PART THREE: If backflips cannot save us, there is no hope
“Boone!” Sam yelled. “Get your camera! I’m gonna backflip.”
Sam clutched the railing of our second-story condo. We had changed our accommodations when our group split in half: MC, Katie, Chuck and Ethan had flown home, but Jen Vennon, Mason, Sam and I, Jay and Silent Nels, Boone and Jenn Walsh, and now, out of nowhere, Chris Lindner, were still going hard. Our new digs were far less luxurious, with only two beds for the nine of us, but it was much more intimate and fun.
“Don’t do it, Sam,” I said. “That pool is only three feet deep at best. You’re going to choss yourself, dude.” I wasn’t alone—everyone else had come out to our balcony to try and talk Sam out of flipping into the pool, which he was only doing to impress the two beautiful German girls in the condo below us.
“Shit, I would’ve done it by now if you guys hadn’t said anything. Where’s Boone? I want a picture of this. Boone! Get your camera!”
A German family, on an until-now peaceful vacation, was quartered directly below. We made up a scenario that then became a running joke for the rest of the trip, and it went like this: The family would go home, describe what they saw to their friends, and say, “And szen, zee American, right before he hit his head on zee pool, he say, ‘Hey y’all, vatch dis!’”
We were all laughing at the joke, but Sam was intent on flipping.
“Why don’t you put a bottle of wine in your pants, too,” I suggested. “Then, after you flip, if you somehow don’t smoke your head into the concrete, you can pull the wine out and open it for zee ladies.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Sam said. The family anxiously watched from their condo below. The girls, however, were smoking and pretending not to care.
“Fuck it, backflip,” Sam said, and then he was off in the air, somehow managing to break the center of the oblong puddle. The Germans cheered. We shook our heads.
The elements of Mallorca were beginning to score our minds and bodies. The Mediterranean environment, as beautiful and peaceful as it seemed, was brutal with sun, sea and sand. It had sculpted our very edges and refined us into a stronger, lighter, bolder version of ourselves. Sam had harnessed these empyreal virtues, and unwittingly captured it with, “Fuck it, backflip.” The crass, wonderful words nearly became a mantra, a feeling of invincibility that drove us to such a high that the future had never been more irrelevant.
The next day, we went to Cala sa Nau, an area with both moderates and projects alike. Little information existed on the majority of routes. Unconfirmed ratings and zero beta defined most climbs at this section of Cala sa Nau, which, in some ways, was more intimidating than the Diablo Wall. It was just as tall, only most cruxes occurred at the very top of the 60-foot prow.
The day began immediately rough and exciting as waves struck the limestone pilasters puncturing the water. WHOOMP! The ocean was giving us a small taste of its awesome capacity. WHOOMP! These waves would strike the wall with such power we could feel the violent reverberations in the grips, as if we were being warned by the harbingers of the apocalypse. We descended a 5.10 to reach a slit in which six people could sit. Thankfully, there was rope ladder there, though it was nearly sawed in half and if it did cut, an intense, dangerous swim lay ahead.
The route Sam, Mason, Jen Vennon and I were going for had been touted by Boone and Jenn Walsh as “the best 7c [5.12d] on the island,” though its real name was unknown. Boone and Jay had done the route before, and they warmed up on it, as did Sam, by now the strongest soloist among us.
I first wanted to try a 5.12a, which was tricky and difficult and zigzagged all around. I climbed up to the crux, then downclimbed back to the ledge and rested. I repeated this about three more times, completely afraid to fall after that nasty spill I’d taken at the Diablo. Still, I wanted to push myself for the usual reason: to get a better look at what was within.
Upon reaching the top, I was ready to revert into vacation mode and start drinking beer, but Sam and Jay urged me to climb more. They were working on a 5.13c with a hard, powerful bulge at the top, taking big falls, with Sam, as always, falling by looking up and holding his nuts with both of his hands until he broke through the drink.
