Trip Log: Shelf Road & Devil's Head
Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime. You can spend them slowly, like a tortoise, and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend them fast like a hummingbird, and live to be two years old.
Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song
“I’m glad you’re going on this trip, but I’m also sad,” my friend Ellen told me the day I left for Colorado.
“Why?” I laughed.
“Because it’s the beginning of the end,” she said. “You’re going to go up there, and you’re going to move. I give it a year.”
I laughed again, because I thought she was kidding; but the look on her face told me she kind of wasn’t. And the moment I laid eyes on the cliffs above Sand Gulch Campground, I realized she might be right. I hadn’t even touched the rock yet and already knew I was a goner.
We’d driven all night to maximize our time on these walls, and despite the wobbly-but-rigid effect only a 14-hour car ride can have on your muscles, our whole group scrambled to set up tents, fill up waters, and stuff gear into packs as fast as possible so we could get to them.
I was the fifth and sole female member of the crew. Jim Hausmann is the resident sensei at Momentum Katy, a guy who’s been climbing for 30 years and politely crushes us all. Rees Williams is the gym’s GM — my boss, the person I consider my top mentor in the sport, and also just someone I hope I am friends with forever. I didn’t know Kelly Allen at all prior to this venture, but by the end of that car ride he had easily secured a spot in the top five funniest people I know; and his style on the wall is quietly brilliant. And Adam Zientek is that inspiring combo of being both technically, physically good at climbing and hungry in his approach to it — he tries hard.
I was honored to be on the team, to say the least. The opportunity to climb world-class sport routes with a group as strong and psyched as those four isn’t something you pass up. From the moment we tied into our first routes of the trip, I was learning from them. Watching their footwork, their mental strategies, their route-reading, their systems — I’ve said it to plenty of people, but it’s worth saying again: I don’t think anything has helped me grow in this sport more than climbing with people who are way, way better than me.
I didn’t take a single climbing photo for the first two days of our trip, which means I really have zero visual evidence of Shelf Road. But that’s because the climbing was so good, I didn’t want to miss a moment of it. I’ve never climbed outside of Reimers in Austin, so the quality of the rock and the height of the routes and feel of the holds just continually blew my mind. Every line I got on was the best I’d ever climbed. It was techy, vertical, balance-y — everything I love most. And at 80-plus feet, each felt like it lasted forever.
It also offered a level of mental escape that I was craving in a big way. There’s been a lot going on in the world, obviously; and a lot in my own life, too. I have the ability to live in my head to a pretty extreme degree, and one of my favorite things about climbing is its unique ability to pull me out of my brain and into my body. When I’m on a tough route, I’m not thinking about relationships, work, stress, problems, solutions, ideas, projects — anything. I can’t. Climbing at my limit requires 100 percent of my attention. It takes all my breath and effort, and requires my mind to bow to my body — letting it guide me into the positions it somehow knows to take in order to balance on tiny pockets and edges, to stand on invisible feet.
Late into day one, I turned a corner and stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of a proud arete. I traced the line upward, the bottom third full of good, blocky holds; the sides beautifully thin and sheer; the top a roof that looked like it offered good edges. “You want to get on it?” Rees asked, grinning. I immediately nodded, racking up with no idea what the climb was or how it was rated. Sometimes you just know.
From the moment I started up the climb, I was in a clear, perfect mental space. It felt like being on another planet. I’d been overthinking for days on end, and the total focus and quiet that line required of me was a balm. I wasn’t stressed. I wasn’t nervous. I was dialed into a beautiful route in a beautiful place, high in the air and far away, placing my feet and focusing on my breathing and trying my hardest. I paused at one point to figure out beta, and calling for the take felt like arriving back from a time warp. When I looked down, Rees was grinning from ear to ear.
“You want to know what it is now?” he called up.
“Yeah,” I shouted down.
“It’s an 11b,” he told me, “called Aretissima.”
“I love it,” I blurted out, my eyes misting over; and he laughed, but he understood. When I pulled back on and began working the crux, I was right back into that otherworldly headspace; totally committed. Above and to the side of my last bolt, I threw for a dicey move without hesitation and missed. I heard my own scream on the way down, but as soon as I hit the end of my rope, I was proud. My greatest weakness in climbing has been overthinking and psyching myself out. For once, I had been so in the moment, it hadn’t occurred to me to hesitate or be afraid. I’d gone for it completely, and that feeling was everything I’d hoped for in the trip. I don’t know how to completely explain it, but other climbers know how it feels. It’s magic.
Aretissima was the gift I had come on the trip for — a tick mark of how much I’ve grown in this sport, to be sure, and an inspiring challenge to come back to. But it was also exactly what I needed in a bigger way at the time, and allowed me a respite from my own spinning brain.
Unfortunately, I also landed hard on my right foot on that initial fall, spraining it. I worked the crux and took the same fall a couple more times, trying to make sure I hit the wall with my left foot only, before finally admitting defeat and lowering. I watched tearfully as Rees styled it, not because I was disappointed or sad (or, you know, in pain), but because I was completely in love with the route and grateful for my experience on it.
“You needed that, huh?” Rees asked afterwards. I nodded.
Lucky for me, my climbing shoes had shielded my foot in such a way that I could still toe down and press off of it — it was just my midfoot, essentially, that had gotten sprained. It swelled up and bruised, but it was still usable; and I spent the rest of the trip popping generous amounts of ibupfrofen, hiking at the back of the pack while the guys generously split my gear between their own packs, and reluctantly sticking to top-roping routes so that I wouldn’t fall on it again. Not exactly what I was hoping for, especially since I’d felt so mentally strong on day one; but it was still an incredible trip, and reminded me that so much of why I love climbing isn’t about climbing at all. It’s about the camaraderie, and the feeling of moving across the rock, and being outside, and the chance to hype up your climbing partners, and the camping, and the snacks, and making friends with crag dogs. You know, things like that.
