The Big Sneak

On August 21, 1978, Steve Sarns and I climbed what I am calling the Extraterrestrial, because it looks like the eponymous star of the movie. We

climbed a pitch up the southeast side and belayed under ET’s head. Suddenly the foreman from the quarry skidded to a stop on the quarry road, where it bended to our west. He honked his horn, jumped out of the car, and yelled to get the hell out of there. We yelled back that we would, but we would have to safeguard the rope first. He drove away, and we looked apprehensively at the impossible, unprotectable summit mushroom. Steve suggested that I could traverse around the neck, to the other side, and throw the rope over the top. I did so and gave Steve a toprope to the summit. He did the same for me. We noticed that the summit depression contained two old bolts and tat for a rap. We didn’t use that anchor because each of us downclimbed from the summit, using a toprope. We thought that manteling over the crux overhang was at least 5.9. Someone of Layton Kor’s height would have found it easier.

By the way, we named our route after a story that had been recently published in

Mountain Gazette

about two kayakers who snuck a fast run down the Grand Canyon without permits, which even to this day, are almost impossible to get for non-commercial trips.

Not much. We rappelled down from something.