Valley Girls

by Sarah Nicole Lemon

  Heading to the Valley, to help.

  It wasn’t until the chopper landed that anyone stirred. They had to finish climbing still. Soberly, they all worked back to the route. The men from that morning were now right behind them. Everyone moved carefully. Slowly. Double- and triple-checking, though they all knew accidents happened regardless. The rocks fell at random.

  Their bivy that night was silent and dark. Rilla laid under the stars trying to keep a grip on her sanity. She couldn’t afford to lose it—not with climbing still ahead.

  “Caroline says he’s okay. A concussion, broken ribs, and a broken wrist. That’s it,” Petra said, looking at her phone.

  Rilla eased a sigh of relief. Thank you, god, she breathed to the stars.

  •

  After a slow start the next morning, they fell into a steady rhythm in the long stretches of aiding. Finally, deep into the night, they staggered up the final scramble, past a tall pine and dropped the bags and themselves to the rock.

  The stars glimmered in the dark.

  “We did it,” Petra said.

  Adeena fist-bumped the sky.

  Rilla stared miserably at the edge of the Valley. She’d done it, and she was still the same. She’d done it, and nothing had changed. She’d done it, and Walker had left the Valley and was in the hospital. Hot tears pricked her eyes, and before she could stop it, she was crying.

  “You’re okay. You’re okay,” Adeena said softly, rubbing her back.

  “Deep breaths,” Petra said, motioning her through.

  “I’m sorry,” Rilla gasped, the second she had enough air. “I am so sorry. What I did was so wrong. I’ll give you the money. You can get it back.”

  “It’s okay. You’re okay,” Petra said.

  “I’m not okay.”

  “You are okay.”

  “I’m not okay.”

  “You are okay.”

  Rilla shook her head as a fresh round of sobs wracked her. She lay down on the granite and curled up into a ball. It hurt so deeply. She missed her home. She missed feeling as if she had a place where she belonged, even if it wasn’t the place she wanted to be. She missed believing someone loved her. She missed the connection of the rope to Adeena and Petra—to Walker. To her sister. She wept for the boy who’d shared her cigarette at a bus stop, challenged her to open her heart, and had fallen when she thought he would be the last to fall.

  “Here,” Adeena said, pulling out her sleeping bag and draping it over her.

  “I’m not going to tell anyone about the watch,” Petra said. “I know you’re sorry. I forgive you. And I’m sorry I said those things about you. That wasn’t okay.”

  “Y’all were right.” Rilla sniffed. “I’ve been trying so hard. But it felt too risky to ask for help. I didn’t want to have to do that. You made me so mad. But it was anger . . . it was hurt. I regretted it the moment I’d done it, but I just couldn’t admit it.”

  “I’m sorry we made you feel like shit,” Petra said. “You’re right, we were unfair.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Adeena said. “We all know how crummy it can feel to hear that from your friends.”

  “I violated your trust,” Rilla said. “I was such a bitch to you.”

  “It’s okay.” Petra looked down at her hands. “I have some things to work on, I’m realizing.”

  “I’m going to pay you back. I’m going to get the watch back,” Rilla said.

  “I know.” Petra nodded. “And you’re going to France.”

  “I have summit chocolate!” Adeena said.

  Rilla sat up, clutching the sleeping bag around her dirty shoulders.

  “Ah! We’ve revived her with chocolate,” Petra said, digging in her pack. “And I’ve got the alcohol.” She pulled out three little bottles of vodka and passed them around. “I didn’t feel like warm beer, sorry.”

  Adeena unscrewed hers and tipped it back. “Summit vodka is excused. I love you,” she declared to Petra.

  Rilla took a piece of chocolate and the little bottle. “I love you both too.” It was not as hard to say as she’d thought. It was like placing a piece and hoping it wouldn’t fall, but knowing if it did, she wouldn’t have done anything different anyway. She was climbing. There was risk. But there was also reward.

  She toasted and drank the vodka, welcoming the warmth of the swallow in her exhausted body. Nibbling on the chocolate, she looked out over the dark blue shadows of the Sierras under the moon.

