Objective: Deep Water Solo
Mission: Find the coolest lines and try to climb them.
The Beginning: Our first day in paradise was relaxed. The water was greenish-blue at bath temperature. Waves gently licked at the rocky coast-line below our feet. The air was around a comfortable 80 degrees and it was sunny - always sunny - without even a hint of clouds in the sky.
We monkeyed around on an easy cave section at Porto Cristo, an area littered with classic 5.12 climbing, to get a feel for deep water soloing. The top outs were probably no more than 40 feet, but still a bit intimidating since we had never done it before. Little did we know - this place would feel like a “kiddy pool” just a few days later into the trip.
Deep water soloing requires you to learn a completely new rhythm of climbing. When you fall on rope, you get another try from close to the same exact place. When you fall above the water, you rocket straight into the drink - no redo’s, no time for excuses, and no time to dog.
Gravity seems to pull on the weight of your body a bit harder when deep water soloing. You can feel the abyss below tugging at your every move because you know if you fall, it’s game over. This “one shot, one kill” invisible weight vest never really dissipated. Its perpetual presence meant that you had to have your beta and game plan dialed in to the last dot each and every try to make each attempt really count because the wetter everything becomes, the less likely you’ll send.
Working on elevating my level of focus and control every day to maximize deep water performance has definitely affected my climbing in a positive way.
The In-Between: We alternated days between sport and deep water; sometimes driving to Les Perxes for ropes and other times driving to Cova del Diablo, Porto Pi, and Porto Cristo for water. Sport climbing after a deep water day feels like climbing with velcro shoes and super-glued hands. Dry rubber and dry fingers make a huge difference. Of course, each style has its ups and downs.
Plummeting into the sea - once you get used to it - is fun! However, constantly drying yourself off, waiting for your chalk bag to dry, and hoping your shoes don’t slip is not. But in the end, climbing a route from the ground up every time until you have the all the necessary beta to finish is extremely satisfying. You put in everything you have and get just as much back in return.
It’s a process; falling, swimming back to the rock through the powerful waves, climbing up the wet rope ladder, finding a secure place to sit in the cave, avoiding bird poop everywhere, drying (but never really drying), and then starting all over again. It’s amazing! And quite addicting once you find your first success.
On rope, you can rehearse moves, figure out multiple sets of beta, lower a bit, take up a bit - fondle the rock for about as long as your belayer can take. This kind of systematic decoding of the rock is also satisfying, but clipping anchors is far different from topping out a cliff way above the sea and hoping the whole time that you don’t blow the top because a fall all the way back down into the sea would be less than comfortable.
No climber ever wants to blow the top section of a route after putting in so much work throughout the bottom, but when your deep water soloing, this feeling of impending doom is even heavier. Consequently, when you finish a route, its alleviation substitutes a feeling of exhilaration like nothing I’ve ever had. Like I said before, it’s addicting! I am having trouble focusing at work back home because of this withdrawal! I need to go back.
I got my first dose of this “high” after finishing In the Night All Cats are Black (8a). The final crux is in insecure throw from a sloper to another massive, flat sloper at a height far enough above the sea that you tend to think about it before throwing. The funny thing is—the first day I came to this cave, Cova del Diablo, I climbed up into the first cave and couldn’t move because I was so intimidated. What a woosy-pants, right?
Well, I eventually forced myself up a super-overhanging 7a, Afroman, (an amazing line) and moved on still feeling uncomfortable. As the days went by, these feelings would slowly evaporate to the point where I rarely thought about falling because my mind was fully occupied with the climbing. Watching this evolution take place and reaching this frame of mind was the most challenging part of the trip and the most rewarding.
The Final Day: The last day in Mallorca was a culminating day for me. My mental evolution made a full-circle. Physically, the climbing was difficult of course, but not nearly as mentally challenging (at least for me anyway). The first day at Cova del Diablo, I was more or less shivering with intimidation.
The last day, I was ready to fire Lostok and Two Smoking Barrels (8a+), a route that requires a full-on V10 dyno at about 50-feet above the sea. If you commit, you’ll be fine, but if you semi-commit and sort-of-kind-of hit the jug and fake hold it for a moment and quickly release (as if it were too hot to handle), you will come off the rock terribly awkward and hit the water hard.
I hit my right ear hard enough on one fall that I couldn’t hear out of it for a few moments. This impending thought is extremely motivating and makes the climb that much more fun. After a session on it the previous day with a few big falls, I knew I would only have one more shot at success because we were scheduled to fly home the following morning.
While the other guys climbed at Les Perxes in the morning, I lay on my pack, simply waiting for the afternoon to come with my last attempt - just 12 hours before our flight would leave. My time eventually came. It was around 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The winds had been particularly strong that day, so the black waves were extra-choppy.
I chucked my dry bag in and dove after it by myself, thinking about the previous day when I had been stung by a brown jelly-fish the size of a golf-ball. Don’t let the size fool you. The scars still line the back of my thigh as if a hot burner were pressed and slowly dragged along it. I climbed up into the cave, dried off, and got ready for the first attempt.
One shot, one kill. With the waves bellowing ominously below, I set off without a thought in my mind - just climbing; a focus I had never managed to attain before. I got up to the two crimps, moved my left foot awkwardly high, and popped for the two holes that looked miles away from below.
I stuck both jugs at the same time and barely swung out at all because of the altitude I had managed to acquire on the pop. It was done.
Just like that. I topped out, screamed for a moment, and ran over to my buddy, Vasya Vorotnikov, to pound a fist. One more sunset atop Diablo and one more addiction satisfied for the day - a fairy-tale ending unique to me on trip that thousands have enjoyed before.
