Mister Kamps

 

I first saw Bob Kamps in the Tuolumne Grill eating a sweet roll and having coffee. I was incredulous on two counts; one, that I was seeing Kamps and two, that like any other mortal he was eating breakfast.

Kamps was on his yearly pilgrimage to the Meadows. Rumors that he was climbing 5.11 were circulating through the Grill parking lot. One hot summer day I finally got the chance to witness whether the rumors were true.

I was bouldering at Tenaya Lake when I saw Kamps walking directly toward me in a tee shirt and cut off jeans. Holy shit I thought, I’m going to see the master in action. Feigning indifference, I did a boulder problem I’d probably climbed four thousand six hundred times. I came down to see Kamps starting to lace up his shoes. He smiled and nodded.

Kamps walked up to the twenty-foot boulder I had just climbed. Great, I thought, I could see how hard or easy he climbs the problem I just did. I’m going to see if I can climb like superman! But Kamps walked over to a section of the boulder that was only eight feet tall. There weren’t any problems on that part of the rock I told myself. There was this little roof two feet off the ground. Kamps walked up to the obvious under cling. He palmed the smooth granite under the roof, brought his feet up and then smoothly reached the top of the boulder and pulled over the top. That was it. A two-move problem, two whole feet off the ground.

Piece of cake. Oh, just hold on a sec fool.

I surreptitiously wandered from problem to problem hoping to catch another glimpse of Kamps doing something that was more fitting his reputation. I mean I wanted to see the guy standing on a pencil sized eraser of a knob fifteen feet off the deck calmly crimping a dime edge and sliding up vertical rock.

Didn’t happen.

When I knew I was safely alone I went back to try Kamp’s under cling and reach problem, innumerable times. I could barely get my feet to stick on the same missing holds that Kamps used. I could never really let go. I felt as ridiculous as I must have looked trying to slap for the top on a one-move boulder problem.

Somewhere in the early eighties, Kamps and I ended up climbing together. Vern warned me that you had to climb with Kamps rack. “Yea, so what”. “He doesn’t use uh, modern gear”. Vern introduced us one evening at Bob’s camp and campfire. I liked Bob immediately. He was easy going and easy to talk to. The campfire and beer made for one of my favorite pastimes in the Meadows. Hanging in the summer high country shooting the breeze with the dudes, the promise of another perfect day on the perfect granite. Followed by Tenaya beach time hoping that the Lodge chicks showed up. And of course, coffee at the Grill. So, as I was leaving the campfire I asked Bob what time we should meet. “Oh, how about around 8:30. 8:30? He must want to do something in the shade. Needs the day to warm up. Not my early morning style, but hey, it’s Mr. Kamps.

By 8:30 the next day I’m completely over caffeinated. Bob rolls up in his van. “Do you want to eat some breakfast, Claude”? Uh no, I’m on a liquid diet”. “Well come on in I’m going to get a sweet roll”. We go to the Grill where I twist and fidget in my seat while Bob tells me we’re going to climb Curve Like Her. The route is so obscure I need to scour my brain to figure out that the thing will be exposed directly to rubber melting, high-altitude sun. “Won’t that be a little, warm”? “Claude, don’t you want to climb in golden sunshine”? “Yes of course”. This would be new. I usually preferred Arctic conditions, feeling that edging was more positive and numb cold fingertips could function more like cliffhangers.

We hop into Bob’s van and drive west to the cliff. At the cliff side turnout Bob slides open the van door. I’m thinking oh boy, I get to see the rack. Bob reaches into a cardboard box and pulls out six nuts on slings. “What do you think”? And before I can answer: “This should be enough”. “I bought these at a garage sale”.

“Okay” I respond. It is okay. I’ve grown up on Meadows run outs and the rack of small hexes and a couple stoppers will insure I’ll be running it out.

The rope at least looks like its store bought. But when I ask Bob where his swami belt is: “I’ll tie into the rope”, is his reply.

Then Bob shows me some weird, off brand climbing shoes. “These don’t fit very well”. He says as he’s stuffing newspaper into the boots. I’m good with that. I hate tight shoes and always wear wool socks in my climbing shoes.

We get to the base of the climb and Bob hands me a handful of hard candies. “Claude, you’re going to lead and if you’re frightened, I want you to bite down hard on one of those candies”. I head up into the golden rock and sunshine. With Kamps tied into the rope we end up simul climbing. When I do stop to belay, I marvel at Bob’s rapid and precise, climbing style.

It’s a blast climbing with Kamps. I wish I’d done more.

When Vern and I headed up to do the first ascent of Mr. Kamps on Fairview Dome we had worked out the first two thinly protected pitches. That would lead to a golden curving open book to the left of the Kamps/Higgins classic, Lucky Streaks.

I lead the first pitch on Mr. Kamps, Vern the second. On the third our first ascent mode kicked in. I carried a couple bolts, two drill bits, a couple Lost Arrow and knifeblade pitons. I mostly tried to lead with a minimal amount of gear. A 7ml haul line allowed me to pull up gear as I figured out was coming ahead.

