Ben: Hey you know that song that’s always on the radio, the Sound of Winter? Does it make sense to you? To me the sound of winter is silence. Nobody out there, snow absorbing the noise, Sierra granite looking like the Great Ranges in all the snow…

Konstantin: To me the sound of winter is the howling wind that kept me up all night, and when I finally fell asleep, having a Kim Kardashian dream, I woke up and found the wind blew tons of fucking spindrift in my sleeping bag. What the fuck?

B: Yeah but before the wind picked up, wasn’t it amazing, lying there in our bivy sacks, watching Orion rise, having the whole valley light up because the moon was bouncing off the snow? It was so surreal.

K: You are a hippie. The sound of winter is suffering, whipping wind. That’s what makes it cool.

B: But hardly anybody is willing to suffer so we can have it all to ourselves out there and have an amazing trip in solitude.

K: Don’t tell me you’re gonna post this trip on Pullharder.

B: Bear Creek Spire has gotta be the Sierra’s most famous peak next to Whitney. It almost never sees Winter ascents. It’s a perfect mountain, so beautiful. Why wouldn’t I post about it?

K: It’s not that hard. We are Pullharder, not the pussies.

B: Ok, alpine climbing is both yours and my specialty. And even so it took us 2 full days and completely exhausted us both. We had to hike an extra 12 miles in snow cuz the road was closed. That last storm was big, the snow was punishingly deep, we postholed, shivered the whole time and didn’t eat. You puked like 3 times. What’s not hard about it?

K: It was the fucking coldest Winter ascent of my life. It was like Denali’s West Rib.

B: Right, the granite was so frigid we could barely climb mid-5^th in the shade. Pullharder readers know you can’t always do the hardest climb of your life every weekend. It’s not like we can climb 5.11 in those temps.

K: I still wouldn’t write about it even if we did the Bear Creek Spire North Arête in Winter. It’s not hard enough.

B: It’s hard enough in January with the wind and snow, and it’s more than beautiful enough. By the way, if it were in the Appalachians we’d pronounce it “bar·krik·spar.”

K: In Russia our president is named after a bear. We have lots of creeks and spires. So what.

B: Remember talking to Mark Westman on Denali? He told us he came to the Sierra last year just to climb Whitney and Bear Creek Spire. Probably the greatest Alaskan climber and he loved them both. Pullharder is not too good for Bear Creek Spire. I’m posting it.

K: You probably just wanna post to impress some girl. How about this, you don’t post the report and instead you tell me who she is. I tell her I saw you pissing and you have a penis down to your knees. That will work better. I know what the American women like.

B: I love being out there in the backcountry. I get encouraged by other people’s posts, and I wanna encourage others to get off the Internet and do one more route. I like to participate in the community, you know?

K: I’m not an Internet guy. I like your posts to Facebook but I don’t read them. They’re long, always some worshiping the nature and mountain church bs quotes by Boukreev.

B: Boukreev’s Russian. You should like him, no? You must really not read my posts, I usually quote Peter Croft.

K: Hey this hot dog is so delicious. You want one? Andre said they are the healthiest shit and he read like 40 diet books or something.  Oh, sorry, I forgot you are vegetarian. You hippie.

B: Back to the sound of Winter. Another cool thing is that in Winter, the Sierra is totally different. It’s like a fairyland, you can walk across lakes, see all kinds of animal tracks, foxes, badgers.

K: Honey badger don’t care that you care about badgers.

B: Ok. But the point is, it’s even more beautiful in Winter and almost nobody gets to see it. Yes, the price is postholing in 2 feet of fresh pow and freezing all day long to get back in there. But once we’re there, I can feel God.

K: No kidding, I felt Jesus twice myself when puking in the snow yesterday.

B: We mean same thing I guess. Hey now that I think about it, maybe those lyrics could be about alpine climbing. “I watch the storm evaporate.
 I think of you in starry skies. I keep you so alive…It’s all in your face, I see you break. 
It’s like the sound of winter”

K: That song should be called the Sound of Wind. Pussy band, it would be cooler that way.

