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Shiprock, March 1961 or 62
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Spring break, March 26, 1961, my friends Milt Hokanson,Dave Wood
and I loaded my little Jeep and drove from Salt Lake City to Shiprock,
NM. I had read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road", and road trips were in my
blood. We checked in with the Navajo Tribal Police in Shiprock and left
our names and contact information. They were kind and helpful, wished
us well, and we headed to the base of the rock in the dark. A few
hundred yards short of the campsite I dropped the Jeep into a steep
ditch onto its side. With the gas leaking out, we three lifted it back
upright and continued on. I don't know how we did it, but I remember it
was a super pain, with lots of digging and lots of pushing. I must have
been stronger then; and we had Wood, nicknamed "The Logger" with us.
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My first lead off the ground in the cave at the base of the rock.
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Early the next morning we climbed up in the dark and surmounted
the initial overhang in the cave at the start of the climb. I did much
of the leading, and I remember being appalled by the quality of the rock
after the great quartzite and granite at home. We had the description
on a postcard and made good time.
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Climbing up the black chossy rock on the west side to a notch.
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Climbing
into the notch in the early hours of the morning. I have on a red nylon
anorak I bought through the mail from REI. Rappelling back down this
face in the dark with no headlamps was a trip.
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The climbing was fairly vertical, but blocky, so there were a lot of
holds and the climbing was fast. We climbed over a notch and found a
type of rhyolite, rather than the basalt-like choss we had been climbing
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Dave Wood leading the traverse out onto the SW side of the mountain. I scanned the slide poorly, so the border shows!
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We carried an extra Goldline rope to fix the two 80' rappels; we
left it hanging so we could climbing the overhanging water gully on the
return trip. This left us two more ropes between the three of us for
the summit.
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Dave steps up in a home-made etrier. Cool socks!
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After rappelling down Dave led across the traverse out of the
gullies which had a couple of 1/4" bolts for protection. It was winter,
but here in the east bowl, the sun warmed us, so we had lunch.
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Milt Hokanson belays me as I lead the Horn Pitch
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Milt was as strong as an ox, and he did a lot of the belaying. I'm glad I
got a photo of him; it may be the only one I have of the hundreds of
climbs we did together as kids.
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Yours Truly starting the Horn Pitch. Cool nickers!
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Steve Roper had climbed the peak the previous fall, and we knew he
had done the Horn Pitch free. I remember leading the Horn Pitch to the
summit in a strong wind as the sun was sinking.
At the summit there was a little register, we saw the first
ascent party's names: David Brower, Raffi Bedayn, John Dyer, and Bestor
Robinson. Fred Becky had been bolting a direct route the previous year.
We knew Becky from his trips through Salt Lake, but I'm sure we hadn't
asked him anything about the climb. He was an old guy then...maybe 38
years old. We were 18 or 19.
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Yours Truly rappelling off the summit. The sun set soon afterwards.
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During the descent we had to climb up the hanging ropes; I led
hand-over-hand, because we didn't have much to tie a prussik with. I
remember using parachute cord around little horns for rappel anchors; we
knew it would hold 550 lbs, so it should be good. We rappelled most of
the climb in the dark, completing the climb in under 18 hours or so.
The little white jeep eaded back to Salt Lake in the morning. It was
awesome! Dave wood went to medical school and became a psychiatrist,
but unfortunately passed away many years ago. Milt Hokanson, the guy I
started my climbing career with at age 14 lives in St. George. I count
him as one of the most influential people in my life, and likely among
the toughest sons of bitches I've ever known. Together we explored the
West, floated the Glen Canyon in tiny rafts in 1956, learned to climb
and made our first ascent of Lone Peak in 1957, and made our first
ascent of the Grand Teton in 1959. It is sheer luck we are still alive.
3 comments:
This is awesome Ralph. I was five years old, but I remember when you did this.
Great story and description Ralph. I'm glad you posted this. I drive by Shiprock multiple times a year and always think about your climb. Also, the Fred Beckey, Eric Bjornstadt photo I saw in Mexican Hat has new meaning.
Paul Anderson, a climbing partner from SLC in the '60's and a backpacking partner from 2008 until 2012, sent me this link back in 2009, but I just looked at it again and enjoyed your blog. I was a graduate student at the U from 1961 until 1965 and then worked at the Medical Center until 1967. In the spring of 1962 I climbed Shiprock with members of the Ute Alpine Club (Karl Dunn, Tom Reese, and Garth Nelson. We drove down on a Friday, did not check in with the local authorities, and camped at the base Friday night. Saturday we prepped the route placing cable ladders at the starting overhang, and in the Double Overhang gulley. Karl made an exploratory rappel from the notch to try to get around the Double Overhangs and the Traverse pitch, but he had to prusik back up because it was a dead end. Saturday the main party of Ute Alpine Club members arrived early, and we climbed the rock. I was not yet leading difficult stuff, and when I followed on the Horn Pitch, I freaked seeing our cars on the desert floor between my feet, so I monkeyed up the rope to the belay.
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