The most famous feature on the Devils Thumb is its unclimbed Northwest Face, which rises 6,700 feet from the Witches Cauldron at its base to the summit, at an average angle of 67 degrees. This is unparalleled steepness for a face this size in North America. Unfortunately, the conditions prevalent on this face make it into perhaps the most dangerous climbing proposition on the continent as well.
Climbing history
The first ascent of the Devils Thumb was a landmark in North American mountaineering. Fred Beckey, along with Clifford Schmidtke, and Bob Craig, climbed the East Ridge, a route that combined technical difficulty equal to anything ever climbed on the continent to that time with great remoteness and terrible weather conditions.
The infamous Northwest Face has seen only failed attempts starting in 1977 (possibly earlier), through the present; at least three teams have died on the face.
Early August, 1977: Peter Cole,Nichols Rouner, and Rainsford Rouner. Finding the wall virtually devoid of snow or ice and with no obvious lines up the apparently rotten rock, the trio opted for a line heading to the west buttress, along the couloir that forms the right-hand margin of the face. Starting on an adjacent buttress below the Witches’ Tits, they continued across a hanging glacier.While the three were soloing, tragedy struck: Nichols died from rockfall.
He was almost 6'6", strong as lightening with a kind and quiet face, remarkably patient with her teenage moodiness. He flew in from Seattle that August of 1975 still smelling of mountains, crusty rocks, mossy green craggy holds. But mostly he came with a dare to dream, the dare to dream that you can only get from having parents who love you so much that they want your dreams to live .They hold you safely and let you go , they smile at your cleverness and delight in your charmed movements. They even encourage you to climb. And climb he did. Often and well. Beyond well, spectacularly well . But more significant than that, he discovered that climbing brought him close to God , wholeness , life and death. He pursues it like fire, relentlessly, without doubt, with his whole physique, with his soul.
Climbing is his world within and the world without , without loss. He cannot possibly lose while racing the sunset, holing up against searing winds and sleet , sleeping tied to the icy bare rock with only ice ax as companion. This is a sharp, dangerous world, but that this is the ONLY real world that he wants to exist in. Now and forever.
There's was a quick summer romance between teenagers. She was the long distance blond girl with the Texas drawl who liked to sing and play guitar.He was the Boston bred poet athlete. They were just about happiness , discovery and flying across the country on a whim. She was moody and often sad, he was in love with grace of thought and heart. Over the distance and months they lost touch. The melancholy summer romance girl continues to study and dream her life in Texas . Sometimes wishing to be a poet, a healer, a songwriter, a teacher .Seasons and years go by .She sees struggles, disappointment, moderate success and sometimes achieves true self expression. She doesn't think often of the August nights thirty one years ago when she was 18 and he was 17. She remembers more the vibrant aliveness during those hikes in Colorado sleeping in thunderstorms, hiding in drenched tents, hiking in open meadows with the blossoming columbine, being certain that life held good things. Missing that cedar scent of promise mostly. One day many many years later, she thinks of looking him up. She does a search and discovers that he died in 1977 perhaps just a year or two after their summer, on a mountain in Alaska. Her heart is broken for him and even more for his family. No one had bothered to tell her. She understands this. So thirty one years after, she writes for him.
True to yourself
you fell
backwards
in white hot sunshine
face upwards toward the reddened sky
Never once regretting
the fall
not from life
but toward light
your mother , the poet,
cried out in her sleep
what have you done?
without reservation
you answer
I have lived
I have lived