  “Think about it,” Petra said softly. “Just three months ago, we sat on top of Snake Dike. Do you remember that? You’re here now. You’ve climbed The Nose. We’ve climbed The Nose.”

  “We climbed The Nose,” Rilla repeated. It didn’t feel real. It didn’t feel connected to the moment three months ago when she hadn’t even known what The Nose was. “I climbed The Nose.”

  “Wait . . .” Adeena turned, digging through her pack. “We need a picture.” She set a timer and ran out to place the phone on the rock, before coming back.

  They put their heads together and the flash went off, blinding them all to the shadows.

  “Am I any different?” Rilla asked quietly as they blinked. “From Snake Dike?”

  “Yes,” both girls said simultaneously.

  “Really?” she asked.

  “You’re a leader,” Adeena said. “You’re more confident. Not just in climbing, but everywhere. You proved yourself a team player, over and over. Not everyone can be part of a team,” Adeena said.

  “You hooked up with Walker—which is more than any of us managed,” Petra said with a chuckle. “You saved his life, maybe, by keeping him stable. You’re less afraid. Kinder. Not nearly as closed off as when I met you. I remember it was so hard to talk to you because you didn’t answer,” Petra said.

  “You are less ignorant,” Adeena said with a nudge. “And you apologized to me right away the last time, which you didn’t do when I met you.”

  “Oh my god.” Rilla lowered her chin and pinched her nose. “Dee . . .”

  “Calm down. It’s fine.”

  “You owned up to the watch. I probably would have never known,” Petra said.

  Rilla exhaled. “I’m so—”

  “The point is you took responsibility for it. You knew you’d fucked up. You knew what you’d done. And you are making it right.” Petra looked down. “You’ve made me a better climber. A better person.”

  “Me too. And you spent all summer working for the gear. Working for this climb. Working for this moment,” Adeena said.

  Rilla took a deep breath and stared at the stars. The same stars as at home—in West Virginia. “We did it,” she said. “We climbed The Nose.”

  “The Nose,” they toasted.

  Forty One

  If Yosemite in summer was a golden dream, fall was that dream sharpened and deepened. The air was cool and the path from Happy Isles thin of crowds. Rilla walked, her old West Virginia boots back on her feet, and her hands stuffed into the pockets of the fleece Thea had gotten her for her birthday.

  “Rilla, wait up.”

  She half turned, smiling at Walker rushing to catch up with her. He had the thin puffer jacket pulled over his sweatshirt, reminding her of the day last spring at the bus stop.

  The evergreens stretched their boughs overhead, the sky cloudy above them.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said, falling into step beside her.

  “You leaving?”

  He nodded. “I’m leaving.”

  Rilla nodded. Adeena and Gage had long ago left to go back to school. Petra had left after that, going back to her parents’ home in Long Beach. Hico had pulled up roots and gone to Joshua Tree two weeks earlier. The house in the meadow had emptied, and Rilla got to move downstairs with Thea and Lauren. Walker and Caroline were the only ones left; now Walker was heading back to Colorado and Caroline would be there only a little longer. Thea, and Rilla, were staying.

  “It was a good summer, in the end. No one died,” she said.
>
  He laughed. “No one died.”

  “Though you certainly tried.” After recovering from his fall during The Nose, Walker came back and even finished the season with YOSAR—though Rilla was fairly sure Adrienne didn’t send him on anything. He’d turned into a good climbing partner, but Rilla knew it was because she was a good partner, and not him.

  He inhaled a sharp breath and stopped, looking around at the trees, the cliffs, the sky. “You’re going to see this place in winter. In snow. It’ll be really special.”

  “I’m excited to see it.”

  He seemed like he had something else to say—his mouth tightening and relaxing as the seconds of quiet passed.

  “Well . . .” Her throat ached, watching him. She’d loved him. Loved him still, if she was honest. It hurt, but it wasn’t a bad hurt.

