Angel Wings, South Face. A new line up an old mountain: Angel Wings. That was the proposal Fred Beckey, Dougal McCarty, and Brian Leo had up their sleeve. With little or no persuasion I accompanied them. Things didn’t quite work out right that first trip. After a fifteen-mile hike in late October of 1975, the weather, food, and time were gradually destroying us. The weather was cold, foggy, and drizzly. The food, well the lack of it, did not help matters, and time, that’s another problem! Three pitches in three days! Granted, the first three pitches turned out to be the hardest on the entire climb: devious, hard nailing, spiced with some F9. The fall of 1976 rolled around. This time Fred and Dougal got together with another climber. What happened this time is like a bad dream. The attempt was pretty much aborted the first night while they sat around the campfire at Hamilton Lake, below Angel Wings south face. One of the people hiking in with the climbers emptied his pockets of trash into the fire at night. The trash contained a 22-caliber bullet. If you’ve guessed the worst, relax; it only grazed Dougal’s lip! Angel Wings: 2, Climbers: 0. In May of 1977 the final group is together; Bill Lahr and Alan Neifeld join Fred and me. The first three pitches are fixed. Fred takes the lead, the going slow and artificial. A time to think, a time to climb, a time to lead. Up I go, silently; the weather is perfect; what more could one ask for. The ground getting farther away, the trees smaller, the top closer. Changing leads, Alan traverses right under a small roof. “Delicate free climbing,” he says. “The angle easing back; the way is clear to the top.” The mind, tense for the past couple of days, relaxes. Two nights in hammocks are bearable. Tonight we’ll sleep on top. The end of the third day the final pitch is led in the dark, jümaring under the stars with the moon shining brightly. But alas, there are no level spots left for me to sleep. A tree is in sight, the hammock goes up, and I go in. Like a bed in a house, a hammock in the air, but here there is a difference, for my mind is free to wander in the High Sierra.

Craig Martinson