Yosemite for the Summer Solstice
by SCMA Member Gerry Cox

With a week to burn, I turned to the Valley to get in a short wall and bask in the splendid squalor that is Camp 4. Just prior to my departure, I received an email story of bad bivouacs and frostbite suffered on Rainier. Wow! That’s kind of freaky. Yeah, I know that it happens, but this was a little close…and think about the long-term repercussions. I loaded the bus to the gills and headed North. As soon as I arrived, I posted a note in Camp 4 and went to look around the Valley. There wasn’t much relief from the heat of the lowland Central Valley; It was 90°+F in Yosemite.

A couple hours later, I was kicking around the Church Bowl. I had to go and touch the Church Bowl Tree. I had to find a stealth bivy site in case I couldn’t hang out in Camp 4. I picked up some trash for good karma and visited the pulpit in the woods. As I emerged from the woods, a helitac evacuation was about to touch down in the meadow nearby. Suspended 100’ below the chopper was a litter with the injured holding his head and looking around. (Good thing, I thought. They’re not unconscious or dead.) I saw an orange helmet and thought that it looked vaguely familiar. As the litter touched down, I saw the distinctive "x" taped on top that could only be one of my Zion wall partners (and recent SCMA RM). I approached the litter as it was being loaded into the ambulance and introduced myself to the paramedics. As we talked quickly, it seems that he’d broken his ankle near the top of pitch 6, while trying to climb the regular route on Half Dome in a day. He’d been in the Valley for 6 weeks and this was to be his final wall before returning to LA.

Off to the clinic, where x-rays were shot, indicating that the ankle was broken and dislocated. He’d have to ride down the hill to Fresno for immediate orthopedic surgery. Stoned on IV meds to the point of unconsciousness, the dislocation was reduced. I went back to Camp 4 to locate his climbing partner, and to let mine know what had happened. Again, an accident that was pretty freaky. I returned just as he was being readied for transport. The clinic staff gave me directions and the phone for St. Agnes Medical Center in Fresno (which is, incidentally, the hospital that you want to go to in Fresno, if need be), and off he went. Blathering under the influence, he was gathering beta for the Shield from a med tech who had recently done the wall. I’d call the next day to check on his progress and to transport him home.

Back to Camp 4 for what seemed might be my only night in the Valley on this trip. Sharing a site with 3 Austrians, 1 from Cali, 1 from Florida and a couple of camp poachers, music and King Cobra flowed around our wax-log campfire. It was June the 20^th, and the Summer Solstice had arrived. Pagan as we could be, we did what we would without harm to anything else. Strains of Hendrix, Led Zep, Beatles, Michelle Shocked and Ten Years After filled the air. Others came to visit, lured by the music. Eventually, it was obvious that nearly everyone in camp knew our injured party and was sympathetic, offering help as need be. Things went on until the wee hours, and we folded up while the Rangers Dangerous checked cars for exposed coolers and did the bed check. I didn’t get rousted, in spite of the lack of any Camp 4 registration.

The next morning I called St. Agnes, and found that our boy was being kept in the ER, for a lack of beds. Surgery wouldn’t be performed and he was going to bus back up to the Valley, to wrap up loose ends and sort gear. He’d be back that night. Cool! This gave me time to lead Church Bowl Tree as C1 and the A3 copperhead route next to it, More Balls Than Brains. In that it was a week of freaky accidents, I used a chicken rope to nail the latter. Good thing too, in that I popped an Alien near the top of the pitch and would have ripped most of the pitch, hitting the deck in the process. I took advantage of the fixed rope to drill anchors where blown-out bat-hook holes used to be. I started drilling for 3/8", but my only 3/8" bit broke on the first bolt. I switched to 1/4" x 2" Rawl buttonheads, added hangers, lap rings and rap rings. Now at least there’s a good anchor. The hook holes were blown, but before that, you’d have to bust a 5.10 traverse off bat hooks above a pitch of body-weight-only A3 placements. Had I been leading the thing from the ground-up, I would have set twice as many copperheads, mallards and sawed-off baby angles.

That evening, our fractured traveler was spotted near the Lodge café, as we landed for the Buffet. He crutched over to Camp 4, where we found him holding Court a couple of hours later. A great campfire ensued, replete with S’mores, but was broken up by the rangers, who had complaints about the loud encampment of Spaniards next door.

The next day we readied to leave. Bullwinkle came by to exchange photographers’ beta and to give a copy of his Stone Nudes calendar. As long and short as each of had been there, Yosemite Valley is a tough place to leave. We lolligagged and cooled off with a dip in the river before finally driving out. Hot as Hell can be, we drove without A/C until pain could be tolerated no more. We took a 3-hour break in Grapevine and finished the drive in the wee hours.

Yeah, it’s a bummer that I didn’t climb more, but the Valley will always be there and I’ll be back. It’s important to me to help someone at a moment when they are less able to help themselves. I can only hope that others might do the same for me, as they have in the past. His side of the story will come at a later date, now that he has lots of time to write.

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