the Valley.
As an hour turned to several, and dusk began to decend over the talus bushes, I resigned myself to a night alone in the desert.
I was just about to climb over the barrier and find a suitable spot away from the road, when headlights appeared in the distance. Jolted into action, I stuck out my thumb, and put on my most appealing 'can I have a ride please sir?' expression.
As the car approached, it started slowing down. Then it stopped about a hundred yards away. It remained stationary for a couple of minutes, then started moving towards me again, slowly. I began to get very nervous, and backed up towards the armco. As the car got nearer, it's headlights were suddenly turned off. I threw my sac over the armco, and got ready to follow it, convinced I was about to have a close encounter of the 'squeel like a piggy' variety.
The car suddenly turned it's headlights back on and accelerated quickly towards me. Before I had a chance to run, it skidded to a halt next to me.
The drivers window opened slightly and a deep voice said "Where you goin boy?"
As I looked over my shoulder to gauge how quickly I could jump the armco, the voice spoke again, this time with menace.
"Get in the car boy!"
I pretended to not hear him, and kept slowly backing towards the armco. The window went down a bit more, and to my horror, the barrel of a gun appeared..
"Get in the God damn f*ckin car now boy!"
I immediately and literally pissed myself in fear, frozen to the spot, unable to move.
I was just about to drop to my knees and beg for my life, when I heard laughter from inside the car. Next minute one of the back doors opened, and out gets Mike, laughing so hard he was almost doubled up.
The gun was in fact a starting pistol, and belonged to three members of an athletics club from San Francisco, who'd picked Mike up a few hundred miles earlier.
As he came up to me to give me a hugged apology, all I could do was punch him in the face so hard, my knuckles were still hurting two days later.
Still, I suppose we did get a lift all the way to the Valley, and I did get my own back on Mike several days later on Half Dome!
Post edited at 12:39
48
1
In reply to Goucho:
Brilliant, the absurd things that happen on the way to the crags are often as entertaining as the climbing!
Brilliant, the absurd things that happen on the way to the crags are often as entertaining as the climbing!
In reply to Goucho:
Excellent! As others have said in the past - you really should write a book Goucho.
Excellent! As others have said in the past - you really should write a book Goucho.
6
1
In reply to Goucho:
Nice story
but guns are not for playing with
Go on then, what happened on NW Regular Half Dome ?
Nice story
but guns are not for playing with
Go on then, what happened on NW Regular Half Dome ?
Post edited at 14:36
2
In reply to Rick Graham:
Half Dome was on the list for that visit, and I knew we'd bivi below the face the night before.
And so I hatched my plan.
My girlfriend (the lady in Greenwich Village in the OP) had a friend who worked at the Awhanee Hotel. So I paid a visit and got some red food colouring. An old T-shirt strategically ripped completed the props.
Mike was a very heavy sleeper - I've seen him snoring blissfully in the middle of an alpine storm - so at first light after our bivi below the face (what a horrible approach Half Dome is) I got up, changed into the ripped T-shirt, positioned myself half out of my bag, poured the food colouring all over my T-shirt, my neck and my sleeping bag (it was old and needed replacing anyway) and then started moaning and groaning "Mike...Mike...bear...help me....it's got me....Mike....bear....help me...."
A few minutes later Mike eventually woke, looked across at me - by this time I was clutching my throat for added effect - with a horrified look on his face, and leapt out of his bag and across to me. Just as he was about to try and tend my wounds, I cracked and burst out laughing.
Several minutes of exchanging profanities followed.
The downside however, was that in leaping out of his bag, Mike had done something to his back, and we had to postpone doing the route for two weeks.
> Nice story
> but guns are not for playing with
> Go on then, what happened on NW Regular Half Dome ?
Half Dome was on the list for that visit, and I knew we'd bivi below the face the night before.
And so I hatched my plan.
My girlfriend (the lady in Greenwich Village in the OP) had a friend who worked at the Awhanee Hotel. So I paid a visit and got some red food colouring. An old T-shirt strategically ripped completed the props.
Mike was a very heavy sleeper - I've seen him snoring blissfully in the middle of an alpine storm - so at first light after our bivi below the face (what a horrible approach Half Dome is) I got up, changed into the ripped T-shirt, positioned myself half out of my bag, poured the food colouring all over my T-shirt, my neck and my sleeping bag (it was old and needed replacing anyway) and then started moaning and groaning "Mike...Mike...bear...help me....it's got me....Mike....bear....help me...."
