Late for Dinner · Sep 24 by Kurt Peterson
Jutting from the West Virginia mountains like a razor, the imposing sandstone fins of Seneca Rocks have been a monolithic site and a draw for humans from early Native Americans to climbers of today.
Cut loose from a full day of Powerpoint presentations and bad coffee in a shuttered conference room, Adam Walker and Scott Morris—new Blue Ridge managers—and myself needed out. We grabbed our gear and jumped in Adam’s Subaru wagon for some afternoon climbing. Always a priority at Blue Ridge to mix work and play, we were eager to get some time in on the rock.
Untold millennia of erosion has gnawed away the Tuscarora quartzite in this rugged country leaving a long straight ridge of fins that breach the surface of the mountains for miles in a mostly north-south direction. And as anything tall, pointed, and unique that nature creates, it seems to draw the human eye—especially those with the undeniable need to see what’s at the top. Within 20 minutes, we were racked up and on the approach to the western face with Sean and Ryan, two of our fellow Blue Ridgers. The need to be outside was strong. Little did we know what adventure awaited.
The approach to Seneca starts off tame enough following the gentle grade of a gravel road, but soon after you find yourself on the “stairmaster” as Ryan enjoys calling the steep and well-built series of stone steps leading up and up to the base of the crag. After several well-earned breaks, we crested to a flatter area where an emergency litter and first aid supplies are kept in times of need. We pushed a little further through a boulder field and were greeted by the long sandstone wall and base of many routes along the west face with 300 feet of rock between us and the summit which towers 900 feet above the valley floor.
Breaking into two groups, Ryan and Sean continued on to a route of their own leaving Adam, Scott, and myself to admire the sun-dappled rock with hints of Fall on the ground about us. The novice of the group, I fired away on my camera as Scott geared up for the first pitch—a 5.7 known as “Prune.” Scott has climbed throughout the eastern US, finding himself in the Gunks of NY most often. But Seneca is also his old stomping grounds, and after finding the Gendarme climbing shop closed on our way in, we decided to choose a well-known route to avoid the need for a guidebook. Scott cruised right up Prune with little difficulty, and I followed cleaning the way behind him with Adam pulling up the rear. At the top of the pitch, the landscape opened up like a book. Spots of orange and red peeked through the still mostly green foliage, but most of October lay around the corner reminding us of how nice this view would be just two or three weeks later. The late afternoon sun still hung high and warm in the sky, the air was clear, and life was good. It was a fine day to climb.
We decided to run up a pitch off right and to the south from Prune, and I discovered, with this being my first multi-pitch trad experience, that managing the gear and ropes take time. I followed Scott and Adam’s much more experienced lead, enjoying the free time to fire away with my camera while doing my best to make this a learning experience for future trips. Now and then, we could hear Ryan and Sean just out of sight enjoying their climb with equal passion.
The second pitch went easier than the first and the higher we went, the better the views became—enough so that we felt a bit of a break was warranted. The sun continued its southern track across the sky as we sipped water and soaked up the valley view, but there was still plenty of time to summit. In hindsight, making these decisions rarely involves more than a casual glance at the watch, if I carried one. Most of my backcountry experience involves more than a fair share of time spent hiking by headlamp—well after dark. In fact, the usual suspects of my backpacking friends make night hiking a priority for each and every trip. We’ve navigated the High Sierras, Great Smokies, and more sections of the AT than I can count by moonlight or headlamp. It just isn’t a trip unless you make camp at 2 am.
Climbing, however, brings its own set of rules and considerations, enough so that we should have been listening to the angel on the right shoulder more than the devil wearing a harness on the left. Toss in a dash of summit fever, and all rationale goes out the window. The one point of trouble we three were not heeding, however, was dinner. It was the first day of the Blue Ridge Mountain Sports management meeting after all, and awaiting us around 7pm was a tasty dinner that all 11 managers and the majority of the corporate office were expected to attend. Any sound from Sean or Ryan had long since passed, and in the back of our minds we knew better. But just a short scramble and one more pitch separated us and the summit. How long could it take? A quick scramble and one pitch wouldn’t take long we decided. Then it would be just a few quick rappels to the approach trail, and we’d be back to Adam’s Subaru in no time.
