Talk is cheap. We've all heard the cliché, but no, really— in order to avoid being taken in, we’ve got to fully appreciate the ramifications of that statement. As corporate leaders, we’ve got some of the most talented and well-armed professional persuaders in the world lining us up in their sights. Which ones just sound good? I got a profound object lesson on the topic in an earlier era of my life.
In the ‘90s, I was a new arrival in Austin, Texas, and I was very taken with the sport of rock climbing. I spent every free moment that I could find climbing in the Austin Greenbelt, sport climbing, clipping bolts. It was euphoric. I had some early successes that fueled my passion, and I was hungry to learn more, to push my limits, to do harder climbs, to delve into all that this new sport had to offer. I was also an engineering student and someone who is a risk-taker but not reckless by nature, so I was delving into the physics behind the ropes, the angles, the materials, the statistics behind climbing safety. Sure, I enjoyed the thrill of the sport, but I didn't want to splatter my brains on the rock at the base of some cliff because I was an adrenaline junkie.
After spending about a year exploring all of the climbs within ready distance of Austin that were within my abilities, I got very interested in the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area about 2 hours away near Fredericksburg, Texas. Climbing on granite is very different than climbing on limestone, so I had to relearn everything as I moved away from Greenbelt sport climbs to what's known as trad climbing, where the climber places gear that they carry with them as they ascend in order to protect the climb. Cams, stoppers, slings, tri-cams, big Bros— it was all new tech, all new technique, all new numbers, all new risks. I was in, but I wanted to understand how to do it safely, so I attacked it with deep enthusiasm. Within that year, I learned to become a competent climber of grades that were well within my ability. I could climb easy stuff in the 5.8-5.9 grades without becoming too adrenalized to think clearly. I became competent at placing the gear on the way up and constructing anchors at the top. When you take falls on a placement that you have set, it cuts through the hypothetical and gets straight to the real world. You find out if the thing is going to hold your weight or if it's going to pop, sending you on a surprise journey downward at a rate of 9.8 meters per second squared. It's the kind of thing that you want to get right.
Well, after about a year of learning the ropes on the easy grades, I had my eye on some more ambitious routes that were going to cause me to simultaneously climb hard and hang on with one hand while I tried to figure out how to get a good placement with the gear with the other. Back in the day, climbers traded information about routes verbally, swapping "beta". Guidebooks were primitive black-and-white affairs with very generalized descriptions of the routes, often created by some stratospherically talented climber who probably couldn't tell the difference between a route that would be easy for an intermediate climber like me and one that was likely to kill him. I was hungry for any information that veterans could provide about climbs, or about gear.
Thus, I arrived at the Whole Earth Provision Company right off of Guadalupe, across from the University of Texas, and ambled over to the display case where the cams and shiny anodized carabiners were proudly displayed. A tattooed, lanky young man in his mid-twenties greeted me glibly. The climbing community in Austin in those days was small enough where even if you didn't know somebody, you had probably seen them out at a crag. I knew this guy climbed grades harder than I did, having witnessed him hanging off of one of Jeff Jackson's 5.13 overhung projects a few weeks earlier. As I peered into the case, I saw a new model of Black Diamond carabiner that looked like an I-beam. It was a strange design to my eye. It was about three times larger than a normal carabiner, and why was the meat on the sides of the metal carved out like that? Had this design been vetted in the real world? My mind was trained to think of all the things that could go wrong, that all too frequently did go wrong in the real world where carabiners got bent over sharp edges, or where forces occurred along unexpected axes that the prototype was never subjected to in the laboratory.
I looked up at the climbing superstar in front of me (let's call him Shredder) and asked him some of those questions. I may have opened with something like, "Hey, what do you know about these new I-beam carabiners? I was thinking about buying some carabiners, but I don't want to be an early adopter on something that hasn't been vetted in the real world yet..." Something like that. And thus began an unpleasant monologue in which I was chastised for even asking such a question. Of course, that carabiner had been thoroughly tested. The climbing industry never makes mistakes, never releases untried dangerous prototypes. I was basically lectured for quite a while. The whole time I was receiving the lecture, I knew that this guy climbed fully two grades harder than I did. He was objectively in some regards more of a climber than I was, so I patiently absorbed his "help," thanked him, and exited the store without purchasing the I-beam carabiners. I chalked it up to experience and moved on. And had fate not interceded, I probably never would have recorded that event in memory.
However, just a few weeks later, I found myself at Enchanted Rock, standing at the bottom of Grass Crack. At 10A, the guidebook assured me that this was a climb that I should have no problem ascending. Standing on the ground, attempting to suss out where I could pause in order to place gear, how much opportunity there would be for rests, whether or not a fall was likely to cause a swing into something hard and painful— I stood there for quite a while. You have to do a gut check before you embark on something like this. It would be my hardest trad lead from the ground up without first having climbed the route on top rope—a trad red point ascent. In truth, I was scared, but I thought that I could do it and I wanted to go for it.
I hung a bunch of anodized cams and slings on my nylon rack, tied into the rope, and went through the familiar ritual: "On belay?" "Belay on." "Climbing?" "Climb on." With that, I set sail up the route. The first placement was thankfully easy enough. You always feel better once you get that first piece of gear in. The next section was also fairly approachable. I was able to stand on torqued toes jammed into the crack below me long enough to get a solid placement. In truth, the route went by rather quickly, and I suddenly found myself at what I had perceived to be the top. However, the route continued above me after the crack ran out. This was unforeseen, a dangerous turn of events. I scanned the face of the cliff for bolts—none. Looking upward, I saw what looked from below like the marks of the crack resuming above me. It was moderate terrain, maybe 5.9 on good crystals, stuff I felt comfortable traversing with the good edging shoes I was wearing, until I reached a sloping ledge that I could stand on and reach upward to place more gear. Or at least, that was the way that the story was supposed to go. What actually ensued was a harrowing epic.