A few minutes later Mike eventually woke, looked across at me - by this time I was clutching my throat for added effect - with a horrified look on his face, and leapt out of his bag and across to me. Just as he was about to try and tend my wounds, I cracked and burst out laughing.
Several minutes of exchanging profanities followed.
The downside however, was that in leaping out of his bag, Mike had done something to his back, and we had to postpone doing the route for two weeks.
22
In reply to Goucho:
Superb!
Only time I've ever graffitied something was the Armco on the M2/M25 junction coming back from France - a horrible night spent "sleeping" on traffic cones in the drizzle, no lifts until a wagon stopped at 5am and said he was going to Rugby, even though I was heading to S Wales, I took the lift.
Fast forward a year to a University "24hr jailbreak" from Edinburgh with a mate ("You've done this hitching thing, fancy giving it a go? I've never hitched...."), made it to Calais for free, hitching back north we get dropped at the same junction - graffiti is still there with a load more, equally dejected, poor sods. Five hours later, no lifts and a pal heading towards hypothermia (mid November) we cracked, spent the night in the bike shed of a train station and cadged free tickets back to Edinburgh from the Station Manager at Kings Cross.
I've been past a few times since then and always keep an eye out for hitchers on that junction - the hippy dippy part of me still believes in hitchers Karma!
Superb!
Only time I've ever graffitied something was the Armco on the M2/M25 junction coming back from France - a horrible night spent "sleeping" on traffic cones in the drizzle, no lifts until a wagon stopped at 5am and said he was going to Rugby, even though I was heading to S Wales, I took the lift.
Fast forward a year to a University "24hr jailbreak" from Edinburgh with a mate ("You've done this hitching thing, fancy giving it a go? I've never hitched...."), made it to Calais for free, hitching back north we get dropped at the same junction - graffiti is still there with a load more, equally dejected, poor sods. Five hours later, no lifts and a pal heading towards hypothermia (mid November) we cracked, spent the night in the bike shed of a train station and cadged free tickets back to Edinburgh from the Station Manager at Kings Cross.
I've been past a few times since then and always keep an eye out for hitchers on that junction - the hippy dippy part of me still believes in hitchers Karma!
3
In reply to Goucho:
I'm just a bit confused now, Gouch. Is Mike the guy who died in a fall or the one who had Parkinsons?
I'm just a bit confused now, Gouch. Is Mike the guy who died in a fall or the one who had Parkinsons?
1
In reply to Goucho:
Excellent; isn't it just great when low cunning merges seamlessly with well-oiled execution to hilarious effect!
While reluctant to appear all "Health and Safety" it might be appropriate to append a cautionary note concerning the rather more likely risk associated with bivvying in that particular location - or indeed under all manner of large rock faces. On my first occasion thereabouts we duly slept at the base of the route prior to business and awoke to the sound of rocks landing close by - uncomfortably close. Twenty-two years later, during my most recent visit, I was approaching the belay atop pitch #1 when a distant chorus of warning shouts arrived from on high and something whirred past a few metres out. Roger, belaying, was obviously standing close to the cliff base and was therefore reasonably safe; further out, though, urgent action erupted as - still in their sleeping bags - a couple of incumbents dived desperately for cover, the lack of which meaning that all they really achieved was to move quickly in random directions. The rock - about half-brick size - was moving quite fast as well, though; it homed in on its victim and struck him squarely in the back. The effect was what the term "poleaxed" could have been invented for. Fortunately he was pretty muscular in the dorsal area and that clearly absorbed a lot of impact; he survived the experience, although for him that particular outing finished in a helicopter. A foot or so higher though - back of head, perhaps - and I would probably be relating this tale in a rather less jovial manner.
Excellent; isn't it just great when low cunning merges seamlessly with well-oiled execution to hilarious effect!
While reluctant to appear all "Health and Safety" it might be appropriate to append a cautionary note concerning the rather more likely risk associated with bivvying in that particular location - or indeed under all manner of large rock faces. On my first occasion thereabouts we duly slept at the base of the route prior to business and awoke to the sound of rocks landing close by - uncomfortably close. Twenty-two years later, during my most recent visit, I was approaching the belay atop pitch #1 when a distant chorus of warning shouts arrived from on high and something whirred past a few metres out. Roger, belaying, was obviously standing close to the cliff base and was therefore reasonably safe; further out, though, urgent action erupted as - still in their sleeping bags - a couple of incumbents dived desperately for cover, the lack of which meaning that all they really achieved was to move quickly in random directions. The rock - about half-brick size - was moving quite fast as well, though; it homed in on its victim and struck him squarely in the back. The effect was what the term "poleaxed" could have been invented for. Fortunately he was pretty muscular in the dorsal area and that clearly absorbed a lot of impact; he survived the experience, although for him that particular outing finished in a helicopter. A foot or so higher though - back of head, perhaps - and I would probably be relating this tale in a rather less jovial manner.
