Our Vertical Park

I don’t know why we thought it was a good idea. I guess we were just bored or frustrated that the weather had been so lousy that it would be pointless to make any big effort to climb anything that required a long approach and more favorable conditions. The rain kept on coming as I sat on my couch at home, reading the route descriptions. That April of 1976, The Mountaineers had just published a little 62-page saddle stitched soft cover book titled: “Darrington & Index Rock Climbing Guide’ by the inimitable Fred Beckey. I snagged a copy off the shelf in the book alcove at the Swallow’s Nest, put my money down, and headed home to peruse the options. The little guide even had a 4-page centerfold. No, it wasn’t a reclining rock goddess, it was better, black and white photos of the Index Lower Town Wall with routes mapped out with dashed lines in red ink, each clearly labeled so you could imagine yourself there. A route description on page 30 caught my eye, ‘Japanese Gardens’ and another on page 35 ‘City Park’. I found the names intriguing and that was enough.

Those route names were bestowed when first climbed because of the pervasive vegetation. Through usage, the routes had become somewhat cleaner but the wall was still home to a lot of moss and the occasional small tree or tufts of brush. That didn’t matter to us. We just wanted to get out of the house and do something that we thought would advance our climbing skills. It didn’t matter that the walls might be wet and cold with water streaming down the face, that would pose no problem, at least not when visualized from the comfort of home, seated before an actively flaming hearth.

The Lower Town Wall, just outside the mountain hamlet of Index, hosted those two routes and many others and some with several variations on their central theme. It was a plethora of choices. The area had not become a serious venue until the mid-1960s but in the 1970s it had become fairly popular as an all-season training ground for those who wanted to practice their aid climbing skills. The routes, several hundred feet high, ran up the vertical granite walls near a quarry on the edge of town. Eventually many would be climbed completely free as climbing skills advanced. But back then, for us, it was a combination of free climbing and aid. For some reason, we thought that we might need to develop aid skills and so we packed our gear and headed east to Index.

The Darrington climbs were further away on the Mountain Loop Highway and you were also at risk of becoming a victim of the notorious trail head thieves that would think nothing of breaking your car window to rummage it contents. That had happened to us before while on a multi-day hike into the Glacier Peak Wilderness and it left an unsavory taste. Index did not have that reputation and the trailhead was but a short drive from the tiny town on the Old Gold Bar-Index Road. It was then just a brief hike across the railroad tracks and through the trees and brush up to the base of the wall.

We dumped our gear and looked up. The dark stark face that loomed overhead looked inviting when viewed through our eyes. Still fresh from the warmth of the car, the chill of the damp overcast day had not yet entered our bodies. After sorting our gear, we enthusiastically began our ascent of City Park using aid techniques, setting nuts and clipping in with webbing etriers, and stepping up into them, trusting our weight to our anchors. The work of it was slow and arduous. As the guide said, ‘Fitness is important; speed and stamina are less essential’. It might also have added patience as a virtue.

It was only through our diligent efforts that we were able to make vertical progress, the increments of which were all painstakingly gained, and we imagined that it would be an impossible task without aid. We were wrong. The crack climb would finally be freed just over ten years later by a nationally renowned elite climber, Todd Skinner, who rated it at 5.13d, which at the time we were climbing was an absolutely inconceivable level of difficulty. And it certainly couldn’t be done in wet conditions.

And that day it was wet, with water running down the wall, over our gear, into our wool clothing, and past us into the earth. The day was bleak and chill with sopping cloud cover And yet we persisted, happy with our meager progress, finally getting some aid climbing experience. We had the wall to ourselves, save one other party further down the wall, and felt free to focus on our curious task. We ascended the route and spend the rest of the day practicing. Despite the less-than-stellar conditions, we agreed that it had been fun. Though we didn’t admit it at the time, it wasn’t nearly as much fun as climbing free and it was doubtful, we’d chose any future Cascade alpine routes that would require the techniques. And as time passed, we didn’t. It was though, for us that day, an exploration of another avenue of ascent. It was our day at City Park.

This is an excerpt from ‘Our Vertical Park,’ an adventure story from my recently released memoir, Banquet of the Infinite, which is now available as an eBook on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo.