Day Three - November 12, 1999
I woke around 5:30 am the next day with swollen hands and creaky fingers, not to mention every other aching muscle in my body. It was these aches and pains coupled with the fact I had another huge day ahead, as well as my still-unsolved problem on the sixth pitch, that lead me to start seriously contemplating retreating off of the Tower. What if I just didn't have enough stamina and strength to make it to the top? What if I couldn't figure out how to deal with my problem on the sixth pitch? Would I still make it to the top before nightfall if I had to re-lead the fifth pitch? These questions and many more flew through my brain at a-mile-a-minute during my short breakfast.

Even though my instincts were to go down, something drove me to press on. I had come to the Valley this week to prove something to myself. I was going to climb this formidable formation solo -- even if it killed me (just joking folks!!!). Seriously, I wasn't going to give up until I was really screwed or I couldn't move any of my muscles at all. Besides, bailing off of the Leaning Tower would have been no small feat either. I would have had to rap down, clipping into the wall every so often because of its steepness. If I didn't clip in occasionally, I would end up hanging out in free space with no way to pull myself back into the cliff. Because of this, I would then have had to fix the bottom of the rope, jumar back up the line, and then rap back down with the pig -- on several of the pitches! This, coupled with the fact that I would also have to reverse the nasty fourth-class ledges at the base of the route, made it seem almost easier to continue up rather than to retreat off of the Tower. So I decided to continue on with the madness of solo big wall climbing.

After thinking hard about my options, I brainstormed another possible way to clean the sixth pitch. My idea was a little sketchy, but was one that would also put me back on schedule to make the summit before nightfall. I decided that my best option at this point was to pendulum off the Guano ledge! I felt that this option was safe because the rope did not run across any sharp edges that could potentially cut it during the swing, and it would also get me to the top of pitch six the fastest given my current circumstances. So I loaded up all of my gear into the haul bag, and lowered it out so that it was ready to be hauled once I reached the top of six. Then I clipped both of my jumars into the fixed lead line (which was now free hanging, leading up and to the right where it was tied into the belay between pitches five and six). And, of course, I also tied in short to the lead line as a back-up. From this point, I lowered myself out on the long slings that were fixed at the start of the fifth pitch, so I was hanging as far to the right as possible, before letting go for the ride of my life!!!

What a 6:00 am wake up call that was! I swung nearly 50 feet out and to the right and just missed hitting the haul bag (this was the plan). Eventually, my momentum came to a stop and everything was OK -- there was no doubt that this was the scariest moment of the entire climb for me. I then jumared up the rope to the top of pitch five and went on to clean the sixth pitch without incident. After hauling up my gear, I was finally ready to head off towards the summit. There was no turning back now.

(Note: I later realized that I could have simply rappelled the sixth pitch by re-clipping the lead line back into the protection on the way down instead of trying to clean the gear while on rappel. Duh! This meant I could have cleaned it the night before, or in the morning I could have jugged the haul line back to the top of six and then rap and clean six instead of doing a sketchy pendulum like I did. The only thing I can think of is that I must have been too wigged-out to think of such a simple solution at the time.)

Pitch seven went straight up a vertical crack that could be free climbed at a difficulty rating of 5.10. Since I was self-belayed and a bit scared at this point, I thought it would be best to do the easier alternative: climb the pitch as C1 aid climbing like most other parties do. It turned out to be a long, but pretty straightforward section of aid. I back-cleaned just enough to make it to the anchor with enough gear to rig another belay.

Once at the top, I looked up to see a massive, overhanging roof ahead. It was particularly scary looking because I had never aided anything that steep before. However, there was no time to worry about that because I still had to rappel down the haul line, lower out the pig, jumar back up the fixed lead line while cleaning, and haul the bag up before it even mattered. This routine was now starting to get grueling, and I seriously questioned how much more of it I could take. Thank God the route stayed in the shade for the majority of the day, or else I would have been toast!

"Because of the overhang, I was rapping away from the wall while going down. My ass was hanging out more than 800 feet above the ground..."

I was told earlier that it was possible to link the eighth and ninth pitches together with a 50m rope, so I headed up what was a short 50-foot pitch of climbing with the intent to continue into the 9th pitch. Leading pitch eight went quickly in only fifteen minutes. It followed a corner system up a slab that led to the intimidating roof that loomed above. Once I reached the eighth belay bolts, I could see that most of the roof had fixed gear running through it. That was good news for me because I could now simply focus on making upward progress through the overhang without worrying about placing too much gear while on the way (although some of the fixed gear didn't look that great, it all managed to hold me). Sure enough I tackled the section, improving my fi-fi hooking technique the whole way. It still took a long time, but I made it past the overhang, and continued up through another corner system to the sloping ledge on the top of pitch nine.

I had just made it to my must-make goal for the day, and it was only 3:00 PM! The ledge I was standing on wouldn't have made for the best night's sleep, but it would have worked fine in a pinch -- it sure would be better than sleeping in my harness all night. It was here when I first felt confident that I could make it to the top of the Tower by nightfall. All I had to do was go down and clean the eighth and ninth pitches, haul up the bag, and complete one more pitch to finish. This fact gave me a much-needed second-wind before I headed back down.

This rap turned out to be the wildest one of them all. Because of the overhang, I was rapping away from the wall while going down. My ass was hanging out more than 800 feet above the ground, with nothing between me and the ground but air! I wanted to take a picture, but I was too scared to stop and hang out for more than a second -- I was more interested in getting back to the anchor as fast as I could! (On an interesting note, a soloist gets to rappel the entire route, unlike the typical climbing party of two or three that wouldn't rappel at all unless they were retreating from the route.)

"This routine was now starting to get grueling, and I seriously questioned how much more of it I could take."

On the way down, however, I did scope a party of two climbers underneath me on the fifth pitch. They had a very small haul bag, so I thought they might be climbing the Tower in a day. I yelled down to ask them, and they confirmed my suspicion. They also yelled back that they knew me...They were the climbers I picked up hitch-hiking (to the super-famous free climb called the Rostrum) just days earlier. When I told them that I was soloing the Leaning Tower during our ride together, they said it inspired them to climb it too. They were two Irish guys who were obviously very experienced free climbers. Although they never caught up to me during the day, we all ended up sleeping together at the top that night. As it turned out, they slept at the bottom of the climb the night before, climbed the route by nightfall the following day, and then completed the descent in the morning of the next day.

Anyway, I then went on to clean the eighth and ninth pitches. The ninth pitch was a pain due to its severe overhanging nature! It required all sorts of antics to jug past the fixed pieces of gear, let alone the pieces that I had placed myself. It was also here when my right forearm totally cramped up on me like never before. My muscle just "seized." I had to hang there for a few minutes while I caught my breath and massaged my forearm until it came back to life. After that, I finally made it up and hauled the gear.