Stoner's Highway?

Dale Bard and I did the second ascent. Stoners was one of the first routes to venture out into the big, wide open faces between the crack systems on Middle Cathedral, and the first ascent made quite an impact at the time.

I think it was the spring of 1974, and I had just arrived for my first full season in the Valley, a year after the first ascent. My high school friend, Largo, had already made Yosemite his residence the year before. As usual, John was a fount of motivation: “Hoh man, you need to get on Stoner's Highway, right away!”

I teamed up with Dale and we got an early morning start.

We started up that multicolored face and moved well. I was at the belay at the start of the crux pitch and was just getting ready to start climbing when Dale pointed out a group in the meadow below. It was Bridwell, Long, and other valley regulars; they had come over to watch us, and had set up a telescope.

Well, this upped the pressure a bit, but I tried to ignore it and just focus on the moves. Pretty soon I came to a good foothold and a bolt with the smooth, crux section above it. I went up a couple moves, scoped out the holds, then down climbed back to a little ledge. I made a quick hop down at one point and from below there was a commotion.

“Did he fall?” I distinctly heard a spectator say. The voice carried like he was right behind me.

Well, now the pressure was on and for pride’s sake, I really wanted to solve the crux without a fall. But the reconnaissance had revealed the likely sequence and after a few calming deep breaths, I made a pull to a balancy high step and reached a large hold for my left hand. At this moment it occurred to me that, while I was beyond the crux moves and completely secure, those in the meadow had no way of knowing that.

I recalled a time at Suicide Rock when Richard H. and I were belaying John on a tense lead with a potential fall right onto the hanging belay. As John lead up on dicey holds, he ignored our calls of “How is it?... Have you got it?” Only silence, and our anxiety grew. We imagined that Largo's 180 pounds might come down and obliterate us at any moment. Suddenly John’s hand reached out past the rack hanging on its sling and made a leisurely scratch of his right butt cheek, which resulted in howls of laughter from the belay. This gesture became part of our lexicon and was used whenever the leader wanted to signal that the hard part was over.

In a moment of inspiration, I now executed a slow motion, and highly exaggerated ass scratch with my right hand, hoping that even the distant observers could see it. I was rewarded with the unmistakable bellow of John himself, who happened to have his eye to the telescope. Largo’s laugh is a force of nature face-to-face. This time, it seemed to echo between Middle and El Cap, directly behind us.

The spectators left and we carried on, but the climb was not over, not by a long shot. Farther up, I completed a lead and belayed Dale up to a two bolt hanging belay. Dale got out his belay seat, and sat down, so that he could rack up for the next lead. In a split second, we both dropped, but only a couple of feet. What the ….? Something had failed, and we both realized at the same instant that we were hanging from one bolt, not two!

In a flash, we unweighted the anchor, and got our feet onto face holds. We then tried to understand what had happened. We were horrified to find that the bolt had sheared off flush with the rock. Closer inspection revealed that there seemed to be corrosion in the remaining visible metal. We were almost physically sickened by this. Our confidence from the successful pitches below vanished and we were terrorized. But we still had to finish the climb.

Dale lead up and we were both relieved when he was able to get some wired stoppers in 20 feet up. But the real fear came later on the rappels down. There was no choice but to rappel off that single, now highly suspect bolt. Dale went first and I wished him much luck before I unclipped from the anchor. Dale moved like a cat down the pitch, down climbing with his free hand and hardly weighting the rope at all. Dale was (and still is) extremely lean and a good 20 pounds lighter than me. This weighed heavily on me when it was my turn.

Had a good story when we got back to camp, though. There is a thin line between a good story and the end of earthly existence, but that is the essence of climbing. Stoners Highway remains to this day one of my most memorable climbs.

We were horrified to find that the bolt had sheared off flush with the rock.