|
|
"On our first ascent of Sail Peak, 270 miles north of the Arctic Circle, our rack of Metolius cams worked like a charm in the icy cracks of this Baffin Island big wall. For aid climbing, mixed climbing, and straight out free climbing, Metolius cams are fantastic!" -Greg Child
A first ascent never occurs in a vacuum. There is always some sort of context. The last time I saw Cameron Tague alive was up at Bell Buttress, one of the better crack climbing venues in Boulder Canyon above Boulder, Colorado. I was top-roping a new finish to an existing classic - Arms Bazaar (12a), an 80-foot pitch with a hard boulder problem over a roof followed by 50 feet of perfect hand and finger crack climbing. Cameron showed up with his new girlfriend Emma, whom he had met during a climber's exchange in the United Kingdom. We did what climbers always do - shot the shit, asked each other what routes we wanted to get on that day, and made tentative plans to go up to the Diamond on Longs Peak sometime that summer. Then, a week later, Cameron was dead. Just like that. He had slipped off the start of the Yellow Wall on the Diamond and slid down a snow patch on Broadway, unable to arrest his fall to the Mills Glacier 800 feet below. I had only met Cameron a handful of times and spent a single afternoon climbing with him in Eldorado Springs Canyon, but I admired his hunger for climbing because it reminded me so much of my own. I was working on an article about death routes in Eldo and Cameron was one of the handful of people who was into that game. Not only had he repeated almost all of Eldo's scariest horror shows, but he was spear-heading the movement to put up new routes without recourse to drilling bolts, resulting in his finest route, the still unrepeated Weeping Willow (11+ X) on Upper Redgarden Wall. Cameron's death sent a wave of shock and sadness through the Boulder climbing community. I pushed on with my article but couldn't seem to get my head back into climbing. Finally, I began to come back around, and I remembered the variation to Arms Bazaar that I still hadn't led. I returned to the route with my friend Steve. The variation finish took a 25-foot stretch of perfectly flat granite, tilted back at about 87 degrees, a small finger seam splitting it on the left. When we had top-roped the line before, we had debated placing a bolt or not, for once the seam ran out, the climbing got harder and harder until you were faced with a precarious high-step crux to exit. Without a bolt, your gear would be 10-12 feet below you, and that high-step was extremely hard! I top-roped the line a few more times to make sure I had the exit sequence dialed, then buried a pair of #0 TCUs in the seam as I lowered off. They went in nice and deep, perfect gear in perfect rock, but I couldn't get that fall out of my mind. For good measure, I tacked a Screamer onto the top piece. The temptation of sinking a bolt was never far out of reach but then I thought of Cameron and what he would have done and how this had been the last place I'd seen him alive. It just didn't seem fitting. I cruised through the bottom of Arms Bazaar and stepped right onto the headwall, clipping the TCUs and taking deep breaths to compose myself. Then I was off, up the seam before I even knew what I was doing, my legs trembling ever-so-slightly. I stopped on some laybacks at the seam's terminus to chalk up and ponder my options. I could jump off there and the TCUs would probably hold, or I could go for it and take the chance that they might not, resulting in a 50-60 footer before a bomber #2 Fat Cam in the Arms Bazaar crack caught me. I surged into the sequence but my left leg was shaking too much to be trusted on the high-step. I sketched back down to the "rest" and chalked up some more, feeling my calves grow sore, my fingers tired. Then I had had it. "Screw it!" I thought, casting off, "Just screw it!" I surged into the crux sequence and brought my left foot up just under the sorry side pull I was crimping with my left hand. Clamping my right hand down on a distant crimper, I pressed my left hip into the wall and slowly stood up, snagging the exit jug just as my body began to tilt backward into space. Adrenaline surged through my system and I practically leapt onto the belay ledge, letting out an enormous whoop of fear and relief. A month later I went to Mountain Sports to add a topo for the route to their new route book. I had been mulling over a name, some sort of tribute to Cameron, but hadn't come up with anything good. I finally decided to call it "Cameron's Route" or the "Tague Finish." Sorry I couldn't think of anything better, Cameron. I hope you'll understand. -Matt Samet "I and all the others (Greg Child, Mark
Synnott, Jared Ogden) agree that those doing walls before the advent of
Metolius TCU’s were madmen!"
-Alex Lowe - July 1998 after the first ascent
of Sail Peak
"It will be shown in this study that Metolius cams are generally superior in all critical categories over Black Diamond Camalots." -Jamie Gertsch - Brigham Young University, from his research paper "A Comparative Study Of Spring Loaded Camming Devices" June 1997
"I’m sponsored by two companies that make camming units and I work in a climbing shop. I can climb with any brand of gear I want. I use Metolius cams, and if I had to pay for my gear, I’d buy Metolius cams." -Sponsored climber, climbing shop employee - name withheld to protect sponsorships. "Metolius cams were the "red carpet" for Roxanna Brock and me on the first female free ascent of Rainbow Wall. Roxanna took a 20 footer onto a #1 TCU in the soft Red Rocks sandstone and felt comfortable to try it again. Three whippers later she sent the pitch. That says a lot. Trust is a major issue on long routes. That #1 TCU is still on my rack." -Bobbi Bensman |