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Outside Magazine June 2001

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Temple of Zoom -- cont.

WE ARRIVED AT Sumner Wash around 7:30 and stopped beside a tinaja, an ephemeral rainwater pool, to fill up our as-yet-unused two-quart water bags. We'd been forewarned to carry enough water for the entire climb from Phantom Ranch. But given the recent snow, we gambled on finding water in Sumner Wash, and did.

Lack of water is a hazard in the Grand Canyon. "We do over 400 rescues a year," says Ken Phillips, search-and-rescue coordinator for Grand Canyon National Park. "Most occur in June, July, and August." Phillips says that about 12 people die every year in the park. "Half of these are preventable—people who die of dehydration, hyponatremia [critical loss of sodium], heat exhaustion, physical exhaustion, or some combination of the above."

Ganci and Tidrick nearly learned a fatal lesson themselves when they knocked off Zoroaster back in late September of 1958.

"It was the first and only time I've ever experienced absolute thirst," Tidrick, now 63, told me when I called him at his home in Colorado. "We had hundred-degree temperatures. I lost 15 pounds in six days."

"Rain was predicted," Ganci, 64, said on the phone from Prescott, Arizona. "So we carried this five-gallon metal jerry jeep can and a tarp for collecting the rainwater. We had 65-pound packs and looked like a couple of Sherpas."

But the rain came four days late, after they had completed the climb and were on their way down.

"We were in the red zone, advanced stages of dehydration, tunnel vision and euphoria, stumbling, floating along," Ganci recalled.

Impressed by their suffering, I'd started my own specialized training program: I quit drinking water. I'd go ice climbing or backcountry skiing for the whole day, without water. To compensate for the missing weight, I'd load my pack with useless climbing gear. Back at the house after a long, demolishingly parched day, I'd attempt to accurately mimic one of the mental side effects of dehydration (i.e. euphoria) by drinking only beer—a clinically tested diuretic. I found it to be one of the most enjoyable training programs I've ever attempted. But don't try this at home.

After John and I filled our two-quart bags with green, insect-rich water, we tossed in a few capfuls of iodine solution (later we would dump in a package of electrolyte powder) and surveyed the landscape. We were surrounded on three sides by a 500-foot limestone band of cliffs called the Redwall.

"Looks like there's only one way through it," said John.

He pointed to a dark slot halfway between the broad back of Sumner Butte and the squat, white steeple of Zoroaster. Our photocopy of the route description warned, "The climbing here is Class 4. Use a rope if you feel at all insecure with a heavy pack."

A heavy pack. Make that the third thing that'll kill you in the desert, or anywhere else. If there's one good reason why doing something in one big day rather than in several small ones makes sense, it's to avoid the utter misery of humping a heavy pack.

John had been impressed by the huge loads that Ganci and Tidrick carried, and his own training regimen had reflected this. He lives on a farm in Oregon and is currently building a fireplace from river rocks. The river is 200 feet below and a half-mile away from his house. John took to loading a backpack with 120 pounds of rocks and hauling them to his house. Your average washing machine weighs about 120 pounds. He'd make several trips.

For this climb, however, our packs were well under 20 pounds. We'd taken the lightest iteration of each piece of gear. Twin 145-foot ultrathin climbing ropes, featherweight wire-gate carabiners, Spectra slings, a frighteningly small rack of protection. We had no camping or bivouac gear whatsoever. Bring it and you'll use it—if only because the extra weight will slow you down so much that you'll be forced to stop. The self-evident secret of going fast is to go light. To carry just enough. Too much and you fail, too little and you fail. Besides climbing gear, we brought insulated coats, fleece hats and mittens, sardines, bagels, M&Ms, water, ibuprofen, and a pocketknife for compound fractures or field appendectomies.

Knowing how much to bring comes from knowing yourself. How far above your protection you can climb before you freak. How cold you tend to get. How much food and water you need to keep going. The answers are individual and only acquired through experience.

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