OCR Text |
Show s "' . ... .. ..a - -: v . i " ' ' . . J , ' I , ," ' r.'-,., . " ..WJ,t I', - ' . . . . r v- - ;. s . , . . . ' .; :. ;-:, .A , ' ' - ""' "- 'i ' :"' , ' r' ' 2' , i . - .. '-' v "r ' . '. . '. ; ' . ." v . v f . r.' ' ' ' . .' ' ' v '('-' ' : ' ,: ' - . ' , -: V... " i i. " .' 4 " " ; k . '"juc -' " ,, ; . ' , : - '' V'. . - '. ... . - - -v: ' ' ' '-' - .-' - ' "V VA c " ' ' ' . . . . --n . isfzxaxtir . . , - ' - v" -j-. , . ' , . . ' . s . . s --v s v . . X - - . '. .VChrtinc Ottin:.;er tiulics ni .niuor of photo) through a t-lc olitlt to the left, is nearly twice as tall as Zeus. xw Pi v-r.t.ul i:uhrs i:p it sheer suii'.u;-. .Moses," the l.ill nion- " limbers of "The Brido" Try A nether Local Spire w r v . ---Tn j ' - I - ' 1 ' ' 1 " ii ; ' . , - . ; . . . " s J i : E-:vfv. riht. help- pr-p.-.re l.ri. Ci in-i.i.l for . :! c'.:rr.b cf "Y.c:-. ' 1) .ns i.f metal piton ami : ::rb;':, and hun.ire.ls of feet of rope, are needed : ?::h clr.bi. These make a hca y burden for the l!v I ran Harm's rho'.o by Lin Dtt inger La.-l Soptoll'.lior, tlil'oi: i l.ir.'.iors limn t'iiio aiii altoliij'toil t ) se.ile ;i .-io.'t.:eular "A)i-l-'"t s.tii :'.i'iio spire nea." :.:ai. lalio.l 'll.o r.riao. 1 i.o ;u-e."Ul!t el their el'. I. i is r.oar-ueees w as i i I'l'i ".i-J m I lie Se; ; i-n.f ht -1: h iss.i,. .i ti:e TIMK.-:. lNPKl'KNPKNT. N . , an ; uteres I in:-' af. t e r:v..'.; ii of liie u ns'.;eees. as.-. :!t ia the l'.iiile has i..:v.o U l..o!'.t. V;:!i e:i!y a week nf t':.rir ae.i'..ns hit afar a:e:.:; 1 i:o II: ido. til- ".'.! eo i its. Fl ed IV -Iir.e !;,Miii-:.hl a:p! K'.n liarta:-.;-. lua.Vd i'.a" I": . i ; ;.i tin simile eas;el' ei.::;i i,:: there. A .-ii'uv .-"..rm ,-e.iii p;;t a halt to their aet:vi;ies in Colo, la i.i. si) t'Aii of the three, lU-.ky and llji'i"::.-ta 1. l'e-t.iil'.e,! l'e-t.iil'.e,! t) M"a!i. ill liepvs if fr.iii:..' a ehallenginj; si:ie si'ineuhere nearly that tiny eon hi eonc;uer in tile three (l.i'.s t.'lev had k-.t. Uf course, the wild canyons within a fifty, n.ile radius of Moah contain con-tain dui'.ens, even hundreds, hund-reds, of tall and slender ) j . . f ' ".. ' ' i ; -- ---, , - i V -' . . l ' '".. ' ' ' : ,, . j -1 ; ,-' . - - t r i' i ' i - ' 1 . ; '' 1 f arv the lip of ens ' top n'ht 'V,i"t":,. As the fiist and only man :? the .pi t -, l;joi nstad cariK'd the " l'' tie it a naiie. buiJi unofficial n unes generally stick because of subsequent subse-quent usage by the public and other climbers. , . . . ... look spires, many of whieh have hardly even heen seen, let alone climbed, liut as their time was shoit, ready accessibility v. as a factor, bo Lin Ut. nrer, J.ieal tour uide, introduced the climbers to "Moses." This imposing m.'iudi'.h, which looks l.ke a i;ijr;.ntie robed ami cowled cowl-ed figure, is formed of WiiiKate sandstone. It stands on an isolated lidj-'o, guarding a fork in a Ion,' sule. canyon off of the lireen Kiver, in the v. ild an 1 broken country to the north of Canyon, lands National Park. Leaching "Moses" by Vehicle osSlblc, but not easy. After about ;;j miles of paved and din roads, tho last six miles was primitive, untracked canyon floor. There were traces of a jeep trail j!r.)Z up thL. canyon, but tlood-inj;, tlood-inj;, rock slides and driit sand had all but obliter-atcd obliter-atcd the trail after several years of little or no usae. Lin left the two veteran climbers, with all their gear, in a crude camp near the base of Moses, where they spent the rest