A couple years ago, Mason Earle came up with the idea to string a circus net under the classic offwidth roof crack Trench Warfare (5.12d). After the send, he gave the net to local crushers Danny Parker and Ashley Carcroft so they could do the same. Since then, Danny and Ashley have continued to rig the net once a year, and Trench Day has become a must-attend gathering of local climbers who want to give a go at one of the hardest wide cracks around.
Last year I was out of the country when the net went up, but this year I wasn’t about to miss it. So, on Saturday I got super lost in the woods finding my way there, and eventually walked into a cave with more than 50 people taking turns, encouraging, heckling, and having a great time givin ‘er.
After a half-hearted attempt at the first half and a successful link of the second half, I soaked up all the beta I could, and then put my name on the whiteboard and waited my turn to go.
An old guidebook describes Trench Warfare as something like “doing sit-ups while a lion punches you in the stomach and an alligator eats your legs.” In one of his posts announcing the date for the event, Danny described the climb with the addition of the net as “being attacked by a litter of golden doodle puppies.” Let me just state clearly that Danny Parker is a liar! My experience was less puppy and more alligator.
I made it through the first section with my new-found beta and a lot of try hard, got my leg so stuck at the chicken-wing move that I was honestly concerned about breaking it, and crawled into the half-way pod exhausted. Once I was no longer on the edge of vomiting I did the cartwheel move and then down-climbed until my waist was once again even with the roof and all the blood was in my head. After that all I had to do was traverse the second half of the climb, do the 180-degree switch at the flake, and try as hard as I possibly could to reach the last jug before ripping my feet from the crack, stepping down, and then collapsing into the net.
Someone handed me water, someone handed me a beer, and Danny handed me the tube chock and a Sharpie so I could put my name on what the crew described as the Stanley Cup of Trench Day. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so stoked to send a climb, even if it was essentially transformed into a boulder problem. And luckily for me Drew Herder from PopTop Productions was there to capture my try-hard face.
Huge thanks to Danny and Ashley for putting in a ton of work just to make sure that 50 or so good friends and total strangers had a great time on a warm Saturday in Little Cottonwood Canyon.