In reply to Ian Parsons:
Ah, we bivvied on the col, not under the face. It meant that you didn't have to go down to get your stuff after coming down the cables. Is this frowned on now?
Ah, we bivvied on the col, not under the face. It meant that you didn't have to go down to get your stuff after coming down the cables. Is this frowned on now?
In reply to jon:
I don't know what the current recommendation/requirement is; the two occasions to which I referred were in 1977 and 1999. In 1977 it probably wasn't the norm to be trying for a one-day ascent - we certainly weren't - so there was no bivvy gear to go back for afterwards; it all went on the route with us. The two guys sleeping at the base in 1999 [Dutch or Swedish - I forget which] had approached up the slabs below, slept there, then done the route and returned to the base for a second night; they then intended to go back down the same way they had come up but the arrival of the rock modified their plans. In their case, clearly, sleeping up on the col would have added a couple of legs to the journey - although it would, with hindsight, have been worthwhile.
Gouch hasn't come back on your earlier query so I'll have a go. Parkinson's didn't ring any bells but the alternative did - albeit only just. A brief search brought to light a discussion about post-accident/fatality threads to which Gouch made a contribution; I'm not certain whether it's actually what I thought I vaguely remembered but it seems to answer your question. He referred to a climbing friend who died of head injuries incurred in a short groundfall, then mentioned several routes that they had climbed together earlier in the year; the list included "NW Face Half Dome". Unless he was referring to one of the other routes on that face, or he's climbed Regular Route more than once and with different partners [not impossible - I've done that myself], it rather suggests that Mike tragically lost his life in what should have been a fairly trivial fall.
[I trust such discourse doesn't appear insensitive. Gouch's reminiscences occasionally include that fateful phrase "sadly no longer with us", to which additional detail is sometimes supplied; so I imagine - and hope - that he's ok with subsequent mention of such events.]
I don't know what the current recommendation/requirement is; the two occasions to which I referred were in 1977 and 1999. In 1977 it probably wasn't the norm to be trying for a one-day ascent - we certainly weren't - so there was no bivvy gear to go back for afterwards; it all went on the route with us. The two guys sleeping at the base in 1999 [Dutch or Swedish - I forget which] had approached up the slabs below, slept there, then done the route and returned to the base for a second night; they then intended to go back down the same way they had come up but the arrival of the rock modified their plans. In their case, clearly, sleeping up on the col would have added a couple of legs to the journey - although it would, with hindsight, have been worthwhile.
Gouch hasn't come back on your earlier query so I'll have a go. Parkinson's didn't ring any bells but the alternative did - albeit only just. A brief search brought to light a discussion about post-accident/fatality threads to which Gouch made a contribution; I'm not certain whether it's actually what I thought I vaguely remembered but it seems to answer your question. He referred to a climbing friend who died of head injuries incurred in a short groundfall, then mentioned several routes that they had climbed together earlier in the year; the list included "NW Face Half Dome". Unless he was referring to one of the other routes on that face, or he's climbed Regular Route more than once and with different partners [not impossible - I've done that myself], it rather suggests that Mike tragically lost his life in what should have been a fairly trivial fall.
[I trust such discourse doesn't appear insensitive. Gouch's reminiscences occasionally include that fateful phrase "sadly no longer with us", to which additional detail is sometimes supplied; so I imagine - and hope - that he's ok with subsequent mention of such events.]
In reply to jon:
The one who died in a fall - although I have climbed with four Mike's in total.
> I'm just a bit confused now, Gouch. Is Mike the guy who died in a fall or the one who had Parkinsons?
The one who died in a fall - although I have climbed with four Mike's in total.
In reply to Ian Parsons:
No problem Ian.
> [I trust such discourse doesn't appear insensitive. Gouch's reminiscences occasionally include that fateful phrase "sadly no longer with us", to which additional detail is sometimes supplied; so I imagine - and hope - that he's ok with subsequent mention of such events.]