o fthe day surveying the imposing figure and the several lesser spires and walls that shared the same high ridge. L!y the next morning the two climbers had decided de-cided that Moses was too much for them to tackle tack-le in their two remaining days. They were fascinated fascinat-ed by the unusual challenge chal-lenge offered by the immense, im-mense, sheer slab of rock. But conquering Moses could easily, even under the best of conditions, take four or five days, and would probably require some kind of experienced ground - support, something some-thing the two climbers lacked. Somewhat disappointed, hi still determined to scale Moses at a later date, Hockey and Bjornstad decided de-cided to tackle a nearby linger-like spire only 2;id feet high. Bjornstad would scale the sheer tower by himself, with Hockey providing pro-viding ground-support. While Eric slowly worked work-ed his way up the vertical lock i'ace, photographers drove out of the canyon system and "broke trail" to a high ridge overlooking overlook-ing Moses and the lesser spire being scaled. After several hours of strenuous solo climbing, Erie finally reached the top of "his" spire and thus earned the honor of naming it. He promptly decided ito use a name he had been "saving" for such-a use, and the name "ZEUS" was soon echoing from the canyon walls, as Eric shouted it down from his lofty perch. Again, the rocky walls echoed, as the photographers photograph-ers on the cliff above Zc-jb completed their work and shouted to Eric to wait on top of Zeus until they could get below to photo, graph his descent. Cooperative, and in no real hurry to abandon his spectacular .eyrie, Eric wailed patiently for the two hours it took the photographers to get back to the base of Zeus, all I he w hile looking like a tiny midg sitting on the end of a gigantic finger As he descended, Eric removed as many of his i-pccial climbing aids, l'i-tons, l'i-tons, etc., as was practical, practic-al, a practice common among climbers, who want any succeeding teams to have as unspoiled a climb as possible. To veteran climbers, going go-ing up a "freeway" of pilous pi-lous and anchor bolts is no challegne at all, no matter how long or spectacular spec-tacular the "freeway." They prefer to be the first ever to ascend. If someone else has already had this honor, then they will generally gen-erally seek a new, alter-nate alter-nate way up, a route even tougher than that used by those who went up first. While this strange game of "oneupsmanship" may be beyond the understand, ing of non-climbers, it is the very spirit, the essence of climbing to such veterans veter-ans of the sport as Fred Hockey and Erie Bjornstad With Zeus now subdued, but with both The. Briee and Moses still standing proud and unconquered, Hcckey and Bjornstad re-hicantly re-hicantly left for their' homes, but firmly resolved resolv-ed to return next spring for another try at The Bride, and perhaps to scale lofty Moses, too. Before they left, the climbing team asked a lo. cal professional writer pKitographor to contact National Geograhpic officials of-ficials to see whether they might like to cover the attempt at-tempt to scale mighty. Moses. A Geographic team covered Ithe first scaling of Titan, one of the Fisher Fish-er Towers, and the resulting result-ing article appeared in the November' 19G2 issue of the magazine. Who knows? Perhaps the conquering con-quering of Moses 'will receive re-ceive similar world-wide publicity. |