Home Court Advantage

Upper portion of Kamps ridge.

I never thought it would happen in my own backyard.  Everything just seems more casual in a familiar environment.  Perhaps that is why it happened.  Perhaps that is why I experienced my first ever unplanned bivy on, what should have been, a mellow, enjoyable day out climbing.

All things being considered it was a great day.  It was a beautiful setting with fun movement on clean rock, great weather, and a "casual" route.  There were hiccups, of course, but nothing too crazy.  We probably started later than we should have.  My partner and I had never climbed together before.  Route finding was tricky in a couple of sections.  We moved slower than I would have liked since I hadn't been climbing much and I was a bit rusty.  I also hadn't prepared for a late finish, i.e. I didn't bring my headlamp.  These and other factors contributed to our troubles.

If you do the math it all adds up.  We made the summit but there was only about 20 to 30 minutes of sunlight left.  A sense of haste took over as we scrambled to the rappels.  It was quite important to me that we find the anchors with some daylight left given the fact that I had no headlamp (although my partner wisely brought his).  But we didn't find the raps.  Cairns can be great navigating tools when they mark what it is you are looking for.  In the diminishing light we stumbled upon a pile of rocks that seemed right for our descent so it appeared like we would make it to the car after all.  I felt confident having been down those rappels a few times in the past.  Only after wasting a significant amount of time and all of our natural light did I discover that we had started down the wrong chute, one that would surely spit us out onto a steep-enough field of consolidated snow with no axes and crampons . . . in the dark.  We had to return to the ridge.

On the ridge again we continued our fruitless effort to find the rappels.  It became obvious that a decision was warranted which was hard to make, feeling more than defeated by the prospect of being benighted in such a familiar place.  I had been there before.   I had the home court advantage.  On that day I expected more for less for some silly reason.  Much to my chagrin I suggested to my partner that we sleep it off on the mountain.

The weather was good, I had an emergency blanket, and it wasn't a bad night even if it wasn't that restful.  In the morning it still took longer than expected to find the rappels, having more luck finding rattlesnakes.  To boot, below the rappels there was still a difficult field of snow to maneuver through that would have proven nasty in the dark of the previous night.  

I think we made the right decision to bivy.  We got home, thirsty and hungry, and I was late for work but I really can't wait to climb Kamps Ridge again, this time with far fewer complications.