Hardwear Sessions

We set up our village of Mountain Hardwear Tents and passed out from zoned out road-trip exhaustion. Saturday morning around 6:30 the sun grabbed me by the throat, screamed in my face, threw me from my Skyledge 2 tent right into the dirt, and started kicking me. Yeah, it was that hot by 6:30. Ripper Nathan and I got in about six solid, sustained handcracks before our knuckles were too swollen and bloody to climb any more. We headed back to the Ripper compound, I poured some Bud Light on my knuckles and cracked a bottle of Tecate for imbibing.

The sun went down, the meat got grilled, the campfire got rowdy, the Rippers got tired, and the next thing I knew the sun was kicking me mercilessly in the ribs again. OK, time to climb.

I took a group of novice rippers out into the middle of the desert and got everybody lost in a maze of Martian granite formations for about an hour before we finally found our wall. It looked like a 100 foot dead vertical crack, but the book said 5.7 so I figured anybody claiming to be from Oakdale should be able to get up it. As I rode the sharp end up I realized the face had some really juggy holds and the crack took pro like a pro. I belayed everybody up and gave a few lessons in setting anchors at the summit before teaching the crew how to rappel.

Try this: Sing the tune of "The Final Countdown" by Europe while rappelling. It's pretty awesome. Between unanchored sets of jumping jacks at the summit, Ripper Brian set his first anchor with a few cams and asked if it would be cool if he rapped off of it. I asked him politely to please use the rap rings instead. He put himself on rappel and leaped backwards over the edge without looking. He had never rappelled before. I live with this guy, I'm gonna keep an eye on him from now on. After cruising up some more routes at a different wall, the sun started to drop. That's right, mescal time!

We grilled up a healthy portion of meat and got to work. About halfway through the bottle a bee had joined the worms at the mescal insect pool party. Try this: Lick a spot of the hottest habanero sauce you can find, chase it with a big slug of mescal, and get stung by a bee on the lip to cap it off. It's intense. The night continued with a couple rippers snacking on tequila worms while Ripper Will and Ripper Oren led a good old fashioned sing along filled with ridiculousness.

Monday morning, 6:30 AM: The sun is holding a gun to my head and kicking me repeatedly in the crotch. After grilling a box of bacon over the fire and cooking up a case of eggs, we head out to the Real Hidden Valley area for one last climb before the long drive home. Ripper Nathan led up a beautiful four-star crack known as "Sail Away" in the most intense heat of the trip. As I followed the route I realized the crack was greasier than a dumpster at McDonalds. Thank the pagan gods of Oakdale for chalk. Before hitting the highway and driving our bloody hands and blistered feet home, as four of us stood on the needlepoint summit silhouetted against a backdrop of Joshua trees and golden granite, I let out a roar and the war-cry of the Oakdale Rippers echoed across the vast, open desert; Welcome to The Dale baby!