Barnum & Bailey Come to Tahquitz
by SCMA Member Bob Lindgren

As Chris R. and I were heading up Coffin Nail on our way to Traitor Horn on the September 11 Tahquitz climb, we saw a rather strange sight to our right – someone rappelling over the overhang above the Traitor Horn alcove. We continued on, assuming (naively) that they would be out of our way by the time we got there. Even as I began the traverse across to the Traitor Horn belay spot, all seemed OK. The one climber was in some kind of hassle on the face below but was well out of the way. However, as I reached the end of the ledge I looked up to see his partner, face smiling down at me, totally unaware of his dire predicament. He was tied hand and foot into the deepest recess of the Traitor Horn alcove with no access to a rope, that having been given up to his partner’s rappel. I then turned my attention to the hassle below. The climber had struggled to the belay spot on The Edge and now had in his hands a huge bush that had become entangled in the rappel line. (Guide book correction: remove reference to the bush in the description of The Last Judgment.) I mentioned to the climber above what an incredible feat it was to extract a tree that had probably been there for hundreds of years and had been passed by countless climbers. He disagreed: "It came out like a loose tooth." The climber below was struggling under the weight of this tree – it was very large and heavy – and wanted to get rid of it. Chris suggested that it might be dangerous to drop it, that perhaps he should lower it. So he did. But, alas, that approach didn’t work. He tied it to the end of his rappel ropes and lowered it as far as it would go – perhaps to a hundred feet above the ground. And there it hung. And the rappel lines were stretched taught as violin strings – totally useless. So he hauled it up again. As he did, I could hear his heavy breathing and see the beads of sweat on his forehead – it was a very heavy bush. Now he really wanted to throw it, but I suggested that he wait until the two people hiking up the trail below were out of the way. He called down to them to ask if he could throw it. They, not knowing what they were saying, said to go ahead. He threw it in the safe direction, but it bounced off a slanting dihedral and landed in a cataclysmic blast in the spot the hikers had occupied only seconds before. He looked up at me: "Well, they said I could throw it." I asked him if they were still alive. He now tried to swing the rope to his partner, fastened almost irretrievably in the crux of the Traitor Horn. It was a hopeless task. But he was able to swing it to me, and with difficulty I was able to get it to his partner. As the climber above pulled the last piece of his anchor system, he said, "I don’t like this," and swung wildly into space. And the two rappelled merrily to the ground. As we walked back after the climb, I looked for signs of destruction at ground zero. I really didn’t find much, but I did find the remains of the dead bush, somewhat smaller in size but with most of its mass still intact – it was very heavy.

One could not expect to find more entertainment than that in one day, but the strangeness of the day didn’t end with the Traitor Horn events. Well above the end of roped climbing on the Traitor Horn and with the day near its end, we encountered another climber, clad in lug-soled boots of some sort, "belaying" his partner hand over hand. He was anchored with a large sling thrown loosely over the slanting top of a boulder in such a way that it might have stayed had he been crouched down rather than standing. He asked if he had to go over the top of Tahquitz to get down. We told him the descent route was just over the boulder ahead. He decided he and his partner would rappel from where they were – with a single rope.

The climbing scene is getting worse.

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