On the awkward ledge again, we huddled together to keep warm, talking about what the moves on different routes were like. I was beginning to grasp a couple of things about deep-water soloing that made me rethink that bittersweet epiphany concerning the sport’s apparent fate I’d formed at the Diablo.
First, in deep-water soloing, there’s absolutely no bullshit. No matter how many chalk bags and rope ladders you install on these cliffs, or how many guidebooks are written, you can’t detract from the simple, wonderful truth that in deep-water soloing, there are only two outcomes: You either reach the top or you fall a long way with your nuts in your hands. Inevitably, people will use various techniques to make the sport safer and push standards, and that’s fine. But when it comes down to it, you still have to put quite a bit on the line.
The second thing I learned surprised me the most, but it’s also the most important. And it came to me that day at Cala sa Nau on that tiny ledge with old and new friends. I realized that there is more camaraderie in deep-water soloing than any other climbing experience I’ve had. The discovery was impalpable in some ways because, this was soloing: no belaying, partnerships or anything immediately obvious such as that. However, the truth is, everyone’s a partner, and you really don’t want to see your friends fall when they’re at the top of a 60-foot wall. The intensity of the experience draws everything that is human out of you and forges connections far stronger than any rope and Grigri.
WHOOMP, WHOOMP! The waves were growing with my anxiety over taking the dive, or, even worse, finding out I wasn’t good enough to do this so called “best 7c in Mallorca.” Mason tried it first, falling at the route’s second crux fairly high up. He returned to the ledge. Jenn Walsh went up, gave an awesome burn and she fell too. She returned to the ledge. We sat and talked and felt so small I swore there was no one else in the world but us.
Because she has spent seven years climbing at the Red River Gorge, Jen Vennon can hang on forever. She slowly made her way through the first crux, then the second, and then, somehow compressed an eternity of shaking out just before the last crux. She was precariously positioned 50 feet from the water, or 10 feet from the top, depending upon how you look at it. This very subtle, but important difference often decides success and failure. It’s a simple one, but truly grasping the nuances of this idea requires quite a bit of experience.
“I’m so scared!” she cried. We all encouraged her, willing her to do the damn thing first go. Her face, normally poised when she climbs, was bent and stretched in animate directions and she was obviously on the edge. Then, I noticed her expression soften; she breathed deeply a few times and committed to the final moves, topping out completely alive.
“I think I would’ve peed myself, but I didn’t want to get the holds wet,” Jen yelled down. “That was the bravest thing I’ve ever done … no, actually, falling would’ve been braver. No, that was least brave thing I’ve ever done!”
My turn. Sam said to me, “Dude, you can do this route.” I’ve never responded to encouragement before in my life—I’m an editor, which means I’ve got thick skin and a cynical view of humanity. Plus, I’ve never thought of myself as being good at anything and still don’t. But what Sam was really conveying to me was a universal idea with an unstoppable power that every climber can relate to. It’s the Gusto. Racking up and taking the lead. Getting after it. And now, “Fuck it, backflip.”
I went up the 7c and tried hard to focus on the climbing—placing my feet, not over-gripping, staying relaxed and all the other stuff that you learn and forget and learn again throughout your life as a climber. My friends were atop the cliff, and down on our ledge, watching me, only this time it felt comforting. I somehow made it through the first two cruxes, which I guess surprised me so much that I totally botched the little mini-crux at the very top of the wall.
It was a stupid mental error, but in retrospect, I probably learned more about myself from that single failure than I would have if I had muscled through and topped out. The failure made the climb special; the “best 7c in Mallorca” is forever etched into a certain part of who and what I am. But those things I keep to myself.
I fell a long, long way, grabbed my nuts and stuck the landing.
This article was originally written for Rock and Ice magazine. Stay current on my latest writing: Subscribe to the free R&I eBlast, and get a subscription to the magazine, at www.rockandice.com.