I did get a lead send on a 5.9+ called Ga-stoned Again on our second day out — an amazing, flowy-but-tough line that Rees assured me I was strong enough to lead with little fall potential. At 80 feet, and with the extra caution I was taking, it still required a lot of effort, and I was proud and breathless and extremely satisfied when I clipped the anchors at the top. I also surprised myself following the 11b/c next door to it, The Raw and the Roasted, not long after — one of those climbs where about halfway up, I was sure I was coming off every move, and just… kept not falling. When I lowered, Jim was beaming.
“I was telling these guys that this is why I love climbing with you,” he said. “Ryley always tries hard.”
And that compliment, friends, is the highlight of my climbing career so far.
It feels appropriate that The Raw and the Roasted was what I finished day two with, because from that point on that’s essentially what I was. We packed up camp that day and drove a couple hours north to Sedalia, Colorado, to meet up with Jim’s brother Justin and spend our third day at Devil’s Head, a crag that both of them helped develop; and while my skin was screaming by that point and my foot fairly grumpy about what I was putting it through, all five guys just kept crushing, and I got to sit back and be inspired by it.
The granite cliffs at Devil’s Head, pink and orange and pale green and set in sprawling mountains all around, are stunning. And to be climbing routes with the guys that bolted them? Pretty dang amazing. I spent the day sitting back with my camera taking it all in, listening to Jim and Justin recount their history with the place and belaying and trying to capture just a bit of what it felt like to be there.
Jim excitedly described dozens of routes in Devil’s Head, but it was a 110-foot 10c called Lord of the Flies that caught my attention. He’d described it as easy climbing that went on forever, with an amazing view at the top, but to get to it was a bit of a scramble, and he was hesitant about me navigating to it. After hearing Adam and Kelly rave about it in the distance, though, I got stubborn. I wanted to climb Lord of the Flies, and nothing would deter me, and I began a very slow and internally defiant march/crawl up loose boulders to its base, climbing shoes in hand.
Sometimes being stubborn gets me into trouble, but I would like to go on record and say that this time: I was right.
I followed the route, and the higher I got on it, the more in love I was. The climbing ranged from techy slab to big moves on good holds, but none of it was hard — cruiser climbing, fun and flowy and free of head games. The holds were obvious and good. And it went on forever. I climbed higher and higher, rising for what felt like miles with the wall, pausing every ten feet or so to look back and take in the ever-increasing view and feeling intensely, deeply happy.
I reached a little ledge a few feet beneath the anchors to catch my breath and examine what was left of the climb. It was pretty clearly the crux, for me at least — a big, reachy layback on a crack with exactly zero feet. I felt a little nervous for the first time on the route, and shook my arms out, trying to untighten them before giving it a shot. 100 feet off the ground at this point, the world was perfectly silent and Rees, on belay, looked far away. I was on a different planet, it seemed.
Just then, a familiar buzzing filled my ears. We’d seen hummingbirds off and on throughout the trip, whizzing by on their way to whatever nectar they were after. The opening essay in one of my favorite books of all time, One Long River of Song, is about hummingbirds and how they live their lives big and fast and full of heart and the beauty and risks of that, and every time we saw one it made me think of the essay and the metaphor. I turned my head, hoping to catch sight of another one swooping along on its way.
To my surprise, though, this particular tiny, emerald jewel wasn’t swooping along. It was humming at a standstill about a foot from my face, looking me right in the eyes and not in a hurry to go anywhere. I caught my breath and stared back, grinning.
“Hi,” I whispered to my friend at the top of the world.
We stayed that way for 10 seconds or so, frozen on the side of a cliff on the top of a mountain at the end of a rope in the middle of the world, and it felt like one of those moments that is the whole reason I believe in God and believe that he loves and understands me, and you will never convince me otherwise.
The bird finally, suddenly darted and then swooped, diving down in circles, following my rope to Rees, and stared him in the face for a moment, too; and then hurried away, back on his way. I grinned down at him and then turned back up to the last ten feet of my climb and chalked up and jammed my hands into the rock and pressed my feet onto the wall and floated to the anchors. If that climb and experience was the only thing I’d gotten out of the entirety of our trip, it would have been worth it. I mean it.
We finished the day on a high note, watching and cheering as Adam and Rees styled a 5.12 called Snapping Station. I felt like I was on the route with them as I snapped photos and yelled, timing my inhales and exhales with theirs subconsciously and cheering as they clipped the anchors. (Jim offered to clean the route afterwards, noting that he wasn’t really sure he had it in the tank. He then proceeded to calmly and efficiently walk up it. Seriously, people: Climb with people who are better than you. I have never been so motivated to get stronger in my life.)
Tired and satisfied, we zombie-walked back to our trusty rental minivan, sorted gear, ate one last camp meal, and prepared for our return drive the next day. One very hard night’s sleep and very large breakfast at a local restaurant later (Were They The Best Srambled Eggs And Bacon I Have Ever Eaten Or Was I Just Sleep Deprived And Had Only Eaten Swedish Fish And Clif Bars For Four Days: A Memoir), I was asleep in the back row with a lot of dusty backpacks. And already ready for the next trip out.
Grateful for a quick, full trip with good friends. Can’t wait to get back in the gym and train so that I can keep chasing their grades… here’s hoping!