Picking a rarely climbed line on the final pitch, and Scott was standing on the summit with the sun barely scraping the top of Seneca Rocks. By the time I was standing next to him, we were officially in twilight. A pair of climbers further to the north had just begun their descent as we stood on one of the longest climbs on the east coast, and we were happy. Never having done a multi-pitch climb, I had even more reason for happiness. But as the sun slowly sank below the horizon, the reality of dinner set in. By the time Adam topped out, Scott and I both were wondering aloud,
“Now where is that rappel station?”
Seneca’s Tuscarora sandstone stands tall, straight, and narrow—very narrow at the south summit. And from where we stood just south of there, we still had an awkward car-sized boulder or two to scramble over to reach the rappel rings and our ticket down off the mountain. On either side of these awkward boulders the topography plunges about 300 feet, and this little thing known as “exposure” begins to manifest itself within a climber’s psyche. It’s a sensation that on a boulder 20 feet off the deck doesn’t cause much concern. But with the wind and the fading light, this exposure changes your perception of height to a newly defined degree of fear. Or so I discovered as the three of us sat on the summit trying to figure out another way back down.
The best lesson learned on this trip was the importance of always carrying a light—just in case. Tossed in with my camera gear at the last minute was my trusty Tikka XP, and this one headlamp between the three of us was the sole reason a cold bivy on the mountain might still be avoided. After sorting through a number of options, we discarded the “boulder scramble in near-darkness” and began looking for another rap station. Dropping down off the summit block, we carefully moved to the east side of the summit fin and onto a ledge that trailed down a slight trail and out of sight. Providing light for the three of us, we picked our way down from one ledge to another for several minutes until we came to a notch in the rock that led back around to the west face. From here, Scott took my headlamp, then dropped down to a lower ledge and around and out of sight scouting ahead to survey our options. Darkness had now brought a deep solitary blue to the sky, and stars were out in earnest. A touch of cold was in the air. Several minutes passed before we heard Scott yell,
“I think I found something!”
Encouraging us onward, he lit our way down to the ledge with the headlamp and through a deep cleft that opened up to lots of sky but very little ground. Taking a large step over an open void that dropped 20 or 30 meters, he indicated a large conifer tree growing parallel to the rock wall and the cleft from which we had just emerged.
“This should make a great anchor.”
I nodded my agreement and took the large step across the uncomfortable openness as he held out his hand to steady me. Adam followed, quite aware what a fall here would mean. Willing to leave a little gear, Scott wrapped a sling around the tree and clipped in a couple of locking carabiners as we clipped in with our safeties. Weighting it and nodding, he motioned for the rope I carried, and he set up the rappel. Going first with the headlamp, Scott rappelled down, then lit us from below just enough for myself, then Adam, to clip into our belay devices and rappel down to him. By then, hunger had set in.
After the first rappel, we were pleased to find a pair of rappel rings but were still faced with another problem. Even with a headlamp, the safety of the bottom was difficult to estimate; we couldn’t quite judge the height of our last rappel. But we knew it would take us down to the base of the crag if our rope reached the bottom. With this big “if” in mind, we tied our two 60 meter ropes together, ran them through the rap rings and dropped both ends into the darkness. Scott once again volunteered to take the first rappel, confident in his ability to ascend back up the ropes if they didn’t reach. As fortune would have it, they did; Scott yelled back in delight as he touched bottom. Using more touch than sight, I took two bights of the ropes, pushed them through my belay device, and clipped into my harness. A 60 meter rappel in the dark is an awfully long drop, but I was smiling the whole way already forming the words to this story in my head. Some seek summits, some seek adventure—I’m just searching for a good story.
After Adam made his way down, the trail down was a blur with all thoughts on how we would be received 3 hours late for the company dinner. I was pretty sure my boss would not be happy. In the end, however, we made it back making our best decision to move slowly but surely, and thus safely. The tongue lashing I expected came simply,
“Don’t ever do that again.”
Point taken. Though we were blinded by the undeniable need to see what’s at the top, and though guilty we were, the best part of the story was having a story to tell at all. Experiencing adventure sometimes means learning from mistakes. Mistakes like blind summit fever, small as Seneca might seem to some, can still be serious, particularly when decisions can turn painful or worse. But in the end, I suspect there are more than few climbers out there who have made just the same errors in judgement, and now have a great story to tell . . .
I encourage everyone reading this to go find your own adventure.
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