John Sherman

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An early repeat, 30 years after the first ascent. Ground-up with a thin makeshift pad.

It's starting to get dark. So I start heading up it. And this time I find this, you know, triple match sequence on these little knobs the size of sugar cubes. And finally get my left hand where I want it. I'm like, whoa, okay, here we go. And I reach out right to this crystal that I haven't been to before.

I'm going like, okay, now this is it, man. Once you let go of that left hand, you're going to the top. And at that point, for want of a better way of explaining it, I had my out of body experience.

I've only had one. But I remember the feeling like I was floating behind, you know, like maybe five feet behind, like drone’s eye view of the boulder or whatever, watching myself climb. And it was utterly effortless.

I just went from hold to hold. I remember, like, there's all these tourists down there. You know, popular tourists pull out. It was dark enough that the flashes on their cameras were going off. The rock would light up and then go dark and light up and go dark. And this one woman says, “Oh, he's climbing just like a monkey up there.”

And I was like, whoa. … [it was an experience] like nothing I'd ever had in my life, nothing I ever believed was possible. And then one move from the top, I snapped out of it. I'm like, oh, motherfucker, I'm so far up here! And I go lunging for this big crystal at the top and grab it and pull over the top.” [3]

References

[1] https://www.facebook.com/climbing.in.the.80s/photos/a.270388289694020/943441849055324

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/CamuImWuc8i/

[3] https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-nugget-climbing-podcast/id1497082818?i=1000552418912