Sorcerer’s Apprentice

A number of years ago I wrote some articles involving climbers from the Northwest for the Northwest Mountaining Journal. A few of them didn’t make the cut. This one didn’t get included probably because of the reference to “controlled substance”.

I hope you enjoy it.

The Catfish

Sorcerer’s Apprentice

 By Don Harder

 It was spring, somewhere around 1975, and a bunch of us from Seattle found ourselves hanging out in Camp 4 once again.  There was a whole contingent of people from the Northwest; Seattle, Spokane, Vancouver BC. Some of us seemed to be there every season and there were some that would show up for a season and we'd never see them again. A few of us definitely fit in to the former category. We needed to get real lives in the real world (which would happen all too soon) but for now we were living on the fringes of society. I think Eric Beck's statement says it best, "On either end of the social spectrum, there lies a leisure class". We were definitely on the lower end of the spectrum and we were definitely part of a leisure class.   

 One sunny afternoon, a carload of "freshies" arrived from Seattle. Kit Lewis and a bunch of his buddies drove up in the "Catfish". One of Kit’s friends had this '54 Dodge that must have been 20' long with fins the size of surfboards. The front of the car had this grille that looked like the face and whiskers of a catfish- thus the name. They had pulled the seats out because of resident rats and were sitting on milk crates. One of the fins was riddled with bullet holes. I could tell they were going to fit right in.

 Kit was reasonably new to climbing. He later went on to alpine fame and glory and accomplished some incredible ascents but this season he was just a newbie. And I needed a belayer. 

 I'd been in Yosemite for a while that season so I was in reasonably good shape. I proceeded to spank the crap out of Kit till he started to harden up. There was no lack of drive on his part. I remember during a four or five day storm, when all that most of us did was travel between our tents in Camp 4 and the lodge, Kit was out in the rain nailing cracks, touching rock, anything to be climbing. He was actually trying to make me feel guilty for not being motivated to climb in the rain. It didn't work. 

 The weather finally cleared and we continued with the thrashing. Kit actually got really good in a short amount of time. His drive was refreshing. He climbed some with his friends, he climbed some with me. 

 Those of you that know Kit may find this hard to believe, but he actually started to get a little overconfident.  It was no longer enough to just climb all the standard classic awesome climbs; he wanted to climb hard stuff. I was willing to oblige. 

 This went on for a while till he got to be unbearable. It was time. Kit asked one morning what we were going to climb that day and I suggested Capitan Ahab at the base of El Cap. He asked how hard it was. I responded with 5.10a. He didn't think it was worth our time. I said, "Humor me." 

 That was how we ended up at the base of El Cap that morning. They rate Ahab 5.10a hand to fist. There's nothing hand-to-fist about the 5.10 on this climb. The hand to fist seems like 5.6 compared to the overhanging, smooth sided, unprotectable, sepulchral offwidth/squeeze chimney near the bottom. If you've ever done this climb, you'll know just what I'm talking about. I don't know how anyone could do it with a harness on. In those days, we wore swami belts and could slide the knot to the side. It was that tight.

 I'd done Ahab numerous times and knew what was ahead. Most people made the mistake of wearing EB's on this climb. EB's were "the" climbing shoe of the 70's- tight, painful, with rubber that resembled hardened leather. Having big feet and being of semi quick wit, I opted to wear my Robbins Shoes, a popular big wall stiff climbing shoe of the day. Don't ever let anyone convince you otherwise- size does matter. I had the perfect size feet for heel-toeing the chimney section. It turned that ghastly unbearable squeezer into your just basic awful. 

 As Kit pulled on his EB's, I gave him a sidelong smirk. Fun times were ahead- just not for him. I grunted and groaned my way up the 120 or so feet to the belay. Show time. My overconfident young friend fired furiously up the lower 30' till he disappeared into the offwidth/chimney section. The rope stopped moving. For a long time. Sound carried very well up the wall and I could hear Kit struggling, breathing like a freight train. It must have taken him 20-30 minutes to get up the 25' of squeeze chimney. He wasn't looking so well when he emerged to the hand-to-fist crack. He finally made it to the belay. His face was chalky white and he could barely talk. I squeezed to the far side of the small belay ledge. I didn’t want to get hit with the splatter if he hurled. Mission accomplished.

 We rapped down and headed to El Cap meadow. There, I pulled out a surprise and we both consumed some controlled substance and scouted new, improbable lines on the Capitan. We walked back to Camp 4. It's the only time in my life that I've seen the sun set half a dozen times in an hour. Quite a sight. It's also the only time in my life that I stood in the middle of Camp 4, totally lost. Probably also quite a sight.

 I'd like to say that Kit was silenced for a while and he was, but only till the next day. I think Kit did learn one lesson, though. He started grabbing emerging climbers younger than himself, and thouroughly thrashing the crap out of them on the stone. The circle was complete

A very fun read, Don! TFPU!

Enjoyable read - what a time for y'all to be there. Thanks for sharing this story!

Great story, lets hear more.

Yes, nice tale from the golden era of sandbagging! Always enjoy stories that illuminate climbing culture of the time.

It probably got turned down by the NWMJ because it's not about climbing in the northwest. If the controlled substance reference was a concern, that could easily have been fixed (speaking as a former editor).