The female of the house was gone this weekend, and in place of her tender companionship and soft equipoise was a reeking rabble of three, my boys, all of whom leaped at this strange opportunity to get drunk and break shit with me. In other words, Guys’ Weekend.

Even on this Fourth of July, Freedom wasn’t Free—nevertheless we pieced together enough scratch to buy our version of liberation with 12 pounds of meat, several cases of some hoppy swill, a bottle of arak and a cask of peaty single malt from the distant Scottish Highlands. In a strained allusion to our Nation’s birthday, I whipped together a cilantro pesto and a roasted red pepper hummus for the restoration of our constitutions. With a silent blessing, inshallah, these items would get us through three days of cranking, with little trouble from any terrorists.

Sam, Mace and Hayden packed into my baller Jetta and I furtively booked it westward toward our local narrow limestone defile with the acute awareness that on holiday weekends in Colorado, cops are out and the Heat is On. This was problematic, however, given that I had just burned a Crystal Method CD, and I find it nearly impossible to go any less than 100 miles per hour with that kind of music playing. This was a weekend of holding onto the reigns, and also letting go.

We talked about food, mock enemies, genetalia, and, of course, climbing. Some interesting fodder and insights percolated as we drove through the sheep and goat farms of the Western Slope. The latest Cerro Torre/Red Bull controversy came up, though none of us were energized to muster anything more than bland ripostes one way or the other. Not even Hayden, who was actually down there and was one of the climbers paid to help clean up the abandoned gear. We reached an unspoken consensus that it’s a waste of time—not to mention a dead giveaway that you’re not climbing enough—to get too worked up about style, ethics and something as silly as which type of metal is “best” to leave on a mountainside: tiny bolts, medium-sized pins, larger cams or a 200-pound compressor. Pick your poison, bub, and be sure that when you start threatening mock ideological revenge, you dig two graves.

We talked about Alex Honnold, a good mutual friend despite not sharing our despicable thirst for booze. We all know just how solid he is on the rock—certainly the most solid climber any of us has ever seen—but we couldn’t help but express a little concern as we watch our friend develop this increasingly voracious appetite for being ropeless. Recently, he soloed The Crucifix, a 1,000-foot 5.12b on Higher Cathedral, which is wild if you know the glassy, holdless 5.11c stemming corner up there. This was also after climbing it earlier that day with Hayden and Ueli Steck.

Hayden introduced us to a theory originally put forth by “The Dark Wizard,” Dean Potter, who once expounded that with regards to the dark arts–things like free soloing–you have two jars: Experience and Luck. When you start out, the Luck jar is completely full and the Experience jar is completely empty. With every wild and life-affirming foray into that bleak and cataclysmic landscape, you take one token out of the Luck jar and put it into the Experience jar. You can gain lots of experience in a long lifetime, but ultimately, we’re all destined to one day run out of luck.

These grim ponderings, however, were rare and we mostly held court at our favorite sport cliff, which was blessed by a steady and magical wind that kept temps unseasonably cool in the canyon, which was ironically unpopulated.

By the third morning, my sinuses were plagued from the smoke of lighting too many fireworks the night before, and I felt the onset of the mental fog of a hangover. My skin had torn from the cool, dry air and too many applications of Hot Fire, aka “liquid chalk” as you robots call it. But I know that some climbers have found enlightenment during their weakest moments, so I splashed water into my hair, which makes it look like some disgusting wet animal-mullet that you might find on a Spaniard, and headed back out for project battle.

The third day on progressed, as one might expect, slowly, and I sadly kept a miserable pace of climbing 100 feet every two or so hours. By the afternoon, I’d already begun to think of all the work awaiting me this week, and I’d already resigned myself to rifling through our depleting cooler of brews.

But suddenly, all my friends were there with me beneath a project I’d been planning to one day redpoint in the fall of 2011 and they convinced me, in their half-cocked boredom, to just give the route a shot.

I was a bit loopy and feeling funny; the main impetus, in fact, of going up on the route was an opportunity I spied to make everyone laugh by yelling “Sharma!” just before sticking the route’s opening dyno … you know, the way you might yell “Kobe!” before hitting a three. My plan worked, surprising the throng, which bubbled with laughter. But nothing was more surprising, including to myself, that I somehow squeaked my way through the crux for the first time, and then managed to tack my way to the top of the 110-foot line.

It was totally shocking, and to be honest I’m still reeling a little, but I learned yesterday that, no matter what, if your friends are around and people are positive and happy, you always have more energy to give to something and it’s always worth trying. That’s a great thing to have learned and experienced, I think. But unfortunately, I also think it cost me quite a few tokens out of my Luck jar.