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Canyon Tajo Report:
Bolting on the Wild Side
(October 21-22, 2000)
By Mike Salomon and friends
I
was lost in blissful sleep, on a cloudy Saturday morning, when one of my climbing
friends woke me up with a 5:30am phone call. I'm waiting in front of your place
she yelled into the phone. As I dragged myself out of my comfortable bed, I
remembered that we made plans to go to Canyon Tajo today. Two 7-11 coffees and
a donut later, we were making good time as we crossed the US border and headed
south, through Tecate, and on to Baja's famous "autobahn of many tollbooths".
We exited the toll road, and wandered though a dusty little Mexican village until we found the dusty jeep trail that leads towards the Sierra de Juarez Mountains.
After an hour and a half of harsh off-roading, and endless pathfinding, we stumbled onto the last section of dry wash that leads to base camp. As we arrived, we passed John, who was busy helping two small cars out of the deep sand.
There is an art to driving in this
stuff and not getting stuck. As I was walked back to see if I could help, I
was stunned to see John barreling down the wash, determined to shuttle another
climber's Mazda hatchback into camp.
I didn't have plans to do any leading on this trip. I had just begun to
recover from a recent illness and hadn't climbed, much less led anything, in
most of a year. I was expecting an easy day of top- roping up to 5.9.
I should have known that more interesting things would be in store when John
packed his 30 pound bolting kit into his pack and said we were heading out to
"put up a short route" that he had been eyeing. After entering a maze
of gigantic boulders and tunneling under and around we came to a large, steep
boulder resembling a box with a few dented corners. The route John had scoped
out started on the steep and balancy north-facing corner. Closely surrounded
by humongous boulders, the cave-like setting had an eerie feeling. The filtered
light was dim, and a cold wind whistled through the boulders.
Jeanette was pre-selected to start
the first ascent. She had been psyching up for the task over the past two weeks. She
strapped on the rotohammer, hammer, and assorted steel hardware. I could tell
she was less than thrilled to be climbing with all that extra weight on. Her
apprehension was outwardly apparent. I watched her climb up 7 or 8 feet
and stand on a small friction stance. I could see her natural urge to clip in,
but there was no bolt to provide safety, just seamless cold granite. Falling
was not an option due to a twisted jumble of boulders below. The stance
was okay at first, but I could quickly see that the five minutes it would take
to put in a bolt would be painful and scary.
After a shaky five minutes of drilling, changing stance, and more drilling,
she spun a good hole in the rock. I could see a wave of relief wash across
Jeanette's face as she hammered in the bolt and was finally able to clip in
to a quickdraw. Now with a brief rest and the security of a belay, she was ready
to push upward. First she had to make an awkward traverse.
The next move became gnarly. It required tiptoeing across a tiny sloping
ledge while moving around a steep corner, all the while fighting gravity with
the weight of the electric cord and rotohammer. She fell twice while trying
to find a route across and pendulumed back around the corner, only to
end up with the rope stopping her a few feet above the ground. The third try
was the charm. She agonizingly scratched around the corner to a
stance. The bolting turned out to be another ordeal. Placing these two
bolts took quite a while, and I could see the strain wearing on her face. She
came down for a rest and I could see her lack of enthusiasm to go back up. The
flow of adrenaline that had sustained her now just left her shaking. Or maybe
it was just the unrelenting chill wind.
After spending my time belaying, and starting to feel bored with sitting, I
was looking to do a bit of climbing. I was morbidly curious to see what
Jeanette went through up there. So I said I would top rope to the last bolt,
maybe continuing up a few feet to check out what weakness the rock above would
surrender. It would give Jeanette some time to rest, and it would give
me something to do.
I started up. After rounding the corner, grateful for the upper belay
on Jeanette's two bolts, I exhaled a sigh of relief. I studied the steep
terrain above. Now it was for real. Leading upward, I was able to friction
several feet to an edge that afforded a chance to stop and figure out my plan
for down climbing back to the last bolt. Down climbing the friction moves looked
scary. I briefly considered jumping; at least I would be in control of my fate.
Rational thought took over. Once the only sane choice was made, I dispatched
the downward moves easily.
Before I knew it, John was attaching the drill to send it up on the rope. He
was indicating his confidence that I could finish the route. His theory is,
"If you can stand there with one hand for ten seconds, then you can drill it."
Yeah, right. After seeing what Jeanette went through I yelled a defiant,
"No way". Persuasion is powerful. Particularly, as I found out, when
a first ascent is at stake. Before I knew it, the drill was strapped to
my harness and I was on my way back up into the unprotected territory.
This time when I gained the drilling
stance the shakiness in my legs provided urgent motivation to put in a bolt.
It was the fear of the unknown. It was the unfamiliar heavy hardware. Maybe
it was the cold. I found myself fighting the Elvis that my left leg was cruelly
imitating. This was not an electric guitar in my hand and this was not a flat
stage. Not a time for theatrics, I started the drilling procedure. Mind over
leg muscle, Elvis slowly disappeared as the carbide tipped drill hummed its
way into the granite.
After what seemed like ten minutes but was probably only two, the bit was two inches deep. Halfway I told myself, struggling to be optimistic. I grasped the shaft, pinky finger against the base, and shuffled sticky rubber. My feet were screaming, I pressed the Bosch's trigger once more. The torque of the drill in a deep 3/8" hole is a fierce wrist-twisting force not to be taken lightly when standing with numb toes on a microledge that makes the head of a quarter seem like a landing strip. The Bosch is custom modified to make short work of the granite. Holding on with one hand and hitting the trigger is like grabbing a bull by one horn. With a, "Yee haw," I held on, my thoughts drifting to the elation I would soon feel, when finally I could clip my rope into this glorious stainless steel symbol of safety.
Inspired now, I finished the bolt. The pain in my feet was no longer relevant, it just added to the experience. Everyone below could tell I had found my "zone", as I tamed my personal Elvis, and ventured upward. There was more untouched rock above. I was anxious to go where only lizards had gone before.
No telltale chalk above, I visualized the moves. My body flowed upward to the next drilling stance. The fourth bolt went in without a hitch, and then the top presented itself like an apparition of the king himself. This was more than a chunk of rock in the Baja wilderness, it was symbolic of my struggle to overcome my inner Elvis, and finally be worthy of the tequila reward that would follow at base camp.
Hiking back to base camp, famished after a day of climbing, I could smell the chicken breast grilling over the campfire. We arrived to a grand fiesta around a raging fire on a cold Baja night. John whipped up batches of his locally famous margaritas, and everyone was sharing in the bounty of pistachios, cookies, and peanuts roasted over the fire. Mexican beer and tequila washed it down.