I stood on trembling calf-raised toes for what felt like an eternity, trying to get a Number One Black Diamond stopper to find purchase in something that couldn't honestly be called a crack—more like a flaring small indentation. In moments like that, you wish you didn't know what the maximum force that a Number One Black Diamond stopper can absorb is. The numbers say that a 75 kg climber, like myself falling—even 3 or 4 meters could generate enough force to pop the small wires suspended in the aluminum chip at the end.
To make things worse, I couldn't get confident that that nut was set. I would yank down on it, and it would come free. Eventually, I was able to see it balancing on one of the faces against a single feldspar crystal within the granite. But then I stood there for an eternity. I looked down below me to assess the fall and saw that it was not going to be pretty if I popped. My last placement in the eponymous crack below me seemed like it was 5 meters away. This would mean that I would gather speed and force for what seemed like an eternity before the rope could begin to absorb my fall. Unfortunately, a short distance beside and below that last protection point was an entirely different cliff face, one that I would surely hit before the slack in the rope could be absorbed. So basically, I had put myself in a position to make a do-or-die move up the face. I must not fall.
Fear is a funny thing. I know that it's given to us as a gift, to keep us safe, but in moments like that, it is not helpful. It makes palms and fingers sweat and feet that need to be calmly and carefully placed at very specific angles onto granite crystals tremble. But after standing there for what felt like another eternity, I realized that the situation wasn't going to get better, that I had to move, that I had to go for it.
There are moments in climbing where you have to enter into a zone of supreme focus, when all of the voices that you formerly allowed in—voices that would remind you of statistics and consequences—they all have to be shut out. Maybe Yoda's back there somewhere saying, "There is no try, there is only do." So, after what was likely the most death-defying 3 meters of climbing in my life, I arrived at the anchor at the top of Grass Crack. It felt like a great time to stop and reconsider my life choices. That was one of those moments for me. I decided right then and there that I wasn't interested in red-pointing anything at E-rock without first fully investigating the route. This wasn't sport climbing. This was playing for keeps.
So, I lived. My belayer ascended and cleaned from the bottom up to the anchor. The placement of that Number One stopper was so solid that he had a hard time cleaning it. I had yarded on that sling so hard that it had buried the sharp crystal into the soft aluminum face. That made me feel better. Sort of. And that would be the end of the story of a harrowing adventure if it had not been for the arrival of Shredder.
Like I said, it was a small climbing community in those days. That area has several climbs, and people tend to congregate at the base to do one of several routes. But lo and behold, Shredder had his sights set on Grass Crack. He had come armed with a new-looking rack filled with Black Diamond I-beam-equipped slings. He had his shirt off. He was so ripped that you could see every rib and all the striations in the muscles of his back as he donned his harness and shoes, pacing back and forth at the bottom of the climb, eyeing it from below. As I watched him, I thought about how his strength-to-weight ratio must be vastly superior to mine.
I waited with some interest to see him climb the route that I had just had such a close call on. But as time moved on, I was shocked to realize that he was having trouble finding his nerve. He climbed up from the rock ledge on the other side of the crack and leaned out to place a first piece. It's common in sport climbing when you're a little uncertain to clip that first bolt using a proverbial "stick clip". There's no glory in it, but it makes you feel better. What he had done was like the trad version of a benign cheat. It wouldn't be a clean red point ascent, but I was prepared to give it to him; however, after that he just resumed his nervous pacing at the bottom. His muffled exchanges with his belayer continued, but he did not embark upon the journey up the rock. Eventually, he climbed back up from the side and retrieved that first cam, then - to my surprise - he just packed it up.
He didn't have the nerve. There would be no second ascent of Grass Crack today. There would be no real-world verification regarding whether or not an oversized I-beam carabiner would perform under load as it slapped the granite face over the rounded edge of the arete.
My mind couldn't help but go back to that day standing there before the lighted case of carabiners, being berated about my concern over whether or not one should place one's life in the hands of a new model of carabiner. I realized in that moment that I had vastly more experience than he did in the real world. He may have had some more natural ability, but he lacked experience, courage and conviction. In short, my "expert" advisor was full of hot air. He was willing to tell me what I should have strong convictions about in an area where he had no business giving advice. He was merely impersonating an expert, because he could get away with it.
The real world is like that. Talk is cheap. Fake experts who are willing to spend your money, your time, your reputation doing things that they would not actually sign off on if it were their company, their project, abound. It's "good business". Once the SOW is signed, you're at their mercy. Be careful out there, folks.
The Mountain Project has some actual pictures of Grass Crack posted. https://www.mountainproject.com/photo/121811534
†While I-beam carabiners are now very common, the oversized pear-shaped model of carabiner that I saw in the case that day has completely disappeared from history. I can tell you what kind of carabiners Russian mountaineers were using in the 90s, but that model is completely undocumented, doesn't exist anywhere. I can only assume that it was a dangerous prototype that disappeared quickly and quietly - hopefully without causing injury or loss of life.
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