I am a weak climber. I seldom climb and occasionally I get myself into situations where it is readily apparent that I have led myself to the edge of the black void. Since I don’t stay in particularly great climbing trim, I tend to seek out moderate climbs in the 5.6 to 5.8 range. I also like to find remote climbs where I don’t have to listen to real climbers heckling me so much. I prefer traditional type climbs of several pitches.

In June 1995 I decided that the snow must have melted from the crags and, sight unseen, I selected a climb named Scepter on a granite dome called Queen’s Throne. The vague topo showed a right-facing corner for three pitches to a belay under a roof followed by a short traverse left onto a knobby face pitch with a belay at a horizontal crack. The last pitch showed no cracks, knobs or bolts at all and was rated 5.6. I figured the corner would be protectable for the first three pitches and that knobs could be slung on the fourth pitch. I didn’t know about that last pitch, but I thought there must be something for protection. The route had been put up in the early 70's by Royal "clean climb" Robbins and friends. It looked like a good go, great fun.

I called up B.L. and somehow I convinced him that not only was it a terrific climb, we could do it as a day trip! I picked him up early and we drove across the San Joaquin Valley to Shuteye Ridge. After parking above Queen’s Throne we pioneered a new and difficult approach through the manzanita. (If you have never blazed a route through Sierra manzanita, you are missing one of life’s true nuisances. Rob claims to have once taken a bath in Bactine after hiking through manzanita in shorts.) We found our way down a steep granite boulder gully running with water to the base of the dome and looked up the route. The three-pitch corner looked more like a rounded, flaring slot but appeared safe. The knobby face looked steep and fairly easy except that the traverse was very exposed and required a committing step across a smooth water streak above an overhanging face. The best part was --- I couldn’t see the last pitch at all. The roof turned out to be huge and imposing, it was a true overhang in that the lip of the free edge was several feet lower than the back. This ugly, black, concave clamshell cantilevered some 20 or more feet out from the cliff.

I figured that if I could lead the first pitch, then I would not have to lead the traverse on the 4th pitch. Therefor, I volunteered to take, and got, the first pitch which was short and easy. I brought B.L. up and he said, "you take the next pitch also." I accepted my grim fate and led the second pitch, which was uneventful.

After the second pitch I asked B.L. for some of the food that he had said he was carrying when we left the car. He handed me two "fiber" bars. I don't know what he thinks, but fiber is not food and I was feeling hungry and jittery.

B.L. led the third pitch up to the base of the roof and established a belay at an old pin and somewhat above the traverse. I came up and lead out left onto the traverse where I found a perfect, horn shaped knob to sling. I then took a big step across the water groove and started to move up. B.L. says I looked magnificent standing over a 200-foot free fall with the snow capped high Sierras as a back drop and later said that he wished he had had film in his camera. A short distance further up, B.L. let the rope come tight across the traverse which neatly lifted my sling off the only good knob I was to find on the whole pitch. As I moved up, I would find a small knob, sling it, move up, and then hear the sling and carabineer slide down to where the rope sagged across the traverse. I basically climbed the pitch without any protection but the belay. With a 160 feet of rope out and a traverse below, I was contemplating a long and ugly fall. 300 feet down and 20 feet across.

As I approached the next belay, B.L. ran out of slack and had to take some of his belay apart to give me enough rope to reach my belay. I started to feel nervous and the lack of food caused the jitters to start. The horizontal "crack" shown on the topo for this belay turned out to be a shallow, round groove about half an inch wide and a quarter of an inch deep. There were two handy hangers just above the crack, but they were those old rusty Leeper sheet metal things (Leeper has recently published warnings that these can crack and break when loaded by body weight, musch less a fall.) with 1/4 inch expansion bolts. The rock around the bolts was crumbly to the touch, the 20 year old bolts were badly rusted and the tinny hangers were wobbly loose. I decided that they were a classic example of the dreaded "manky spinners" I had read about. I clipped to them, got a prussik cord around a tiny button of a knob and called to B.L. "come on up." A moment later he told me that the rope had sagged down at the traverse and it was now hopelessly tangled in knobs out of reach below the traverse. I stood for about a week on two little knobs while B.L. flopped and tugged on the rope in an effort to free it. We only had one rope with us and I couldn’t see how one of us could climb down and free the snag.

My little interlude at the fourth belay gave me ample time to inspect the crappy bolts I was tied to and to look up at the last pitch. That last pitch featured no bolts, no cracks and no knobs: it was just like the topo showed it! Well, I thought, if the pitch goes, at least it should go quick. A hummingbird came to dizzy me by buzzing in my face, watching him in his three-dimensional space while I was trapped in a vertical, two-dimensional space made me feel disoriented and I began to experience vertigo in addition to low blood sugar panic and plain old fear. Looking back to the bolts I realized that if B.L. fell while moving up the pitch below, much less the one above, I would die. When I put my body weight on the bolts, they wobbled in their holes like slow falling bowling pins and I knew that I was screwed. I thought "why not belay B.L. to the bolts and untie myself from the rope so that if he falls, at least he won’t drag me screaming into the void with him?" But then I thought, "if he gets here and finds me untied he might refuse to do the last pitch, or even toss me off." Plus, I really didn’t want to stand on two small knobs hundreds of feet up a cliff without being tied to something, so I stayed tied in. As I waited, optionless in the sun, I became hot and thirsty in addition to the aforementioned hungry, scared and dizzy. While B.L. jiggled and tugged at the rope and I waited, I felt panic start to rise. I had nothing else to do but panic. I managed to calm myself and eventually B.L. freed the rope and came up.

When B.L., arrived at my belay I told him "don't stop for a second, you don't need the rack, don’t look at those bolts, please get me off this cliff." He passed me and moved up the smooth face above. This man was my hero. He tried to sling a dinky knob but could not get a sling to stick. He disappeared from view as the angle eased off. I reeled out rope. If he fell he would slide 150 feet to me, drop 150 more, and pop me off. We would spin off into space like a goucho’s bolas. He couldn’t find the two belay bolts at the top shown on the topo, so he sat in a dimple in the smooth granite and called me up.

PS: This is really an easy climb that rates as a classic. B.L. and I have been talking and have just about convinced ourselves that we want to do it again.

"Copyright © Daniel Smith Merrick, All rights reserved."