On Fear, Ethics and Cro-Magnon Man
By Matt Maddaloni

Panting hard, Nathan and I rested before entering The North Gully, a dark chasm wrought between the thousand foot walls of The Sheriffs Badge and Zodiac Wall. Our thoughts had struggled to find confidence while slogging through the steep old growth forest, but now we had run out of time. The warm August rain pelted our clothes and our lungs heaved as we hung our heads. A westerly wind whipped through the tree tops before it funneled into the narrow passage. It caught the vapor from our breath and merged it with mist and cloud on its way to the summit. Cold water seeped down my sleeve as I braced myself against the wall. My gaze followed the wind making me aware of several old fixed lines swaying back and forth across the stained black granite. At least three parties had given up on this miserable place, having climbed only two pitches. Perpetual moss and mud hung from the walls, a result of the consistent lack of direct light. The tattered life lines all ended in a hanging forest two hundred feet above. To go any farther would have led into more jungle choked corners.

Picking ourselves up, we fought on, slipping on the slick talus under our heavy pigs. We were searching for a new line, one that would veer away from that tangled horror. Five hundred feet into the gully we slumped off our burdens below the last unclimbed line, a jagged ceiling of bus sized flakes. The roof blocked all view of any difficulties that may lie above. The pressure of making the wrong choice made us question why we came.

I understand fear as a climber, a game that purposely puts oneself in less control. I believe that you can build tolerance to fear in the same way that your body can become stronger through training. The trick is to find answers to as many of the unknowns as possible; the more you learn about each situation the less you fear about screwing up and getting hurt. Nathan Kukathas and I choose a line that would take us out of the North Gully and up Zodiac Wall. It had unexplored terrain and difficult aid climbing possibilities. A sure shot to increasing your tolerance level, aid climbing regularly puts a climber in the path of fear because as the difficulty increases the danger follows suite. All we had to do was find a goal that would keep our focus long enough to reach the top, so we selected Zodiac’s most defining feature, a spectacular twenty foot horizontal roof near the summit.

Reaching a ledge above the initial roof during our second day, we discovered what we had feared all along, a blank wall. To our right we could see a corner that might be climbable but required several large pendulums and a lot of lost height. Nathan’s answer to our dilemma was to take the head wall straight on. Thinking this to be an absurd idea, I pegged it for his lack of experience. Ignoring his enthusiasm I focused on how to get to the corner. Nathan wouldn’t give up, saying that if we managed to climb the face we would gain the next ledge in only a pitch. Following his gaze again I tried to see what had given him so much hope. Small crimp sized edges littered the vertical face, offset by large blank spots. I also noticed the patio sized ledge that would be impossible to miss in a fall. Nathan began to get excited as he thought I might be considering his plan. He pulled out the hand drill and hooks, taking the liberty to clip them onto my harness. Fuck! I mumbled to myself. The next protect-able feature was over sixty feet above, what was he thinking. I then focused on our ultimate goal, the huge arched roof near the summit. The washed out rays of the sun illuminated the underside of the roof, giving us our first view of a twenty foot long splitter hand crack, shooting straight through the center.

For years I had stared at that beautiful roof on Zodiac and it was easy to convince Nathan to join me. Nathan’s half Malaysian blood gave him his tight curled black hair and dark tanned skin. At 22 years old, he did not fit in to any social circles, either in his professional life as an odd ball Australian assistant ACMG rock guide or his personal life as a wandering dirt bag genius. He constantly questioned everything, especially authority and had always seen a “better” way. As an example he would see fault in an anchor system and dive into serious study until he had redesigned it to his liking, his journal overflowing with sketches and diagrams. Our time together was spent in loud debates over any number of these improved ideas. I had met him while taking Kirk Mathners infamous Rigging for Rescue course in Invermere where we both could not get enough of the applied physics. Nathan had an immense understanding of design and had previously sewn his own 4-season tent, backpacks and technical clothing. I had never met anyone who so easily understood complex rope systems. Here was a guy who loved rigging as much as me! Surely he wall climbs too?

