Rock Climbing in a Waterfall

The plan was simple: hike to the wall, climb it, hike home. 

Leg Lake Cirque sits in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, about five miles from the Worthen Meadow Reservoir parking lot just outside of Lander, WY.

I was not only a newer multipitch climber, but also a new trad climber. I remember leading my first 5.6 on a small, uninspiring granite crack just a few months prior to this.

So, was I ready to climb a 6-pitch 5.9+ route sandwiched by 10 miles of hiking? I'm not sure... but Jay, my partner and good friend, thought I was.

How Do You Know When You're Ready?

A few years my senior, Jay took on a mentorship role regarding alpine climbing tactics. Whether he wanted to or not, he never mentioned it.

He and a friend learned how to alpine climb together when he lived in Colorado, and he took that knowledge out into the mountains on many occasions, safely returning home. That is, until he pulled off a refrigerator-sized block and fell, breaking his ankle… at Leg Lake Cirque.

Jay hadn’t been back to this area since his injury, so it felt special that he was willing to return for the first time with me. While I had been sport climbing for six or so years and was a confident single-pitch climber, that’s all I was — a single-pitch sport climber.

But there was something about climbing with Jay that made me believe in myself. Maybe it was his confidence on the rock emanating from his persona. Or perhaps just being around his silliness somehow made the hard routes feel easier. It even could’ve been his philosophical questions meandering around my head, distracting me from any fear I felt on the wall. Whatever it was, I enjoyed it.

On the hike out, he mentioned how difficult the trail was to navigate, especially in the dark. But the trail seemed straightforward to me. I had done a lot of hiking; I was confident we would be fine. Dirt path there, cairn there, worn slick rock there — but then a porcupine spooked us, and we lost the trail... I decided to believe him, after all.

After some wrong turns, an uphill boulder-hopping section, then a long slickrock slog, the cirque finally came into view. A towering boomerang-shaped spikey granite monolith looming over a small, deep blue alpine lake lay ahead.

We’re gonna climb that? I asked myself, trying not to share my hesitations with Jay.

A Sea of Granite in the Sky

I started to feel better after munching on a tortilla filled with peanut butter at the base of the wall, craning my neck to scan the entire thing into the sky.

I was up first. I racked up, probably carrying way too much gear (something I haven’t learned how not to do yet), and started up the easy low-angled slab.

I remember bringing Jay up to the top of the first pitch and him giving me pointers about how to place some of those pieces better. Why did he trust me to do this with him?

While I don’t recall all of the climbing, I do remember that after Jay brought me up to him, the next pitch began with a difficult move. So I placed a piece in the crack and stepped out right.

Leaning over, I set my right foot onto a sloping dish. Once I moved, it would be easier to keep going; I just had to move. I needed to put my weight on my foot.

I took a breath, deep into my belly, and exhaled slowly. I leaned over more, and I committed. I brought my left foot to my right, matching my feet on the sloping dish, and there I was, what felt like a thousand feet off the ground, with both feet together and my palms flat against the rock.

There was nothing to hold on to. I was standing as straight as I could with no way to counterbalance if I started leaning too much one way. Then it happened. My body took over and performed what it spent hundreds of hours practicing - it climbed.

I stepped out right and up onto another sloping dish. Still no handholds. I was miming against the wall like I was trapped inside an invisible box. With everything inside of me, I convinced myself to trust that foothold, trust the gear I had placed in the crack below (I still hadn’t fallen on any trad gear yet), and I put all my weight onto my right foot, again.

I stood up, dragging my left toe up the wall until I found a small dish to stand on, which allowed me to reach a ledge with my hands.

That was it? That’s what I was so scared of? I scoffed at myself for being so scared. That wasn’t so bad.

While the move was extremely exposed - over a roof and out to the side and away from your last piece, above a large low-angled block to bounce off if you fell - the climbing wasn’t actually too difficult, just committing.

Risk vs. Consequence

As I get older, I’ve noticed that I’m less willing to expose myself to high-consequence scenarios unless I’m confident about the level of risk required. My mind races with negative thoughts that cloud my head with poor judgment.

What would happen IF- How do we get back IF- How do I pay for my medical bills IF?

It’s been hard to turn that part of my brain off while climbing. While it’d be easier to blame one thing for my anxiety, like going into medical debt for the rest of my life, I think a more selfish thought sits in the back of my mind, ruling over all

the others.

What if I can’t do things like this tomorrow?

I want to be able to go for a trail run tomorrow, on a mountain bike ride, or go hiking. I want more days, and I have a hard time putting myself in situations where I’m not sure whether I’ll get more days.

But after I reached the ledge, I kept moving. Up the broken crack system I wandered, placing pieces where I thought they were good.

Safe to say, I was cruising — until I wasn’t.