Don't Save Anything: The Uncollected Writings of James Salter(48)
Geo
December 1982
Getting High
Far up, on top, there is still some sun. The canyon is almost empty. Swallows are darting across it in the dusk. A lone figure wearing a pair of loose white pants walks to the Bastille, a rock that rises almost vertically from the road, touches it with both hands as if it were the side of a horse, and after a moment begins to climb. It seems a frivolous attempt, an act that will shortly be abandoned. There is no way up. There are some irregularities, a crack, a niche or two, nothing more. The climber moves smoothly, almost mysteriously. He pauses only to look, deduce, and continue upward. He has neither rope nor equipment. He appears to be, he is, in another world. Never glancing down, he sometimes stops to shake out his hand, then climbs on. Higher and higher. The rock is even more sheer. He is climbing toward the sun, the last touch of which lingers far above.
Boulder is a city of 83,000 at the foot of the Rockies. It is the kind of provincial city that foreigners would love—handsome inhabitants, beautiful streets, and a marvelous old relic of a hotel in the middle of town. The hotel is the Boulderado, built in 1906. It has three lively bars, two restaurants, and a lobby from mining days, where young men in Levis indolently polish the brass. There are 20,000 students at the University of Colorado, and the median age in the city is only twenty-four. To the east side of town are large shopping centers and motels. To the west are the mountains. Boulder is the last city of the plains.
It is also the capital of American climbing, if a capital must have theaters and paved streets. No climber on the way from the East to Yosemite would pass up Boulder and a try at Eldorado Canyon or the East Face of Longs Peak. The Gunks (the Shawangunks in New York), they say, are roofs; Yosemite is cracks; Colorado is steep, hard, face climbs.
No one knows how many climbers there are in Boulder, probably thousands—students, doctors, university professors. Though long popular in Europe, climbing until recently had few enthusiasts in the U.S. In the past decade there has been a tremendous surge of interest. Now it is on television, there are magazines devoted to it, and soon there may even be speed competitions—climbing races. The Russians have had them for years.
For those who live far from the mountains, the whole idea of rock climbing must seem special and exotic. One must be near the mountains to understand it, one must be thrilled by them. The perils of climbing are overrated, but they have at their core one of the deepest of human fears, that of great heights and falling. For some climbers these fears are insignificant. For others they are something to be overcome.
Turn off the main highway south of Boulder and head west. Open country. There are houses scattered along the road, distant foothills with patches of forest, excavations, horses grazing in the fields. After a mile or two the entrance to a canyon appears, guarded by a buttress of rock. There is a shantytown of summer houses, shacks, and trailers strewn along the creek—Eldorado Springs, population about 225, climbers, car guys, and old-timers. It used to be a resort on land bought from the Union Pacific Railroad: “Finest natural warm springs in the state.” There is still a swimming pool; there were once stables, a big hotel, and a dance hall. A stairway of 1,350 steps went up one side of the canyon, and a wire-walker named Ivy Baldwin thrilled the crowds by crossing 600 feet in the air. Eisenhower spent his honeymoon here in 1916. Excursion trains ran from Denver. The steep canyon walls that seem ageless were objects of natural beauty, nothing more. In fifty years they were to bring Eldorado Springs to life again.
The cliffs are formed of an extremely hard sandstone with surface irregularities, which provide holds. These are often very small. In the most difficult climbing there are holds no thicker than the edge of a shirt button. Farther north, in Boulder Canyon and Rocky Mountain National Park, the rock is mainly granite marked by vertical cracks. This is the same rock found in Yosemite. Climbers usually excel at crack climbing or face climbing, one or the other. A few are equally adept at both.
Hard Times, Trail’s End, Romeo—the houses in Eldorado all have names. In the middle of town is a green cottage with a sign: International Alpine School. Some of its letters are missing. A flight of stairs leads up to the door. The porch is a small office—some photos on the wall, a desk, typewriter, and a box in the corner marked “Inactive Files.” In the main room hang coils of rope and slings of climbing hardware. In back are a small pantry and toilet. The water comes from an irrigation ditch, the heat from a stove. There is no insulation. The rent is $70 a month. There are two lofts, one filled with sleeping bags, the other with a mattress. In this kingdom reigns Kevin Donald, director of the school. He is thirty-one, tall, slim, naked to the waist. He knows every person and every dog in town, “Hi, Czar. Hi, Chinook. Hi, P.P.” That last stands for Perpetual Pup, he explains. He knows many of the visitors as well. He’s taught a lot of them to climb.
There are at least four climbing schools in Boulder plus the underground. At the International Alpine School, for around $400 in the summer and $500 in the winter, you can spend up to seven days learning to climb. Food, tentage, and equipment are included. Kevin also hires out as a private guide for $100 a day.
Rock climbing has a scale by which it is graded, a decimal scale starting with 5. A climb of 5.1 or 5.2 is easy. 5.6 can give pause. It was intended that 5.9 be the ultimate, but things have gone so far past the earlier limits that there are now grades of 5.11 and 5.12. Kevin is a solid 5.11 climber. In practical terms this means he can climb almost anything, including buildings, a tradition at the University of Colorado, where the library and Macky Auditorium, especially the latter, are among the favorites. There is a basement entrance to Macky with a large wall where stones protrude slightly from the mortar. They are covered with chalk marks—gymnast’s chalk is used to give climbers a better grip—and students, as well as ex-students and some who have never even registered, can be found clinging to the stones like lizards. Sometimes in the late afternoon the organ is playing inside the auditorium and great, Wagnerian chords flow over the figures working their way upward.