No problem Ian.
In reply to Goucho:
Lovely stories. The powersurge of relief common to both reminds me of...
Lost in the mists of time, Andy Parkin and I wandered down Water Cum Jolly, liberally taking the piss out of each other.
Got to what's now called Dragonflight Wall. "This looks like a good warm-up," said Andy, pointing to an innocuous feature. "Can't be more than HVS."
The grade proved somewhat academic (it's now E3). More to the point, the holds were utterly disposible and my single wire slid sadly down the rope.
Thus warmed up, we wandered up Dragonflight (second ascent?) "5b," says Andy. (It's now E3.)
And so to the main event, a steepish wall to the side. A forlorn thread of red bootlace girdling a pocket.
"That thread looks a bit dodgy, I'd better replace it." Couldn't believe he'd fall for that bollox (did he?) as I surreptitiously inspected every crimp on that top wall, realising that if you reached the jug below the thread it was in the bag. And the thread replaced for good measure/to keep up the pretence.
Andy got first go. Up the lower wall. First runner (I assumed it was a good one). Then off.
I got next go. Another runner (He assumed it was a good one.) A little higher. Then off.
Andy got third go. A third runner. (I assumed it was a good one). Then off.
I got past all three runners, leaped for the jug, brushed it, came flying down. Thought, "Bastards, that's it, he'll have it next time."
So, up he goes, all three runners clipped, leaps for the jug with more power than I had. Latches it, hangs for a second, then...
Plummets. Top runner rips. He falls one way. I start to move.
Second runner rips. He falls another way. I change direction.
Third runner rips. He heads for me. Desperately I head for him. Anything to keep him off the deck.
He hits me, then the deck. We roll down the glacis together. I end up on top of him. I'm thinking, "F*ck, he's broken his back."
"Andy, Andy, are you OK?"
"I... can't get up." (F*ck, f*ck, f*uck, broken back...)
"Why not?"
"Cos you're on top of me!"
"You... you... you bastard!!" (God, the relief.) I stood up. He stood up. We were both badly bruised but who cared? God, I'll never forget the sweet, blessed, utter relief.
Big Ron did the FA the following week, on his honeymoon. Gill belayed. 'Honeymoon Blues'.
Mick
Lovely stories. The powersurge of relief common to both reminds me of...
Lost in the mists of time, Andy Parkin and I wandered down Water Cum Jolly, liberally taking the piss out of each other.
Got to what's now called Dragonflight Wall. "This looks like a good warm-up," said Andy, pointing to an innocuous feature. "Can't be more than HVS."
The grade proved somewhat academic (it's now E3). More to the point, the holds were utterly disposible and my single wire slid sadly down the rope.
Thus warmed up, we wandered up Dragonflight (second ascent?) "5b," says Andy. (It's now E3.)
And so to the main event, a steepish wall to the side. A forlorn thread of red bootlace girdling a pocket.
"That thread looks a bit dodgy, I'd better replace it." Couldn't believe he'd fall for that bollox (did he?) as I surreptitiously inspected every crimp on that top wall, realising that if you reached the jug below the thread it was in the bag. And the thread replaced for good measure/to keep up the pretence.
Andy got first go. Up the lower wall. First runner (I assumed it was a good one). Then off.
I got next go. Another runner (He assumed it was a good one.) A little higher. Then off.
Andy got third go. A third runner. (I assumed it was a good one). Then off.
I got past all three runners, leaped for the jug, brushed it, came flying down. Thought, "Bastards, that's it, he'll have it next time."
So, up he goes, all three runners clipped, leaps for the jug with more power than I had. Latches it, hangs for a second, then...
Plummets. Top runner rips. He falls one way. I start to move.
Second runner rips. He falls another way. I change direction.
Third runner rips. He heads for me. Desperately I head for him. Anything to keep him off the deck.
He hits me, then the deck. We roll down the glacis together. I end up on top of him. I'm thinking, "F*ck, he's broken his back."
"Andy, Andy, are you OK?"
"I... can't get up." (F*ck, f*ck, f*uck, broken back...)
"Why not?"
"Cos you're on top of me!"
"You... you... you bastard!!" (God, the relief.) I stood up. He stood up. We were both badly bruised but who cared? God, I'll never forget the sweet, blessed, utter relief.
Big Ron did the FA the following week, on his honeymoon. Gill belayed. 'Honeymoon Blues'.
Mick
3
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