46 Years Ago Today

by Dave Diegelman

Title

46 Years Ago Today

Artist

Dave Diegelman

Medium

Photograph - Archival Photographs

Description

46 years ago today I sat up in my portaledge on El Capitan and glanced over the valley floor to see yellow clouds of pine pollen drifting across the recesses of the trees. It was my 20th birthday and I had no idea what was going to transpire in my life yet alone that day. I had no idea that I’d marry the most beautiful woman I’d ever met, become step-dad to her eight year old son, Justin, become a father to an amazing boy, Jonnie, and eventually become a grandfather to five beautiful grandchildren. I had no idea how much joy and pain would come into our lives. I had no idea that I would surrender my life once again to Jesus and find a peace that surpasses all understanding. I had no idea that I would be asked, in years to come, to coordinate a memorial and give a eulogy for my life-long friend and climbing partner, Jim Bridwell.

My partners, Jim Bridwell and Dale Bard were wrestling through their ing bags to greet the dawn. The evening before Jim had expressed that he wanted to switch pitches and lead what lay before us; a 100’ section of rock void of cracks but smeared with texture like pimples on a teenager. Adamantly I stood my ground, “we already agreed that we’d swing leads” I protested as a brash 19 year old knowing full well that Bridwell, the Michal Jordan of climbing, could easily pull rank on me. After a very long, solemn pause Jim raised his gaze into mine and said, “alright then.”

Dale brought out the gorp bag, a ing bag sized bag of granola, raisins, almonds, corn nuts, M&M’s and, our favorites, Kraft caramels. Dale wished me happy birthday and handed me a “darkie” which were sporadically laced in the mix. Darkies, as we called them, were the chocolate carmels that came sparingly in the bag of carmels back then and they were highly coveted by Dale and myself. Jim handed us a canister of peaches and mixed fruit that we had consolidated into an empty #10 mayonnaise container pilfered from the Four Seasons restaurant but unfortunately the fruit had turned into whiskey over the past several days so that was a bust.

After brushing my teeth, I set about getting the rack together. The pitch in front of me wouldn’t require much more than hooks, a few copperheads, a few pins and nuts and of course a bolt kit. I wasn’t aware that this pitch would become one of the most famous aid pitches in history, I was just getting psyched for another adventurous day on what we would call Sea of Dreams. As Dale put me on belay and I readied my first placements off of the broken ledge we were on, a cloud of ladybugs drifted on the updrafts through our encampment. Several landed on us and all of our gear when Bridwell proclaimed, “these are ‘bitch bugs’ cause ladies don’t bite!”. Jim had the day off as Dale and I would each only finish our respective pitches that day and return to our tethered camp in the sky. He handed me the bright paisley hippie shirt, one of two brought along specifically for pictures. “I’ve got a little special treat for myself today so you guys have fun and do a good job” he said as he ingested the tiny purple microdot with a big smile. Dale and I looked at each other somewhat in disbelief, rolled our eyes and laughed. “Hey man, at least he’s tied in,” Dale assured me.

A I tested my first placement off of the forty-five degree ledge system. I tried not to think about the consequences of a piece popping out as its certain fate would be at least broken bones. Luckily it wasn’t too bad but soon I came up to a short blank section where I’d need to place a few machine head rivets before the next features were obtainable. Dale said, “hey man you might as well sink a bolt in instead of a rivet.” I had no intention of spending the fifteen minutes that drilling a bolt required rather than five minutes for a rivet. As I started tapping away on the drill, Bridwell yelled up, “hey, whatcha doing?” “It’s a blank section so I’m putting in a rivet but Dale thought I should put a bolt in” I replied. A bolt, although rated for a fall, would be superfluous within a few more feet of climbing after it because I’d still hit the ledge should I fall. Jim, now high, somehow thought I was putting in a bolt but we assured him that I wasn’t.

