Windy day. Really my first time back out this year. Went to Moab and goofed off, but my head game is still in disarray, so I didn't climb really.
Went up with Jason and Jordan. Lars met us up there. When we got there, there was a group of 4 climbers on the climb, so we sat around and socialized. They finished, and another two climbers came up as we were starting. Very nice, we had some good convesations. Jason led up. It was a kinda sloppy lead, but not overly. Jordan toproped it, and Lars went up. Next I went up. Done better on this crack, and definately done worse. Clean greenpoint (if there is a point to the greenpoint...), only sketched a little. Got some good bleeding going on my un-caloused hands. When I got down another climber had come up. He was just hiking with his wife and kid, but wanted a run, so we let him. We offered him use of a harness. He declined and tied in using a bowline knot. Perfectly safe for toproping, but not in the least bit comfortable if one were to weight it. He didn't. He made a clean ascent and at the anchor called off belay. This is normal if you're wearing a harness and are cliped into the anchor. He wasn't. He was just standing in a tree. Jason took him off belay and he proceeded to pull up slack as if he were rigging a rapell... which he was. But with no harness or belay device rapelling can be tricky. He took it with stride and wrapped the rope over his shoulder, between his legs and around something else... a technique (the dulfersitz) i've read about and attempted but never seen done so well, on such vertical terrain. He was obviously someone with a lot of experience and was very comfortable in the vertical world. When he got to the bottom we exchanged pleasantries, and Jason asked him his name. He was none other than Tony Calderone.
Tony Calderone is a local climber who deserves respect. He has many first ascents in Little Cottonwood and elsewhere. He wrote the guidebook to City of Rocks Idaho. This was his first climb in a few years as he is fresh back from Iraq. But this is not yet why I'm posting this.
On July 12, 2003 I was at Bushwack for my first time with Spencer. Spencer seemed to always have a story about Tony Calderone, because they climbed together on occasion. Jason was even there once. The climb directly left of buchwack is a face with a few chickenheads and not much else. Spence said Tony bolted it on lead (yikes). I asked him yesterday, and sure enough he had. We talked more after we knew who he was. He asked what Spence was up to these days. 1 year, 3 and a half months after he died in a car accident we still had someone that knew him, though not very close, that didn't know he had passed on. I've told several people about him since it happened, but they didn't know him, but it was a very strange experience to tell someone that knew him that he was dead. Someone Spence would tell us about, and I had never met before. Then through a coincidence we randomly met up at the base of a climb we had both climbed with Spence.
Jason went up again as he knew his lead was sloppy. Good clean toprope. Fun day: the climbing was good, but the other stuff was really great.