Vern and I were on our home turf, so to speak, and could well read what was coming.

But then on Fairview I was always thankful that there always seemed to a benevolent provider of knobs and hard edges at just the right time. At the top of pitch 4 Vern whacked in the belay bolts. We were happy with the perfect mix of slab and high angled face climbing to this point. But now the wall steepened and we were looking up at the crux of the day.

The day turned colder and windier. Vern wrapped himself in a spare sweater at the belay. I was getting cold in my khakis and cotton turtleneck. I took the hammer, two bolts, two drills, and two carabiners. To start, I broke a drill bit in half to shorten and sharpen it. I drilled in one bolt close to the belay as I could see there wasn’t going to be any stopping and drilling for quite some time.

I saw a vague depression in the rock, twenty feet above me and just said, “I’ll stop there.” Well, when I got “there” this vagueness was vaguer than I’d hoped for. I could barely form my fingers into the smooth and shallow dish that was going to be the bolt stance.

I looked down at Vern who was swaddled in the one sweater we had mumbling something from his fetal position. “I got you.” In a small way I was comforted by the familiarity of the situation. Even though Vern was concentrating on trying to not get colder. Vern and I were ambitious and covetous of our first ascents. Our lives were centered on making climbs like the one we were on now. A trip into an unknown in the sense that we were never sure how hard the climbing was going to be. Dozens of trips up Fairview made this far and away my favorite dome of Tuolumne granite.

Outside the insulated climbing world of Tuolumne Vern had started doing art shows showing his photography. A move toward a different life.

Somewhere in my thinking I knew my day and time in Tuolumne sunshine would end. There would be jobs and responsibility. But for now, a few hundred bucks was a summer in the Meadows.

I knew by heart the move I had to do. Pull up. Bring my foot to my hands, stand up. I knew the rhythm I needed to maintain. I chalked up. Forgot about the fifty-footer I would take and pulled through.

Vern was paying attention now. “Can you fucking drill?”

“Shhhhh, Quiet now, I’m thinking,” I replied.

A far off and intermittent sound punctuated my concentration. I heard a squeal and looked out toward DAFF dome. John Bachar was on the slabs at DAFF blowing his sax. Someone was with him. Then I saw Kamp’s van. I smiled to myself and felt a little more self-conscious and a lot more connected to the scene of rock, comrades, and the need not to fall off the stance.

I chalked up and tested letting go with one hand, then the other. Then I let go and mimed drilling a bolt. I could just manage a few swings. Then I let go and unclipped the drill and drill holder. Then I brought the holder up. Now I pulled the Yosemite (Yo) hammer out of the holster and smacked the rock where I intended to drill. Then I made three hits on the drill holder. Then I made three more hits. I hit until the blessed moment when the drill bit stuck in the drilled hole. Now I could hit harder with the hammer. I needed to be careful. I could not afford to break the bit off in the hole. Now I extended up to blow the granite dust out the hole. Now check and recheck that the hole is deep enough. Then gently start the bolt and hanger combo into the hole. And finally hammer it home. Tighten the nut. Mushroom the threads and clip in.

“How fucking hard was that?” Vern asked.

“5.10+,” I said, drained. Now Vern had the crux. This required  attention and concentration between us. The bolt stances were better, but the climbing harder. I would always find myself willing Vern to the next hold, or stance, or piece of protection.  I never asked him if he did the same thing. I don’t think he did. What I felt from Vern is that he wanted to project caring, that he wanted to feel something personal, but could not express. Vern finished the pitch drilling 5 more bolts through 5.11 climbing.

This being Fairview we knew we had one more pitch to easier climbing.

As I started the last pitch, I heard John Bacher wailing on his sax at Daff Dome. Kamps was sitting next to him watching us finish the route. At the top, Vern asked what we should name the climb

“Mr. Kamps, of course” I said. 

We’d done a lot of other first ascents before Mister Kamps, and we’d do a few more after. But having all our skills right there when we needed them, having Bacher and Kamps watch us finish the route, seeing the possibility of the route and starting off from the ground with a rack and a bolt kit, made this, for me at least, my most significant climb in Tuolumne.

We moved on from the Meadows after Mister Kamps. We got into doing more routes in the backcountry, one-day trips up El Capitan, working on relationships outside the rescue site. The light was on outside the tunnel of climbing.

Tuolumne was an incredible place that, along with my friends, we had to ourselves for a long time. Inevitably a younger group of climbers moved in. A new era of sport climbing began. Vern and I bailed on a route on Medlicott Dome that eventually got climbed at 5.13. We could see that it would go but we weren’t interested in months of work, the possibility of rap placed bolts. These things weren’t part of our time. We didn’t need them to be to do what we did. We hadn’t thought about climbing in that way.

I feel nostalgic when I merely drive through Tuolumne, checking out the climbs, the domes, the architecture of the place, the spring green, the russet brown of fall in the Meadows. But when I climb there 

now, that’s still something else.