Freeing the Hindu

A week after I had recovered from the Sharks Fin expedition, I got a text from Noah. "Do you have the 26th open? Let's go free the Hindu!"

I had never heard of the Hindu, nor did I know where it was, nor what it was graded. Looking those things up sounded like a lot of work, so I just replied "Yeah buddy, I'm in!" and put "CHOSS WITH NOAH" on my calendar.

Two weeks later, I still hadn't researched anything about the route. My reasoning was something to the effect of "If Noah can't find partners for it, it's got to be worth doing." No need for further deliberation! As is tradition, we found ourselves without four-wheel drive. This time, it was an easy 2.5 mile jaunt by mountain bike followed by a thirty-minute hike to approach the tower.

"Maverick" on the Hindu is a four-pitch tower route with an overhanging C2 crux on the first pitch. Stevie Halston freed the line in 1996 and called it 5.13a. Since then, a few people such as Steph Davis have repeated the line without aid. Since the first pitch is south-facing and very condition-dependent, we steeled ourselves for an alpine start of 03:30. I stumbled into Noah's magic school bus and slammed an Americano from his Breville and a cold leftover burrito. The irony of waking up so early for only a 250' route was not lost on us -- I've slept in longer for 1800' routes in the Black. We loaded up two ropes and a relatively light rack (with many #0.2's) and rolled out at 04:15. As this clip shows, I was a very conscientious and supportive partner, encouraging Noah to dig deep and follow his heart as we pedaled valiantly into the breaking dawn.

Or something like that. First light found us at the base of the Hindu.

Noah had rehearsed the first pitch before and knew that there is some spice to the first pitch (insecure 5.12 moves with high ledgefall potential), so we wanted to get a rehearsal lap in first. I aided up the C2 pitch and set up a toprope.

Noah quickly reacquainted himself with the moves and then belayed me for a burn. First go, I was absolutely stymied by the two bouldery cruxes. One required a truly bizarre sequence through a bulge: a dynamic knee scum off a shallow pinky jam, followed by matching the other knee and then liebacking against the knees instead of feet (5.12b/c-ish and ledge impact if you blow it, second photo).

The technical crux comes fifty feet later. You must quickly work through a #0.2 splitter and then fire off a barn-doory deadpoint to a crimp, paste your feet onto smears, bump to a shallow two-finger pocket and then lunge to a jug. The move is both height and finger-size dependent and would earn a V6 or V7 off the ground. However, the entire sixty-foot pitch is several degrees overhanging and generates a Rifle-worthy pump.

After my toprope burn, the sun was dangerously close to hitting the wall and reducing friction on the tenuous crux holds. I fixed our rap line to the anchor. Then Noah racked up, tied in, and raged against the birthing of the light.

At the crux, Noah clipped a black Totem and then blasted fifteen feet above it to get to the next stance. "I was too pumped to fiddle with any more #0.2's," he later told me.

With the crux lead complete, I just had to get up there and finish the last three pitches. I was able to cleanly climb the awkward first crux, and then fell several times on the second. As Noah had predicted, the pitch absolutely enthralled me and I've been dreaming of returning to it ever since.

The second pitch was rated 5.9+ in the 80's -- always a good sign. I traversed left directly off the belay on steep terrain that thankfully featured wide hand jams and good gear.

The horizontal crack eventually pinched down to fingers and forced me into a committing, balancy mantel. Chalk would have been helpful here, but so would have been a jetpack and a self-help book and a pint of Talenti mint chocolate chip gelato, and I had none of those things. So I just stuck the mantel.

Noah did the same, then quickly fired up next pitch, a 5.9 handcrack bulge that actually felt like 5.9.

This brought us to an excellent ledge. The summit was seventy feet away, guarded by a shameless bulge capping an already decidedly priapric tower. The FA obviously had a sense of humor, because the frenulum of this cap had a ring piton driven into it.

I left Noah at the belay with Prince Albert and surmounted (?!) this feature. The pitch was graded 5.11 PG-13, but that must have been for the sheer impropriety of it all, because the climbing was quite safe (albeit dirty) and no harder than 5.10b.

Minutes later, Noah joined me and we were feasting on Sour Patch Kids, southwestern garlic tuna and spicy water. Despite being a desert tower summit in April, it wasn't windy at all, so we took our time and soaked in the beauty of the Fisher Towers.

A double-rope rap brought us back to the base, and we hiked back down to the bikes. On the ride out, we blasted through hub-deep puddles. It felt like being a kid again, whooping and hollering as we splattered mud on each other.

I later remarked that perhaps this relatively uneventful tower adventure was God and the universe's way of repaying us for the ordeal of the Sharks' Fin. Compared to that experience, freeing the Hindu was pure Type-1 fun. The next day, after sleeping in til after sunrise (!), I got back on the bike for another lap on Onion Creek Road to thank the Hindu for keeping us more safe than sari.