A Great Big World

It was 5 a.m. and Jennifer Poe hadn’t slept a wink. She lay shivering on a borrowed sleeping pad, wearing a pair of borrowed ski pants, camping 400 feet above ground on an outcropping of rock.

Figuring she might as well get up and start moving-if only to work some warmth back into her limbs-Jennifer surveyed the view from halfway up a wall known as Washington Column in Yosemite National Park. She and her climbing partner still had a long way to go to reach the top.

It was the UTC senior’s first experience on a big wall-a wall that takes multiple days to climb-and she and her climbing partner were terribly unprepared. On a last-minute whim, they’d decided to lighten their load and leave behind rain jackets, sleeping bags and sleeping pads. The forecast predicted a zero percent chance of rain and Jennifer says they were confident in taking their chances.

Of course it rained and, even worse, the temperature dropped to the mid-30s that night. Luckily, two friendly fellow climbers shared some of their gear.

“It sounds kind of miserable, but in a way I love that kind of stuff,” Jennifer laughs now, back in Chattanooga. “That was such an amazing experience. I’d never slept on top of a wall, of a route, before. Waking up on that ledge, I was freezing but it was breathtaking. Seeing all the mountains towering above me … it feels really cool to feel so small and know I’m not the center of the world. It’s humbling.” Jennifer isn’t the only local climber to venture out beyond the sandstone crags here in Chattanooga. The truth is, even though the Scenic City offers amazing climbing opportunities, Tennessee summers really suck for climbers. “The humidity is awful and the summers are painful,” laughs Allan Kotecki, local paramedic and a lifelong climber.

So instead of wilting in the heat, when late July or mid- August hit, local climbers often go on adventures.

Allan, for instance, piled into a car with a couple of buddies for 22 hours and headed out to Rifle, Colorado for three weeks. “Rifle is known for vacation climbing,” he explains. “The approaches are short and access is ridiculously easy.” As for the weather out west, the locals complained that it was more humid than usual, but Allan says he thought conditions were perfect. “We would all laugh and look at them and say, ‘You have no idea,'” he jokes.

The climbing in Rifle is mostly singlepitch limestone. “It’s not better or worse than climbing in Chattanooga; it’s just different,” Allan says. “The style is really unique; it requires a weird balance of power and technique. It’s like everything is facing the wrong way.

“I used to travel all the time,” he continues, explaining he staggered his emergency services schedule so that he’d have two days on and five days off. Allan has plans for Bishop, California, later this year and would love to climb the crags in Squamish, Canada and The Rocklands in South Africa-all a far cry from Chattanooga. Climbing in Yosemite is much different than home, too, according to Jennifer.

Last summer wasn’t her first experience braving the wilds of the national park. In fact, she’s traveled to Yosemite every summer for the past five years. She even spent a few weeks climbing the spectacular rock formations in Spain, but”Yosemite is my place,” Jennifer says with a smile. “It really introduced me to another side of climbing-multi-pitch climbing.”

There’s Sunnyside Bench, a three-pitch root that takes climbers up a wall right next to a waterfall. Serenity Crack is her favorite though, with three “glorious” pitches and a view of the famous El Capitan. The Washington Column was her first big wall experience with aid climbing and leading, but climbing The Nose of El Cap-and its 31 pitches-is her long-term goal, she says.

Crashpad owner Dan Rose and climber Al Smith had a goal of their own to accomplish this summer. They set off on a six week excursion to the Sierras in California. “Romantic Warrior at The Needles … that was the one we came back for.

It was unfinished business,” Dan laughs. “It’s the best line in an area known for great lines.”

They’d tried to tackle the wall years before but it was a major struggle, explains Dan. But this time, they came prepared. It wasn’t the only route the two Chattanoogans made the trek for. The pair trad climbed several more walls, including the 11,000-foot Incredible Hulk, one of the tallest granite walls in the High Sierras. “You go out there and the cliffs are literally 10 times the size of Chattanooga cliffs,” says Dan.

And one major challenge was the granite itself. “With sandstone, you always have something to grab onto,” Al says. “Granite is not only huge but it’s blank, slippery and slick. It’s all about legs and endurance. It’s really crazy body climbing.”

Plus, just to get to these locations, Dan and Al had to hike 3.5 hours in and 3.5 hours back, carrying all of their gear and food for the day. Al says their days started with an alarm sounding off at 2 a.m. They were packed up and hiking by 3 to hopefully make it to a wall before 7 a.m. It would usually rain in the afternoon, so they’d finish up before then and trudge back to camp, where they stumbled onto their sleeping mats and stayed there for the following two days.

Then they’d do it all over again in that order – for the sixweek duration. “The effort is so much greater, but so is the reward,” says Dan, explaining that they were cut off from any cell phone service as well as most civilization. “It’s just so amazing out there. It’s crazy; it’s wild and windy and stunningly beautiful and there’s nobody out there.”

“When you are facing a challenge that is larger than life, so to speak, it yields something you can’t find unless you’re in that kind of place,” Al says. “You get much stronger in certain ways. It’s such an enriching experience.”