  He pulled something out of his jacket. “I wanted to . . .” He swallowed. “Thank you.” He handed her a folded piece of cream paper, his fingers smudged.

  His notebook paper, she recognized with a thrill. Carefully, as if she was unfolding her own heart, she opened the paper.

  In the gray light under the evergreens, she blinked.

  It was a girl. A girl with dirt on her face and a helmet snapped under her chin. She was crouched low, her harness on, her rope tied. Intensity in her eyes and the abyss behind her. The wind whipped her hair across her strong shoulders.

  It was her.

  “I remember you up there. I kept meaning to draw you, when we were . . .” He chewed his lip. “I just never did. After the fall, I couldn’t get this out of my head.”

  Tears pricked her eyes. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never . . .” She had to steady herself to keep going. “I’ve never seen myself like this.”

  He smiled. “You’ve never truly seen yourself, then.”

  That undid the tears. She folded the paper and put it in her pocket, head bent. “Thank you,” she said through a scratchy voice and dripping cheeks.

  He took a step toward her, hesitant at first, then all at once. His long arms coming around her shoulders as she went to him, and he pulled her close. “I’m sorry for the shitty things I said. How I made you feel. You were right. You were right about everything. My climbing. Everything.”

  She buried her face in his chest and wished deeply for this moment to last forever.

  He dipped his head, mouth to her temple. “I screwed up something special I didn’t even know I had. Maybe, if there’s a next time, we’ll get it right.”

  She chuckled and rolled her eyes, turning her head to lay her cheek against the soft flannel of his shirt.

  His gaze flickered to hers. His heartbeat picked up under her ear. The shattered golden leaves of summer whirled in the mountain breeze.

  She tipped her chin just enough, rising on her toes to meet his kiss.

  Forty Two

  A few days later, Rilla sat high up on Washington Column with Caroline, eating an apple in the cold wind, and Caroline tilted her chin and said, “We should climb The Nose.”

  Rilla barked a laugh. “You about made me drop my apple.”

  “That would have been tragic,” Caroline said. She kicked her legs and looked down. “Anyway, I’m going to try and climb it free. I’d love it if you were part of my team.”

  The wind whipped in the silence.

  Rilla nibbled on an edge of her apple, trying to figure out what to say. If any one of them could climb it free, it would be Caroline. But how . . . ?

  “I’ve been working it from the top all summer. I didn’t want to tell anyone about it. Like, make it into a big thing.” She shrugged and leaned back against the granite. “I think I’ve got it. Or at least, I’m going to try. And we leave soon . . .”

  “You want me?” Rilla asked, still in shock.

  Rilla nodded, and tucked her apple core into her bag. “Can I think about it?”

  “Sure. I’m doing it Friday.”

  “Damn, you really held this close to the chest.”

  Caroline shrugged in her reserved sort of way. “I don’t need any voices in my head except for mine. I think I can do this. I couldn’t do it when I first wanted to do it, and it was such a big thing to want. I decided to save every bit of that energy in words to use for the climb. I’m going to need every bit I can get.”

  “I’ll do it,” Rilla said. “If you trust me.”

  Caroline smiled. “I couldn’t trust a partner more.”

  Forty Three

  “Backpacking through Europe?” the man said.

  “Huh?” Rilla looked over her sip of iced coffee and the bagel she was trying to balance on her carry-on. She blinked at the man in khakis and glasses and a fleece vest. He had white hair and was reading a paper.

  He flicked the edge of the paper to her pack. “Are you backpacking through Europe?”

  “Oh, um.” She swallowed. “Climbing. Um, I’m meeting some friends to climb for the summer.”

  His eyes lit. “I was a climber once.”

  She smiled awkwardly. “Um. Cool.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the loudspeaker announcement for the gate boarding to Milan. “That’s me,” he said, when it finished.

  She nodded, eyeing passersby and chewing on her bagel, trying to look at everything all at once and not seem as if this was her first time in an airport. It was LAX, so there could even be celebrities, which seemed totally surreal.

