On Friday, May 2nd, my climbing partner and I set off at 7:20 am from Humber Park to climb the classic line Whodunit. About half way up the trail I begin to feel nauseous. We decide to take a break and see if a little rest will settle everything down. 30 minutes later, I am feeling great and we continue our way to the base of the climb. Once there, we take a small break, reassess my condition, and decide that since I felt fine the rest of the hike up that I am good to climb. I tie in and rack up to lead the first pitch.
The first pitch is amazing, one of my most technically difficult gear leads. I work my way up to a rest position before the crux, place a #2 wallnut in the overlap crack to my left, take a deep breath and start out on the friction slab. The moves are small and tenuous with little chance of successfully downclimbing back to the rest stance. I eventually make my way up to the overhang, grab a funky rail/undercling in the overhang with my right hand, and reach up with my left to jam my fingers in the crack above. Problem, my fingers dont fit. Shit! My assumed rest is not to be had. Can I place something now? No. Damnit! I can either keep climbing until I find a stance, risking a good size fall, or I can whip now. Well, I came to send, so climb on. I reach up with my right hand and gaston the tips crack, opposing my left and right hands. I slowly work my feet a little higher, then my hands, then my feet again. This is unrelenting. How much longer can this go on? How much longer can I last? I move my left hand a little higher, and then I see it, a nice crimper rail off to my right. I grab it, place a #0 C3 in the crack to my left, and let out a deep sigh of relief. YES! Im through the crux. Holy crap, that was exhilarating. I get my feet past the overhang and hike the rest of the way up to the Edge Hogs anchor and build a belay.
Im feeling great. The morning nausea is a distant memory. My partner makes it up to the first belay, we take a moment to enjoy some water and an energy bar, then he quickly takes off leading the second pitch. He cruises the pitch without a problem and makes it up to the second belay in little time. Before I know it, Im up at the top of the pitch with him. Staring up at the third pitch Chimney, Im excited about my next lead. We go through the usual drill of swapping gear, hydrating, and eating another bar. Climbing. I say. Game on.
The technical crux is over, all I have to do is get through the chimney. I make my way up to a lower ledge where I have the option of going left up the dihedral, or right up a hand crack. The hand crack appears to be a bit more difficult to start, so I commit to going left. As I pull into the dihedral, a scorpion appears out of the crack. I back off and take a moment. My partner calls up, You ok? Yeah, Im just waiting for this scorpion to be on its merry way. I reply. The scorpion walks into a dark crack. I make a mental note to avoid it and continue up. I make my way up the chimney, shimmy up to just below the roof, plug a #4 C4, and fire the crux. YES! Two 5.9 cruxes down. This is a great day. I setup the anchor and begin to belay my partner up.
My partner is working his way up the pitch when I suddenly hear him yell. I look down in time to see something flying off the wall. The scorpion. Are you ok? I ask. Yeah, but I think I may have just gotten stung. He replies. Shit. Lets get you up here and assess the situation if that sounds good. I say. He responds with climbing. He arrives at the belay, looks at me and says good lead, and I fucking hate chimneys. The scorpion sting looks fine. Hopefully it didnt get him too badly, or maybe its a less poisonous breed. We take a break to see if the sting is going to become a problem. When we are confident that hes going to be fine, we go through our transition process, and he sets off to lead the fourth pitch.
Unsure of which way to go at the offwidth (because he hates offwidth more than chimneys), he spies a weakness off to his right and follows it all the way to a comfy ledge, where he sets up the next belay. I follow up the pitch with ease. Just before I reach the top, he points to climbers left, Im pretty sure the route is 20 feet over that way. Theres a weakness over here, but its covered in lichen, so Im pretty sure thats wrong. I get up to the top, take a look, and we decide that 20 feet to the left is where we want to be. The ledge is comfy, and theres a faster party behind us, so we decide to take a well deserved break. The weather is wonderful, the climbing is fantastic, it has been a very good day.
