Published: July 11, 2008 in the New York Times
(page 2 of 2)
The namesake fissures of El Cracko Diablo, an intermediate-level route on the south face, beguile climbers uninitiated in the technique of climbing cracks. At the base of the route, roped up and helmet on, Mr. Sanders demonstrated the method of ascent by plunging a hand deep inside a crack. “Reach in and make a fist,” he said, tugging on his jammed hand.
 |
| LANDMARK Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, over 1,000 feet high, is sacred to many Indian tribes. |
 |
| What's on Top? |
It was 6 p.m., and there were hundreds of feet to climb before the sun went down. We had hats and rain jackets stuffed in backpacks for warmth after dark. Headlamps would illuminate the rock during our descent, in which we’d rappel four rope-lengths to the ground, though not before watching a sunset on top of the world.
“Ready, señor?” Mr. Sanders asked, double-checking a knot. Carabiners and cam anchors hung from his harness, a metal-on-metal jingle as he moved.
“You’re on belay,” I said, palming the rope, ready to feed out line.
Then he was off, twisting a foot into a slot, standing up to reach, pulling sideways on a hold, his hands working to find jams. He kept his right foot higher than his left, leaning into El Cracko Diablo’s right-facing corner.
Thirty feet along, with the rope a straight line from my hands up the wall, Mr. Sanders paused to place a cam anchor. The spring-loaded device, which locks in place inside a crack, creates a solid anchor that can hold thousands of pounds. “Slack!” he called, asking for a couple feet of loose belayed line.
He clipped the rope to the cam, then kept going, 10 minutes to the top of the pitch.
Mr. Sanders tied in. My turn to climb.
“On belay!” came the shout, my guide hanging from the wall 100 feet above, signaling me to start. I reached and locked a hand inside the stone, a fist-jam in the crack to stabilize while I leaned back and assessed the route.
CLEAR Wyoming air — in the quantity of more than 500 vertical feet — whistled and shifted in the space below my toes. The land was red, the river and highway both glinting silver in the late sun, twisting together, the waterway and the concrete indistinguishable farther off.
Trees were like sticks, black twigs upright and an inch long from this view. A cow moaned on a hillside miles away, a bellow that carried inexplicably clear through the air.
I was then that daub of paint, a pixel or a speck on a big screen to a cow or a hiker who might glance up. My hands and feet worked the route, grabbing stone, pinching, stepping high. Resting. Breathing. Repeating.
We climbed like this for two hours, Mr. Sanders leading to a ledge, pulling up the extra rope, then establishing a belay. The sun was dipping down as we neared the top. “Twenty minutes and we’re there,” Mr. Sanders said.
The sky burned orange and pink in the west as we came over the final edge. I untied and walked uphill to a cairn, the rock pile that marks the high point on the summit plane.
The top of the tower was glowing, light bouncing through brush, blinking on boulders. Mr. Sanders was quiet, looking out to clouds swirling and pink. We paused before stacking the ropes, before preparing to rappel our way back down — a silent moment in a small field in the sky, a break in the action on a perch on top of the world.
