by Chris Thayer

It seemed absurd to have four aluminum tent stakes with me when they had a hundred and forty feet of gravity between them and their actual designated use. I had no choice but to use them. Squinting to erase the fact that I was up this high looking at a potential ground fall to the desert abyss below, I stacked all four in the three-inch hole. This very seldom popular sport is called aid climbing, which requires extreme knowledge of rock types, gear, a practical knowledge of physics and definitely some luck. Unlike normal rock climbing, aid climbing is relying completely on gear to pull yourself slowly upwards with no warning when your next fall might be. And no, I don’t participate in the sport of Russian roulette.

We were at King Soopers store somewhere in nowhere Colorado on our way to Utah’s Fisher Towers. My climbing partner Joe placed much emphasis on cheap food that weighs little and packs lots of calories. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out; peanut butter. Well, Joe doesn’t like peanut butter and went all over the store buying up expired cheese and bagels. On our way to checkout I picked up a can of Alpo Dog Food and started looking at the nutrition labels. Joe was against the idea at first but I exclaimed at about four times my normal volume so that everyone within the surrounding areas could hear “Seriously, what is the difference between me and a dog?” Joe replied: “Haha, that’s definitely going to be quoted. Wait, sixty six cents each, beef stew, lets get two.”

That’s not the first time we disagreed on purchases. A week before, I was hanging off the tallest freestanding sandstone tower in the world, Joe bought some beaten aluminum tent stakes that looked like they had been through Vietnam. The tent stakes were Joe’s idea and for all I cared they were just there for aesthetics. Known by our friends as hardcore-never fail people, Joe and I set out for the Utah Fisher Towers the last week in October. We made the two-mile trek in, up, and down canyons at three in the morning carrying 180 pounds of gear.

It was time to face the Devil. Hell, if we weren’t up to it, nobody was. The Sun Devil Chimney aid climbing route goes right up the nine hundred foot Titan. There are higher towers outside of the United States, but they are all solid granite. Utah’s Fisher Towers, standing tall just outside of Moab, are avoided by many simply because they are diminishing piles of mud and sand. They probably have better reasoning skills than I. When it rains, mudslides occur vertically downward potentially wiping out any would be climber.
I took the first and harder lead, as I was slightly more experienced and maybe a bit wilder. Read: stupider. Joe knighted me with the eighty-pound gear rack on my shoulder while I tied into the rope. Four hours later and 140 feet off the ground I began mumbling incomprehensible curse words.

I had come to a point of no return. There was no going down and no gear I had that would fit the flaring crack but none other than the Vietnam vet tent stakes. As I hung off them I started to whimper for help. I stood up on them to anticipate the next placement when the top one blew out and I fell an inch. If I weren’t so terrified I would have cried and soiled my pants. I set a questionable anchor forty feet below me, which meant I was looking at about an 80-foot fall at best, but deep inside I knew I’d more than likely be hitting the deck below. The next placement would have to be a nail in piton requiring me to shift my weight while hanging from the stakes. As I bashed away, another stake slid out. I knew if one more blew this would be the ride of my life.
By the time we made it 300 feet off the ground it was dark and we only had one headlamp. Hanging off a few hardware nails pounded into the muddy rock I still thought it was time to move on and upwards. Joe was tired of the climb and we were scared and exhausted. Luckily our scared and shriveled egos took the best of us and we decided to retreat. Only after looking the Devil straight in the eye did we realize how lucky we were to be alive.

I’m not used to Utah’s heat. Three gallons of water seemed plenty for three days of climbing. The sun drank our body’s sweat glands dry at a rate of a gallon and a half a day. We had been defeated. Luckily we still had two cans of dog food left. Joe took the honors of cracking open the first can of Alpo. I slept like a tired puppy after that.

We set out the next morning to an awfully painful, dehydrated hiking experience. Three weeks later we returned with pasta, cheese and 8 gallons of water. We climbed a different route and made it to the top. People question why we have such a passion to climb towers of almost a thousand feet. It isn’t a day out in the sun with a few girls and relaxing eighty-foot tall cliffs that’s for sure. Somewhere in our minds we do actually like going through two or three days of extreme exhaustion, terror and anguish. I don’t climb anything because “its there.” I climb because my brain hasn’t yet evolved from the primate mindset that compels me to leave the ground. Why do I need to climb high? It’s simply a matter of perspective. Thirty feet of gravity has the same terminal effect on a body as eight hundred. Personally, I’d rather have more time to contemplate my life.