As were waiting at our belay for the party behind us to pass, I begin to feel a little dizzy. I sit down on the ledge, pull my personal anchor tight, and close my eyes for a few minutes to get some meaningful rest. Twenty minutes pass and the dizziness has not subsided. I think youre going to have to lead the last two pitches. At least I feel good enough to follow. I tell my partner. We decide that Ill traverse out and move the belay back in line with the route, and then he can proceed with pitch 5 from there. The second from the other party passes us and Im suddenly hit with a spell of nausea. I lean out away from the belay, brace against a small buttress off to my left, and begin to vomit. Were 4 pitches up, we have 2 more to go, what are we going to do? I regain control and take a look at the damage. I managed to keep the gear clean, but my right shoe and pant leg arent so lucky. Shit, it has been such a good day.
In the span of 5 minutes everything has changed. My partner looks at me and says We need to figure out what were going to do. What do you know youre capable of right now. We have two options: we can rappel back down to the ground through multiple single rope rappels, or we can finish the climb and hike the descent trail back to the car. I need to get back to the car as fast as possible. I have enough strength to follow the rest of the route. Rappelling is never a guaranteed quick descent. Let finish the climb. Its going to be the fastest way to get back to the car. I respond. My partner traverses to move the belay, brings me over, and sets up to lead the fifth pitch. You good? He asks, Because you look like hell. I shake it off and focus on the belay. Im good. On belay. I respond.
I look up, keeping an eye on my partner as he leads the pitch. Dizziness swirls around me once again. Crap, I cant tilt my head up without losing my equilibrium. I guess Im going to have to belay by feel. The adrenaline kicks in. I lean into the wall, close my eyes, focus on the movement of the rope, and remind myself to keeping breathing deeply. I hear my partner talking to the party that is now above us. Hes at the belay, his lead is done, hell have me on belay soon, and this pitch will be over. I better figure out how to look up, because Im going to have climb now. I hear him call on belay and I begin to climb. Im completely on auto-pilot, focusing on my feet, looking no further than the next move. Fuck this is hard. I just want to quit and hang from the rope. But if I fall, it will only take longer to get to the top. I want to get out of here. I want to be back at the car. Breathe. Focus. Send. Before I know it, Ive made it up to the anchor. One more pitch to go.
I anchor in, give my partner the collected gear, and put him on belay. Im going to stay anchored in for a second. You dont look too good. He says. Here it comes again. I turn to the slab on my left and hurl once more. Ugh. Some water will help. I turn back to my partner and say Im good to go for now. Belay is on. Finish this thing. I belay the same as the last pitch; hunkered down and blind to the world around me. I keep feeding rope. It seems like it should be at the end soon. I hear something above me, but I cant make it out. I feel three tugs on the rope. Off belay. We exchange rope tugs until I am ready to climb. This pitch is easier, excellent. I just have to make it to the top. YES! Theres the belay. Theres the top of the rock. The climb is finished. Well, we made it. Even with everything that happened, this was a great climb. I say. Oh dude, check this out, I managed to get puke in my shoe. Thats some icing on the cake. I joke. My partner manages the gear while I sit down a take a rest at the summit.
Ready when you are. No rush though. My partner says to me. Slowly, I bring my head up from my knees and orient myself with the rest of the world. Lets get the hell out of here I shoot back. The descent is familiar territory. Slow and steady, thats the way to get down without any problems. We encounter a number of sketchy fourth class sections. My partner heads down first and patiently offers a spot every time. Im fully conscious and capable, but Im also acutely aware of my dwindling strength and dulled reflexes. We make our way down to of the top descent trail, where we take another break. Oh no, here it comes again. My body ejects the few remaining contents of my stomach; nothing but water. Well, that leaves me at no food and no additional water in my system. My partner turns to me as I finish and I say, I think I should take the Lunch Rock trail back to the car while you head back to the base of the climb and collect the pack. It will get us to the car in the least amount of time. He agrees, and we continue down the trail. Nothing brings up the self esteem quite like barf covered pants. I must be quite a sight right now. This is ridiculous. I joke again. At least my spirits are still high.
