Sentinel Rock, Chouinard-Herbert

SENTINEL ROCK CHOUNARD-HERBERT ROUTE 28 AUGUST 1993 V, 5.11c A0 Quiet dark canyon of Oak is spanned by a soaring steel-and-concrete highway bridge. Illumined by a moon nearly full, I trot beneath in the hish, while overhead the lamps and rush of occasional cars grow and fade against the soft background of breeze in leaves, the starlit sky, and the distant voice of the stream. In this evening where the blazing stars are washed away by the awakened moon, I seek the silence, the stillness, a place of quiet beauty and deep magic, where liquid crystal streams leap laughing among the jumbled canyon boulders, while above, the brown parched hillsides frown thoughtfully in the night. I reach a place where a trail winds, corkscrew- like, down to waters' edge. Startled, like a jolt of energy through me, I sudddenly recognize in the dark another moving shape, small, skunk-like. Oh God. Please don't spray... The half-grown kitten walks up, sniffs my air, out of arm's reach, and joins up with me. My naked legs part the waters of a deep, icy pool just above a waterfall: A place of silence and power; the seemingly placid water soon to explode into the roar, the spray and the mist, the chaotic turbulence of the falls, then to find another reservoir of repose; the moonlight dancing on the rippling waters below. The kitty sits on the bank and watches me, purring, her eyes dancing in the moonlight as I dip and dive. :: Three AM. I stumble through the dark forest after two hours' sleep, feeling wretched. I blunder around another bandit camper, apologize. He sits up. "Kenn?" "Yeah." "Let's go climbing!" At seven I start up the first lead, shivering slightly in the frigid air. :: Feast or Famine. After blasting up the first five pitches,, I am confronted with a thin seam in a steep corner, so steep the runners hang away from the rock. After several cranking explorations into the 5.11 section, I stem and lieback over the top onto a sloping belay slab and ancient bolts: Palming, underclinging and swinging off thin flakes, ballet in the sky. More 5.10... Solid face gives way to flake-loose crack, kenn hunkering below on a tiny stance. We fly up several pitches more. Feast or Famine. :: Far above me now, Kenn stems wildly across a vertigo-inducing dihedral, bridged between smooth holdless wall and an invisible bump at the lip of a roof, blue sky above as I in the shade fidget and fear my coming lead. Kenn's lead, 5.11, leaves me pumped and scared. I shake despwerately while following the 5.10d finish to his pitch. Definitely all Feast here. The Big Roof cuts across the sky above us, a grim traverse 5.8 through looseness, fist jams and fingernail flakes, the climbing equivalent of clearing yout throat before a song. I have moved in here. What a place to live. Two loose, lichened foot holds and a slot behind a flake. I shoulder against rthe flake, and eye the 137 pieces of protection I have placed just below the 5.11c crux. Webbing festoons the lip of the roof. The equipment courage is not working. Finally I commit to sidepulling opposition between two worthless seams, crank the crux, move the foot, slip, scream, reset, and grab the pin at the end of the crux. Wasted, I clip, clip, and contemplate the 5.10 above. :: Pitch black night. We peer into the darkness and listen to the sweet music of the stream as the Sentinel Canyon Orchestra tunes up: Crickets, whirr of moths' wings, the quiet river of air moving down the tilted descent chute behind us, stirring pines and ferns. We add our percussion as the crackle of rockfall from our bivy preparations echoes off the canyon walls. Gently the Yosemite sky lightens as the unseen moon rises over an unseen horizon. The sparkling lights of Yosemite Lodge twinkle in the thin slice of valley floor visible from between the steep walls of our canyon. Slowly the slice is bathed in milky moonlight, while we, our canyon, our steep and tentative descent slabs below, remain cloaked in night. Lest we forget what these romantic, adventurous bivies are really like: My back alternately lumps and curls, as do my sides, on the tangle of ropes and gear that is my mattress. Three feet away, Kenn raises his voice with the Sentinel Orchestra, wimpering as his legs convulse in body-wrenching cramps. Next time, we'll maintain our electrolyte balance with ERG or Gatorade or something. Although we have no sleeping bags, we still have "food" and water, and could actually build a fire if we really, really needed to. Midnight snack time: We divide four almond M&Ms amongst us, a feast. Mid- morning (3 AM) we halve the peanut butter Kudo. Shivering, we watch the morning twilite turn into a new day. Breakfast: we munch on the last remaining food, 1 1/2 lifesavers each, as we stuff gear into our single day pack. Kenn takes one last look around at our remarkable (remarkably sparse) jagged granite bivy site. He reaches down, picks up an M&M wrapper, pockets it. "Thanks for doing the dishes," I say.