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Outside Magazine, April 2005

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Climber Girls
Babes on Belay (cont.)


	FIRED UP: Sheyna on Cookie Cliff, in Yosemite Valley (Jeff Lipsky)

TWO WEEKS LATER, SHEYNA WOKE UP under a pine tree in Camp 4, her green flannel pillowcase set right on the fallen needles, her body wrapped in a sleeping bag. They'd arrived ten days ago; along the way, Andy had peeled off for Alaska, and they'd side-tripped to the Salt Lake and Oakland airports to pick up the other girls' boyfriends.

Now, after more than a week of climbing, as many as seven men were hanging around the campground. Anne's boyfriend, 27-year-old Bayard Russell, a guide in North Conway, was shaking out a tent, and Janet's boyfriend, Freddie Wilkinson, 24, another North Conway guide on a break from leading trips up Alaska's Mount McKinley, was cooking hash browns. But the real reason for all the guys was that Sheyna and her ex were truly through, and she looked vulnerable, wild, and sad, wrapped in her tangled bedding.

Sheyna had come into Yosemite like a force of nature. Now, after folding her bedding, she hitched a ride out to El Cap Meadow, to sit among the irises with six unattached boys. Her stuff was in one guy's car; seated on her right was a

Sheyna had come into Yosemite like a force of nature, and as many as seven men were hanging around the campsite: "Hey, Sheyna, whatcha up to?" "Hey, Sheyna, wanna get on some rock?"

man who'd been buying her beer and cookies; and yet another guy was fishing his van keys out of his pocket so that Sheyna could watch it while he did a push ascent, without sleeping, of El Cap's Pacific Ocean Wall. She'd been spending her nights drinking wine at the search-and-rescue site, and in the mornings, as she left Camp 4, she'd had her pick of climbing partners: Ryan, Ivo, Bob, and Andrew.

"Hey, Sheyna, whatcha up to today?"

"Hey, Sheyna. Wanna get on some rock?" She knew the name of every guy changing his shirt on the side of the road, and they knew hers. As she put it, "I don't think there are too many girls around here."

Today's winner in the battle for her attention was Bob, a 31-year-old guy "kind of from Arizona." As he and Sheyna climbed at Arch Rock, on the western edge of the valley, Bob stared up at her determined, tanned face. "I can tell you've been climbing at Indian Creek," he said.

Bob was strong and steady-eyed, with golden hair and golden skin from years of climbing, surfing, and working construction. "I've never seen anybody pick up climbing that quick," he told her. "You must have been hanging out with people who were really pushing you. Mega-senders. I mean, God, you're so smooth."

Bob had brought a loaf of wheat bread and peanut butter, and while he climbed a tough 5.11c crack, Sheyna told me about her girlie side, the part that loved going to the Bellagio in Vegas, even though, by her own admission, "that city brings out the evil in me." She also, at the moment, wanted to visit a spa. "I like to be pampered," she admitted. "Facials, waxing... I could use a facial."

Sheyna, with all her charms, caused some affectionate eye rolling among the girls. But truth be told, even the guys who'd been explicitly invited were cramping the all-girl scene. Women climbers cite many reasons for preferring female partners to male. Among them, predictably, are the inevitable intrigues that crop up when young, carefree men and women with beautiful bodies spend lots of time hanging around. Lizzy Scully, the She Sends publisher, cites a less obvious peril: "Men freak out when women cry." For this largely compatible bunch, however, the problem seemed to be sheer absence.

For five days now, Sarah and Jim had been up on the Salathé Wall, 35 pitches of exposed off-widths and strenuous crack and aid climbing. Nobody knew when she was supposed to be down—the last time Jim had climbed the Salathé, he'd taken only 15 hours—and the fact that days had passed was provoking concern.

GARLICK!!!! WHERE ARE YOU???? Janet scribbled on a sheet of notebook paper that she slipped under Sarah's windshield wiper. Of course, in addition to her worry, Janet had her own agenda: She'd already ticked off two big walls with Freddie—Tangerine Trip, a wildly overhung three-day aid route on El Cap, and the Chouinard-Herbert Route, a 15-pitch free climb on Sentinel Rock. Wasn't it time she and Sarah started training for Peru?

Shortly before Freddie was to return to Alaska, he and Janet, along with Anne and Bayard, spent a day noodling around at the Cookie Cliff, a popular day-climbing site just off the Merced River, with routes like Wheat Thin and Pringles. On a single-pitch, bolted 5.12 route called Nutter Butter, Anne belayed as Janet struggled on the crux move near the top. Freddie, buoyant and flinty-eyed as always, leaned against a downed tree with Bayard, whittling a twig into a pair of chopsticks and discussing how fashion is safety, because if you look good, you feel good, and if you feel good, you climb well, and if you climb well, you climb safe.

"I have no idea what I'm doing up here," Janet groaned.

"You're going to send," Freddie called.

"Oh, my God, this totally sucks."

"C'mon, J-Nut. Smart feet, baby. Breathe. Don't forget to breathe."

Freddie, of course, meant well, but he missed Janet's drift. She was at her limit; she needed him to tune in.

"There's no hands, and the feet suck. I don't think I can do it."

"Just go fully friction. You can do it, baby."

And then Janet fell.

Not a big deal—only ten feet—but it was Anne who consoled her while Freddie stared sheepishly at his twig.

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