We reach the top of the Lunch Rock trail. My partner hands me the day pack with the remaining water and jogs off to our pack at the base of the climb. Im at the base of Lunch Rock and that nauseating feeling is creeping up on me one more time. Curling over, my body does its damnedest to achieve a full purge, but theres nothing left. A little shaken, I reach for the water hose and empty the reservoir. Fuck me, barely enough to wet my mouth. No chance of refueling again before I get back to the car. I best keep moving along. As I descend the trail, so does my coordination. I shorten my steps, focus on my breathing, and find the most ideal footing before moving forward. This is a slow process, the trail is longer than I remember, it is beginning to get dark, but I will get there when I get there. I hit the hikers trail, cross the stream, and glance at the uphill trail to the higher road. Nuts to that, Ill hike out flat and ascend the road instead. At least if I pass out there, someone will see me.
The car comes into view. My partner has already arrived and is loading gear into the back. He catches sight of me and heads over to take the day pack. I lay down on the ground behind the car, exhausted and haggard. He decides to let me rest and preoccupies himself with organizing the gear. After many near misses into unconsciousness, I open my eyes to find the car packed and my partner waiting in the drivers seat. I drop myself into the passenger seat, buckle up, and tell him to head back to town. The movement of the car, no matter how small, is intolerable. Im in bad shape. I hang my head out of the window and prepare myself for the worst. We make it into town and stop at the local market to grab some ginger ale and saltines. I take a small sip of the ginger ale. I dont think I can keep this down. Im running on empty and I cant bring myself to refuel. Uh, I think I might need an IV
or an emergency room. I say to my partner. He looks at me slowly, Seriously? Holy shit man. Lets see what we can do. He replies. There are no clinics open in town, so thats ruled out. There is a fire station though, perhaps they could help.
My partner drives over to the station house, jumps out of the car, and knocks on the door. I hear him talking with someone, it sounds like they can help. I walk up to my partner and the firefighter hes talking to at the door. We discuss the situation and the options at hand. I need to get checked out, Ive never been this worn down before. Im ushered inside where they hook me up to a heart monitor and test my blood sugar. Whats his blood sugar? 39? Is that right? Lets run that again to be sure. I turn and ask, is 39 low? Its amazing youre conscious. They respond. OK, we can give you an IV, along with a plug of dextrose, but were going to have to take you down to the hospital in the ambulance if we administer care. Youre well past dehydration, youre dangerously low on electrolytes, and if youre buddy takes you down on his own, youre definitely going to go unconscious on him. You can also try to go back to camp and see if you can get some fluids, sugars, and salts back in you. Those are your options right now. Ive been enduring this for 5-6 hours. Im done. Ive suffered enough. I want to be taken down to the ER. The firefighters, load me up into the ambulance, get an IV hooked up into my arm, start and saline drip, and inject 25 grams of dextrose into the line. In 10 minutes Im feeling great. The pain and suffering of the day fades away. What were you doing today anyway? They ask. Whodunit, a 6 pitch, 5.9 on Tahquitz. I respond. You lead 5.9? Thats awesome. Too bad all this ruined your climb. I cant complain. The climb was great and I did have a lot of fun today. Too bad the rest of my weekend is shot. But hey, at least I was able to walk away from it.
Not knowing when I might be released, my partner remains at the campground in Idyllwild, awaiting my phone call to come pick me up. Im being treated at the Hemet ER. They give me saline bags until I have to pee again. Im finally released from the hospital at 11:30pm. I call my partner to come pick me up when hes ready. He breaks down camp, packs up the car, and arrives at 12:30am. We drive to his Mother-in-laws house, 2 hours North, where hes graciously arranged for us to stay the night. I take a shower before going to bed, thankful to be back in civilization in one piece. I slip into bed and text my wife that were safe and will be home tomorrow. What a day. Good climb. Great climb actually. And those leads were incredible. With those final though, I immediately fall asleep.
It was a crazy adventure. Not one that Id like to repeat. Lesson learned: dont go climbing all day when youre on antibiotics (even if your doctor says otherwise). Also, my climbing partner is awesome and managed the situation very well. Fortunately, he thinks that Im sort of a boss for enduring the whole thing in as good of form as I did. All in all, Im happy with our ability to keep our heads and make good decisions under less than ideal circumstances.
A big thanks goes out to the guys at the Idyllwild fire station. Theyre a good group and are well trained first responders. Check them out if you need help. To those of you who have or are planning on getting on Whodunit after us this season, I apologize for yacking all over the 4th and 5th pitch belays. Climb safe, have fun, and be prepared if shit hits the fan.