After a few rivets and several hook placements I came to a twenty foot blank section. I could see that if I did a pendulum I could possibly reach the next features so I put in another rivet and started to swing. Machine bolt rivets were a brand new concept that I bestowed upon Jim and Dale. Kim Carrigan from Australia, had told me about using full length grade five stainless steel 5/16” X 2” bolts in sandstone for anchors they’d used back home because they were far cheaper than Rawl expansion bolts. He explained that the threads, being malleable, bent backwards when driven in and bit the rock when placed into a ¼” hole. I had thought that shorter ¾”ones would work better than the standard ¼ aluminum dowels that were previously used. My friend, Mike Borris -AKA “Big Wally” had offered to obtain an elastomer so we could test them and it turned out that they held 800 pounds when placed in a ½” deep hole which was a lot stronger than the aluminum dowels being used for rivets and required much less drilling, so I was like, “cool!”. Strong enough for rivets on a blank section but not nearly strong enough for anchors or serious protection. At first, Dale and Jim were a bit hesitant but I showed Dale and a few other climbers behind camp 4 just how strong they were so he was on board and that’s what we used on the Sea.

I attempted the pendulum several times with hook in hand but there wasn’t anything that I could hook and lower on to, just a sideways edge that I could hook, but when the rope was slackened, the downward pull didn’t hold. On the next try I told Dale to keep the tension on the rope while I scouted for an oppositional placement to hold the sideways hook in. I found one and it worked! Soon I was on my way for the next four hours hooking up, down and mostly sideways to get to the next feature over eighty feet away. We had a total of 14 hooks of various sizes, most of which being homemade ones from soft-steel military ring angle pitons that Bridwell had fashioned. They had no bite whatsoever as the hooking part was just the rounded head of the piton, but they did have various depths from 1”-3” which was critical as some of the placements were not on the outside edges but inside sloping ledges. They had no lateral stability as they lacked a “tripod” base to stabilize them and if I bounced too hard on them they flexed and even bent because the steel was so soft so I had to be really delicate with them. Although subsequent parties used duct tape in order to secure a hook in place and leave it behind as protection, I didn’t have that option and for the majority of the pitch I basically aid-free-soloed the pitch as a fall would have been straight into the ledge system and meant certain death. I crafted the route with some enhanced hook placements rather than rivets or bolts as that was much quicker and seemed reasonable to me at the time. It was by far the most intricate aid pitch I’d done up to that time, employing every tactic conceivable; top stepping, lowering down to test low so that if the piece I was testing ripped, the one I was on would have less impact. I really tried to keep three points on at all times and to stay as low as possible in my stirrups when testing. I remembered Jim telling me about half way through the pitch, “hey man it’s okay to put a bolt in” but I was so mesmerized by the jigsaw puzzle in front of me that I had no intention of wacking in a bolt when there were reasonable features in front of me. I plotted on for several hours until I finally got in two decent copperhead placements and could see what looked like a good belay crack about twenty feet up. When I finally got the anchors in, I let out a big “whoohoo!” with a huge sigh of relief. Dale cleaned the pitch with a back belay from Jim, who was now midriff ablaze on acid from our camp on the ledge.

A few hours later we celebrated my 20th birthday dinner with a can of refried beans and mustard spread over some slightly stale sandwich rolls. I came up with the name, “Hook or Book” as it seemed to aptly the pitch I’d done. The simple pleasure of seeing the world below but not being in it somehow lent solace to the evening as we drifted away under the granite and stars.

If you're interested in acquiring a mural-sized wall covering of this piece, feel free to inquire via email. It's a part of my Limited Edition series, with only 100 prints available. Please note that the price increases as it sells. Just like all my editions, you can obtain certificates of authenticity by providing proof of purchase and your mailing address. Please send the necessary information to ddiegelman@gmail.com.

Photographer: Jim Bridwell, the Diegelman Collection. Photo & Text All Rights Reserved © Dave Diegelman

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May 29th, 2024

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