"Off Belay!"
A brotherhood of the rope gets untied...for now.
I’m helping my best friend and longest-lasting adventure partner, Jacob Moss, move to what might as well be another planet. Salt Lake City, Utah, from Ashland, Ohio. Amish country to Zion. Right now, he’s in the U-Haul and I’m in his car with 5 of his bikes. We’re separated by 50 yards on I-70 in Missouri, chatting at coffee shops and piss stops, and occasionally talking on the phone as we head west. I’m sure we’ll stay in touch, and get together for trips and adventures and the major moments of life: birth of kids, mutual friends’ weddings, family holidays, one of us will probably attend the other’s funeral, etc., but we won’t be able to see each other weekly or daily, to really be in each others' lives in the same deep way that we could be when we lived in close proximity. On the road of life, we’re no longer traveling together.
I misspoke in the first sentence. He isn’t just a friend. He is a partner in climbing, on runs, in the mountains, hang boarding in my basement, complaining about work, at the bar, discussing break ups, in the hospital bike wrecks, watching my older boys during the birth of my third son, running together in the rain when his step-dad died, dancing at his wedding, crying at his wedding during my best-man speech, unlacing and taking his shoes off for him after his first 50-kilometre footrace, collapsing and crying in his arms after my first 100-mile footrace, cursing when our ropes got hopelessly tangled rappelling a cliff in the middle of the night, and then waiving off the mountain rescue crew from town that came to “save” us when they noticed two headlamps that were not moving for what they thought was too long….you get the idea. A real partner.
Moss was initially an acquaintance that I met when I started my first professor gig at Ashland University in Northeast Ohio. He was an employee at the on-campus rock wall and we clicked immediately, sharing a common stoke for climbing and other high-energy endeavors. Next, he took my Psychology 101 class as a student. He passed. Eventually, when he transitioned into professional roles at the University following his graduation, we became constant adventure partners and daily training partners. Up until this spring, that is. His wife got her dream gig, designing apparel at Black Diamond Equipment, and he gladly dumped his suit-and-tie employment at the University to move to the Wasatch Mountains and fire up a new chapter of life.
There may be more important, more universally experienced, and more celebrated relationships in human existence (parenting, or marriage come to mind), but few, if any, can match the sheer interdependence, the intertwining of passions, and sublime blurring of the self-other divide quite like a climbing partnership. What they lack in day-to-day ubiquity of interaction, they make up for in intensity, only being required, and only being initiated, in the truly wild moments of life and places of earth. Thin air, sudden storms, unpredictable geology, and massive vertical spires. As the old adage goes, life imitates climbing. That’s why the two are such valuable training grounds for each other.
In these places, the bond of partnership cannot be broken. This isn’t a matter of commitment to each other, or loyalty, or strength of character, or some other such bullshit. Rather it’s a matter of life or death. You and your partners’ continued existence in this realm is bound together, not just metaphorically, but physically. When you’re clinging to 1-inch granite edges, sharing as few as 3 points of connection to the rock through mechanical protection, 500 feet above a jumbled field of talus and other flesh-destroying debris, you would die without them. They would die without you. Truly a brotherhood of the rope. A brotherhood of necessity, but also of beauty. In exchange for tying your life into the life of another, with all the risks and doubling of human failings that entails, the universe offers you access into rarified and soul-stirring places that you simply cannot wander into with your personal skills, abilities, strength, and confidence alone. It is a bargain with the devil to see the face of god. Risk of death for a chance to transcend. The ritual of tying in cements the bond in what may as well be a blood oath. We either both walk out of here together, or neither of us walks out of here at all.
Perhaps even more arresting, and at times quite crushing, are another class of scenarios, whether in the mountains or down in the thick air of “real life,” whatever the fuck that means, where the best decision for you both, due to whatever conspiratorial forces of fitness, weather, conditions, time, and general circumstance there are, is to untie and move along independently. Alone together. Just as you sometimes decide to tie in, sometimes you need to untie and split up. Even as a great partnership builds, it is also confronted with micro-splits along the way.
In our first trail marathon together, we hoped to finish under 5 hours. After a smooth first 10 miles, things started to get tough during the heat of the day, and then around mile 15, Moss started to cramp. I hung back with him for a bit, hoping we could go easy and nurse him back to full force to still hit our goal time together, but eventually we both realized I needed to leave him behind if either of us was going to get the goal. We literally stopped and had a little cry-hug before I took off down the trail. I ran a 4:58 and change, and was dry-heaving in the shade of a tiny tree in the finish area when he hobbled in 20 minutes later, stoked to have put in a good effort and happy for me that I met our goal, but no doubt a bit disappointed that he was the one left behind in the woods that today.
Last August, after having gained entry through a highly improbable lottery, we toed the line in downtown Leadville, CO, to race the iconic Leadville 100 Mountain Bike Race, known as “The Race Across the Sky.” As usual, we started with a plan to stay together as long as it made sense, and to split up if either of us were jeopardizing the others’ performance. It was clear early on that he was stronger on the day, and I was struggling to hold pace even in the relatively thick air of the early miles. Things got grippy when we started the 3,000 foot ascent up the infamous Columbine Mine climb to 12,500 feet. This is the turnaround point on the out-and back course. He had to leave me the moment we were above 12,000 feet. I was holding him back. He had a chance to smash his MTB 100-mile PR and put in a super impressive Leadville debut. He slowly drifted away as I toiled on behind him, going 1 % slower, slowly slipping further off his wheel. I was genuinely stoked for him, but also super lonely when he descended past me on the way back down the mountain. He yelled “see you at the bottom,” but we both knew we wouldn’t see each other again until I drug my sorry ass back to Leadville, likely hours after him, by which point he hopefully will have had a burrito and a beer and a nap.
The episode I think I’ll treasure the most was set on a sublime arc of swirling varnished browns and oranges in Red Rocks, Nevada. We romped up a massive multi-pitch slab, tethered together by our trusty 70 meter rope. It felt like a vertical sea of stone, fully immersing us in a mental and physical landscape that was equal parts foreign and familiar, allowing us temporarily leave earth, ascending into some delicious purgatory that we only snapped out of when we were back on terra firma hours later. The ascent is technical and we inched our way up as a team. To descend, the team must untie and begin the rappels separately, even though you’re on the same descent path and using the same anchors. When I think back on this one, some small part of me wishes there was a 500,000-foot pitch of 5.5 edges and smears into the sky. We’d still be on it right now, tied in, sun on our shoulders, and smiles across our cracked lips, laughing at how good we have it.
Instead, I’m simultaneously hungry and disgusted by the thought of another Kansas Dairy Queen chicken strip. No hate to Kansas or Dairy Queen or chicken strips, but this ain’t exactly a sandstone stairway to heaven. Nine hours of driving to go. And at the end of this slog is the “see ya later”. Not someplace I want to get, but someplace I’ve accepted. Hopefully not our last finish line, or summit, together.
May gravity be weak upon you, brother. It was an immeasurable gift to quest through space and time with you, both of which are infinite in theory, but so precious and finite in practice. Some part of me wishes we could stay tied in, but for now,
“Belay is off, Moss!”
An emotional read and a beautiful bond 🥂🐺🐗
Awesome tales and epic journeys friend. More will come together and apart. Thanks for sharing a glimpse into some of these adventures!