Alltid känd – aldrig populär

En led är en led så fort den har klättrats och på något sätt äger varje led existensberättigande. Bestigningens stil kan alltid diskuteras och alltsomoftast utvecklas till en renare variant. Antingen renare för naturen/berget eller renare för samvetet och känslan.

Av en slump snubblar jag över en diskussion som nästan är uppe i 3000 kommentarer om en led i Yosemite som bultats efter relativt modern standard, och som just därför upprör en del av den konservativa grupp klättrare som vurmar för begreppet ground-up, och där bultar slås för hand på lead.

"The route (Growing Up) is not the first in Yosemite to be established top-down, but is provocative for its location: parallel to one of Yosemite's most notoriously-bold routes, Southern Belle. This 5.12 X horror went unrepeated for nineteen years, with one attempt resulting in a bad accident. Even the prodigious soloist, Dean Potter, who bagged the repeat with Leo Houlding in 2006, is reported to having been scared on it."

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Topo över Growing Up

Fascinerat letar jag efter mer info om leden och sökandet leder mig naturligt till berättelsen om Southern Belle. En berättelse om en led jag verkligen önskar att jag vågade uppleva men aldrig kommer att våga göra. En led som det tog 18 år innan den fick sin första repetition. En led som alltid kommer att vara känd men aldrig populär.

Tidningen Climbing, #110, 1988 om förstabestigningen:

En av förstabestigarna, Scott Cosgrove, skriver på Supertopo om förstabestigningen.

"The whole climb was an idea of Walt's, (Walt Shipley) he - in a mad bender - soloed the South Face Harding route, and in the process saw the line that would become Southern Belle.(…)

Walt and Dave both thought the line would go free, but Walt felt he lacked the free climbing skills to pull off the hard sections. Dave decided to fly to Boulder, Colorado and asked me to join him the following spring to free the thing, an offer I could not even consider turning down. (…)

Dave and I loved the idea of adventure and the beauty of the South Face-alone- above our own glory was really behind the idea of free climbing it; the magic dome truly seemed to be the greatest thing we could do with all the skills we had manage to muster. (…)

The climbing to this point had been fairly safe and the quality- out of this world, we where adrift on a massive featured face. Dave manage to red point the crux slab and the 12a death-slab crack above. I lead the next pitch through some dam scary sections, (…)

It is like being in a golden desert surrounded by beautiful golden earth worms disturbing the surface in their sub-terrianing wanderings. Joining the smiling Iron Monkey at the belay, he said how hard do you think it was. "11b," I said, although I knew it was way harder. (…)

I spent the day laying on my back looking up at the summit, the birds and the blazing hot sun and thought to myself, this could be my last day on the planet. (…)

Dave assured me the following pitch, the one Hank would get off route on and break his leg was the most scary of his life. Walt had told the story of how Dave on that pitch, looking at a death fall from 12a moves, was calling out,"watch me, I could come off here." Walt said that he could only laugh, because the only thing he could do was watch him die. (…)

At first light we busted up our tattered lines, and drop them, committing to the summit. Traversing out a long dike I got to a blown out section with no bolt, f*#kers! I thought to myself as I balanced to the next section of dike. I threw in some bad gear and punch it up 40 feet of glass 5.11 to a big ledge with a bolt. The first in a 130 feet! A few easy moves, another ledge and another bolt and the wall steepen above me. Bouldering up twenty feet, now looking at a very bad fall... back down onto the serpent like dikes, mantling on a small ledge to my horror no bolt greeted me.

I was in a trance and committed to the 12a/b moves above, unsure of the next move, I felt like I was in another world, no thoughts, no fear, just pure survival, having been willing to fall and die I had no second thoughts, with a final slap I reached what I thought would be a good hold and wasn't(…)"

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Topo över Southern Belle HÄR

1994 försöker Hank Caylor från Boulder repetera Southern Belle och misslyckas kapitalt.

"Alan Lester and I are in the prime of life. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Scott Cosgrove said that this was the most state of the art thing he'd ever done. If he did it, that means that if want to be "state of the art", I gotta do it. 12DX no problem(…)

We had a deal, I do all the freaky runout face pitches and Alan gets the cracks, that's his thing. Alan floats the 1st 5.9 pitch, cruises the shorty 5.12 2nd pitch and then HIKED the12C 3rd pitch with 2 #2cams. He just left one halfway up and milked the second for 60feet. I just pooed myself.

The 4th pitch is the "crux", 12DX, I work the 5 bolts and do what we considered an, A0? followed by a 100foot 12a runout. The scariest climbing moment of my life(in the 90's), almost so far. I tried to put in nests of RPs and just left them hanging cuz' they were crap! Who's foolin' who? (…)

Here's where I screwed up. The topo only sez' where the one bolt is and 1 bolt is hard to see. I missed, not hard to do on Half Dome. (…)

I just could not find the bolt. There was a garbage drawing Coz gave over but dangit. 14 bolts on the back half of Half Dome does not register in the heat of battle. So yeah I fell(you wanted to hear it and there it is). Crap I thought, where is the bolt. I already climbed 40 feet longer than Coz's(I love him) crappy topo said. And there the bolt was, 30' to the right of where I was climbing. I had already done way too many moves to downclimb.(…)

(…)this is where I thought you separate the "men from the boys". The Cali boys from the Boulder boys! If you've ever been that far off route, yet so close.What a mind f*#k. A BASE rig wouldn't help you.(…)

The 3rd worst moment of my climbing life was on the Belle. I had climbed to far to the left to ever get to the 1 bolt. 40' of 5.11 that I just could not downclimb. I yelled my ass off to Alan, get me the bolt kit!

Seriously people, I was wearing a baseball cap. I leaned in a little to far and the brim of the ballcap clicked on the rock and chucked me off. Alan needed 150' feet of rope, we didn't, have to send up a bolt kit. I started sketching as much as you can halfway up Half Dome. Mentally, I had a meltdown. Seriously, Alan was 100' below me separated by a #2 TCU and a tiny Lowe Ball Nut. If those two pieces blow, ugly factor 2 straight onto Alan. (…)"

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Jag är otroligt tacksam för att denna led finns trots att den tydligt definierar vart min gräns går för vad jag vågar försöka klättra. Jag är hänförd och fascinerad av Southern Belle. Kanske inte så mycket till leden i sig utan snarare till företeelsen av att allting inte är till för oss alla. Southern Belle måste få existera, om inte för att klättras så för att skapa drömmar och mardrömmar.