  The man folded his paper and stood. “Climb hard,” he said.

  “Oh.” Rilla’s smile was involuntary and wide. “Thank you!” Rilla waved goodbye as he rolled his suitcase away.

  Her phone buzzed—Thea checking in that she’d made it through security. Mom sending a picture of Roosevelt staring at a dangling French fry. Because France. The next text said. Get it?

  Rilla texted a reply and leaned back in the wide airport gate seat, chewing her bagel and careful not to let her bag and elbows spill over to the woman sitting next to her.

  Her bag between her feet, the setting sun flushed crimson over L.A. outside, she waited for a place she couldn’t believe she was about to go to.

  A place she’d never been.

  Glossary of Terms

  anchors—The bolts or gear setup to secure a climber and their gear to the wall at the top of a pitch.

  ATC—A simple device used to control braking during belaying.

  belay—The act, person who is acting, or the place the action is occurring to control the tension of the rope of the climber.

  belay loop—The part of the harness where the carabiner and belay device are clipped in.

  beta—Information about a climb.

  Camp 4—The walk-in campground in Yosemite Park famous for its role in the Golden Age of Climbing.

  cams/nuts/hexes—Types of protection. Climbers carry many sizes. Route descriptions in guidebooks will often indicate what kind of protection/gear you will need.

  double back—Commonly used phrase to describe attaching the harness correctly on older harnesses.

  double overhand—A backup knot to the figure eight.

  El Capitan—A three-thousand-foot monolith located at the north side, west end of the Valley.

  figure eight—A basic knot used to attach a climber to their rope.

  firefall—A custom of dumping hot coals over the edge of Glacier Point every night for the tourists in the Valley to witness a thirty-two-hundred-foot waterfall of fire. The practice began in 1872 and ended in 1968.

  gear loop—Loops on the climber’s harness for easy reach of gear.

  Glacier Point—An overlook above the south point of Yosemite Valley with views north and west, including Half Dome, Tenaya Canyon, and the Valley floor.

  grade—The degree of difficulty on a given climb.

  Grigri—An assisted braking belay device, originally manufactured by Petzl (the name is from Petzl, but is applied to any device of this type).

  gumby—A new and inexperienced climber.

  Half Dome—A
granite dome located at the east end of the Valley, rising 4,373 feet off the Valley floor.

  Half Dome Village—Used to be called Curry Village, canvas tent camping under the Glacier Point Apron, with views of Half Dome.

  harness—A set of straps made to fit over the pelvis and secure a climber to a rope.

  HUFF (Housing under Fire Fall)—The name of the temporary employee housing tents near Half Dome Village.

  lead—The first climber who places the protection.

  leg loops—The part of a harness the legs step into.

  locked off—A phrase used to communicate from belayer to climber to indicate they have locked the rope off the ATC or Grigri, exerting the most amount of tension possible. Typical before a big move that might end in a fall.

  Merced River—The river flowing through the Valley.

  multi-pitch—A route made up of several pitches.

  pig—Nickname for the big haul bags.

  pitch—One section of a multi-pitch climb.

  portaledge—A collapsible cot that can be set up on the wall.

  protection/pro—Bits of gear placed into cracks in the wall for anchoring the climber along the climb.

  quickdraw—Two carabiners with a piece of webbing between. Used for connecting climbers or gear to anchors. Climbers carry many sizes of these.

  rappel/rap—To lower on a rope from top to bottom, using a belay device or Grigri to control your movement down the rope.

  route—The entire climb, named and graded.

  runner—Webbing and quickdraws on an anchor setup, attaching the climber to the anchors but giving room to move. Leash.

  slack—A word used to communicate from climber to belayer that they need more rope fed through the belay device up to the climber.

  take—A word used to communicate from climber to belayer that they need tension on the rope.

  top-rope—A style of climbing where the rope is anchored to the top of the climb prior and as the climber moves up the rope passes through the fixed anchor (either set up on trees or on fixed bolts) and back down to the belayer. It is the easiest form of climbing and is what you see in climbing gyms.