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Being a parent is hard. Ask any parent, and they will tell you. I guarantee they will make it sound harder than it is, and then finish with “it’s all worth it.” We make it hard. The basic duties of a parent are not that difficult — feed and clothe your kids, provide shelter, and most importantly, keep them safe.
Keep them safe. It’s basic, it’s evolutionary. Ideally, if your kid is in a dangerous situation, your mind will clear, everything will slow down, and both physical and mental strength will be enhanced.
That’s not how it went for me. I just had this helpless feeling and a knot in the pit of my stomach. The failure to keep my son safe was twisting around down there.
I was at the bottom of the cliff looking up at my 15-year-old boy, who was at the top with all of the rope and limited options on how to get down to safety, to me, and it was my fault.
We started the climb with a good plan. We both had a couple of good climbs. The heat was fading with the day, and the wind had shifted so we were getting a cool breeze off the ocean smelling of salt and sage. The raptors circled at our height, scanning for food below. We planned to finish together on top of the cliff and enjoy a beautiful father/son moment as the sun went down.
Plans have a way of not working out like they’re planned. My son used more rope to get to the top of the last climb than we estimated. He had to climb around a tree to a different route and connect to a different anchor. He was attached to the anchor, and there was no risk of a fall once he had clipped in, but he didn’t know how to belay me from above.
Lots of climbing jargon, but it means that if my son was at the top of the cliff without enough rope, the only way down would be to rappel from the top. He would need to pull the rope up to where he was anchored at the top of the cliff, put the rope through the anchor, throw both ends of the rope down to me, and then rappel to the ground. I would then climb the route, and he would follow me back to the top. This would allow us both to be at the top of the cliff as the sun dipped into the ocean.
None of this was beyond his skill level, and we had done parts of all of this before.
My favorite knot is the first climbing knot I learned, the figure-8 follow-through. It’s the most common way to tie a climber to the end of the rope.
The knot is simple, the working end wraps around the standing line, then goes through the hole that was created. There are fancy ways to tie it, but this is the way I do it. It’s simple and repeatable.
The working end is then threaded through the tie-in points of the harness and follows through the knot that was already tied making a figure-eight with two parallel strands of dynamic cord.
A well-dressed knot is beautiful. But why does it matter if the knot looks good? It’s a strong knot, and it will hold a fall without breaking or slipping, even if it’s a mess.
It matters the way that many simple things matter. It shows that you care about the process. When you trust your life to the person on the other end of the rope, it’s important to know that they care about the process. A well-dressed knot is easy to safety check as it looks clean when all the strands sit close to one another without crossing.
I taught my son this knot. I taught him to extend his arm and loop the rope around itself, forming a figure-8 knot. I taught him to thread the end of the rope through the tie-in points on his harness, then to follow the line back through the figure-8. Clean, tight lines.
It has to be seen, it has to be touched, and it becomes a benediction before climbing, sacred in its importance. The slow follow-through of the rope is almost slippery before it is tightened with just enough tail coming out the end. It will hold multiple falls. Multiple times of hanging on the rope in frustration, looking down at the belayer wanting to be lowered but deciding to try one more time, knowing that at least the knot is strong.
And I untied the knot.
He threaded the end of the rope through the anchor, and when he tried to throw the rope down it kept getting stuck on a ledge directly below. Every failed attempt meant he had to pull the rope up, coil it, and then try throwing it again. Each time he did this took about fifteen minutes of sunlight off the clock, and by the fourth time, it was getting dark. He was attached to the anchor at the top of a cliff without a light to see what he was doing and I was at the bottom, utterly useless to him, except for encouraging words.
I thought about having him rappel on the stuck rope and try to figure it out when he got to the knotted mess. It’s what I would have done in his position, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell him to remove himself from the safety of the anchor.
The sun was dropping in the ocean 15 or so miles west behind the sheer cliff. My son was up there, and I could feel his frustration. I couldn’t see it as he was 50 or 60 feet up, but I could hear it in his voice. That high quiver of a boy who hasn’t quite hit puberty, but still tries to project courage. There was fear there, and I tried not to let mine show as I yelled out instructions and encouragement.
I stood at the bottom, rummaging through my pack, finding the one headlamp that I kept in there for emergencies, and trying to think about how I was going to get my son off the cliff.
And that’s how I’m going to end part one, not just because it’s getting long, but how often can you have a cliffhanger with a literal cliffhanger?
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I recall a situation in red rocks where you and I had something like this happen. I think I didn't anticipate the length of the rope we would need and so you ended up leading the route and didn't have enough rope to be lowered, so you belayed me up to you carrying another rope so that we could both repel back to the ground. I'm curious as to what happened with Beckett. I've had a few situations where on the spot problem solving had to occur and it can be rather dangerous. Thanks for capturing this moment.