B: Hey what are you doing next weekend?

K: Climbing. Wanna go to the Sierra again?

B: I love the Sierra in Winter. It’s so tranquil.

K: I love the Sierra in Winter. It’s so fucking gnar.

All True. Send it!

BH & KS.

Bear Creek Spire, NE ridge. Jan 28-29, 2012.

Full winter conditions. 8 hours approach. 3 hours on route. 7 hours descent.

Editor’s note: The conversation happened over a much longer period than implied in this post. There was a lot of dead time, silence, and many interspersed comments such as “my shoulder totally hurts. I think my pack was sitting wrong” and “Man I am so fucking tired.”

P.S. “Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”- Anatoli Boukreev

 

I want to lead 30 pitches of 5.12, and 3 pitches of 5.13 clean that I’ve never redpointed, before by my next birthday.

This is going to be hard.  Due to school related time constraints, I’m not strong enough to climb 5.13’s right now, and I haven’t ticked one off in a while.  Also, the 5.13s will require projecting which is a heavy time sink.  I’m going to try to diversity the climbing, and while some will obviously be at the Riverside Quarry, that’s my style and I don’t want to make this easy.  I want there to be trad climbing, bolt clipping, overhung limestone, splitter sandstone, thin granite, volcanic pockets, miserable offwidth, punishing finger cracks, and more.

At Roberto’s suggestion, I’m going to keep coming back to add to this blog post throughout the year to update where I’m at: I’ll log climbs, add photos, route descriptions, and my experience on the route.  It should be a fun way to summarize all those climbs that usually go under the pullharder radar since it isn’t an epic trip to the mountains, or a crazy long or hard route.  It will also keep me accountable.  There’s no better way to force yourself to accomplish your goals than to spray about them on the internet!  ;)

Two pitches that are definitely on my radar at the moment:

1.  3rd 5.12 pitch of Moonlight Buttress.  That’s right, I’m headed back for it AGAIN in the spring if all goes well.  I’m hoping I clean that pitch up and get the whole thing free this time.

2.  Ghetto Blaster: 5.13a/b.  I had the pleasure of climbing in Malibu recently with a friend, and loved it.  Not my style, so it’s hard, but the routes are great!  Time to start projecting…

I will do my absolute best to accomplish this goal in the coming year, starting with this weekend in J-Tree!  I’m going to try to check out some of the 5.12s up on Queen Mountain with Shay.

Please feel free to post in the comments, and let the fun begin!

1/28/12  First blood!

Shay and I had a blast running/hiking out to Olympic Dome.  It’s buried around the left side almost behind Queen Mtn, but very worth the trip out there.  Shay lead Icon, then I gave Black Diamond (5.12b PG14) a go ground up on lead.  I’ll call it PG 14 because it’s nebulously between PG 13 and R.   Some retrobolt out right got me a little off-route, and I whipped, but other than that the route is one of the best I’ve ever done in J-Tree.  It’s about 80+’ with 6 bolts, heady, and very powerful.  It’s endless lockoffs on great holds on a dark patina face that’s vertical to gently overhung the whole way.  I can’t recommend it enough.  5/5 stars, for sure!  Make the hike!  There are rap bolts/rings on top.  Anyways, I pulled the rope and redpointed, without the detour, 2nd try.  First route DONE!  I tried Bloodline but the traverse into it was dangerous, on loose rock, and the bolts were relatively crappy.  Not five stars, as advertised in the guide, and I bailed.  Perhaps I’ll come back and replace the bolts someday?  Day two I wanted to get another 5.12 ticked off and tried Zombie Woof, “5.12b”.  I dropped into full on aid.  I think this thing is a TR, and not really a lead.  Oh well, at least I got one route this weekend!

P = G

Josh

The list:

1.  1/28/12 – Black Diamond, 5.12b PG14, Joshua Tree, Queen Mtn