Now I was swearing I had picked the wrong partner as I balanced my weight onto the twentieth hook, the sharp point crumbling into the pencil width edge. It was too late to turn around now, I hadn’t seen anything bomber enough to rap off for a long time. Scared, I tried to focus on securing the hook. I began bouncing my weight up and down on it to test its integrity. Quickly my fear became overwhelming and I began to believe I might suddenly rip from the wall and become welded into the ledge forty feet below. Knowing the best method to regain control was to fill my mind with the only other emotion that can compete with the power of fear, I became really pissed off. “Come on! Blow off you son of a bitch!” My voice echoed off the nearby walls causing Nathan to move away from my line of fall. My raging actions amplified my body weight to three to four times my mass and thus the bounce test gave me the confidence that the hook would not fail. It looked to be another twenty feet or so above to an expanding flake and finally freedom. All I needed to do was resist the temptation to drill.

I had always debated against using power drills on aid climbs. The time that is needed to work out each piton, hook or head is forever long compared to the seconds required to use a power drill. Choosing not bring one immediately forces a climber to be more honest. From a precarious position it can take up to forty five minutes to place a two inch bolt by hand. Finding another alternative is usually more appealing and as a result makes for better style. Above all I knew that this was my lead. As a first ascent I had the power to place as many or as little bolts as I wished, and any climber repeating my route would have to respect that decision; although fear can corrupt ones ability to use proper judgment. The hand drill on my hip provided me the slimmest level of security I needed to allow me to climb through the unknown dicey terrain. At any moment I could choose to place a bolt for aid if all features ran out or I could place a bolt out of fear if things got to hairy. If I choose the later, the ethical thing to do would be to turn around and rappel; leaving the route for a better or bolder climber. Luckily I was saved that decision. Fourty five feet out, the rope hung completely suspended except for a lone bird beak that was tweaked into a shallow impression halfway between me and the life threatening ledge. I was nearing my wits end when the rock blanked out two moves before the expanding flake. Thankful there were no more options I hammered in the first bolt of the climb, making for an incredible fiftyplus feet of hooking. Nathan took over my lead and we reached Astro Ledge that evening.

Wall climbing to me is about getting severely fucked and enjoying it! The motivation stems from all the bad energy one can gather from dark rainy winters in Squamish or bad breaks with girlfriends. This powerful and potentially harmful energy is an aid climber’s asset. It can drive you out of the gloom of everyday life and get you high on a wall. Ryan Treneer and I surfed our motivation wave when we climbed the second ascent of Andrew Boyd’s “I Shot the Sheriff” during the natural disaster flood in Squamish in October 2003. As people were being lifted out of flood zones by helicopters we climbed for three days in water falls and driving rain. Most find their enthusiasm petering off halfway up a big wall and bailing for no apparent reason. It can take a lot of energy to steam oneself all the way to the top. Wall climbing is hard, stressful, and extremely physical, but with the right attitude it can leave you with an experience you will never forget. After 10 years of adventures those routes that changed me the most were the hard won big walls of my youth.

For the next three nights we survived the torrential downpour by sleeping in a tent protected by the ceiling of a cave on Astro ledge. Having suffered through so much fear the rest of the climb was almost a non event. We reached the summit roof without incident and were proud that the only bolts we had placed included one on the hooking pitch, a pendulum point out of a wide chimney and several rappel anchors for getting down. Nathan dispatched with the roof quickly, placing bomber gear through the twenty foot ceiling. Even though the exposure was daunting and the climbing above hard, we were the most relaxed of the climb, becoming stronger mentally and feeling more confident with each new day. Below us Squamish lay hidden in cloud as we climbed out of the billowing mist. Free at last of the thick humidity our damp bodies took in the sun like a sponge. In the last hours of the climb we tried to savor our fragile position. We would be back down in the gloom all too soon.

I would like to dedicate our route to Daryl Hatton, let his nickname and legacy be forever remembered on the big walls of Squamish. “Cro-Magnon Man (V 5.10 A4) Matt Maddaloni and Nathan Kukathas, August 2004.”