Femme Fatale

A brush with R-rated trad, in which I discover the limits of my nationality. 

My first gear lead, Teton Canyon, 2010
Photo: Jack Cohen

I hesitate to share this story, because I know it will make my mother worry. Don't worry, Mom. This isn't a story about how brave I am. Au contraire.

Right now, my most common belay partner is my friend, roommate and co-worker Austin. After work last Thursday, we rushed out to an area called Midget Widget. It's a funny little crag, almost as short as the 28-foot wall where I do my routesetting. It's got one incalculable advantage over the gym though-- it's the only crack climbing we have.

Oh, the flow of climbing vertical cracks-- so delightful, even though my trip to Devil's Tower this July humbled me something fierce. (see A Minor Epic)

After messing around on the easy route for most of the afternoon, I spotted a crack that I had never seen before and she was gorgeous. Far taller than her peers, she swept up a right-facing corner with flirtatious grace. The orange sunset played across her and I felt myself inexorably drawn in. Austin finished cleaning the easy route and I racked up like Minnesota Fats. We were losing daylight.

The route started out steep and blocky, but I cast off, confident I would be able to find gear placements. 15 feet later I placed a good nut and an OK #2 Camalot.

I moved up another body length, checked for placements and found none. I reached for good holds (if a little sandy) and kept moving. The climbing was great; hard enough to be interesting, but still very controlled. I have no idea of the difficulty, but I might give it .10a.

Two body lengths later I was forced to the right around a blank section. Still no gear.

Three body lengths above my last piece, I traversed back to the left, hoping to see the mouth of that beautiful crack. I looked up and saw nothing but a few little pockets. I looked down and saw my little yellow cam placed sickeningly close to the ground.

Firmly in the groundfall zone, unable to downclimb to safety, I channeled my inner Alex Honnold and pushed on.

40 feet from the ground, I finally sunk a bodacious #3 into the beginning of the crack, and began apologizing profusely to Austin. I found a big ledge where I could sit down and told him I would never do that to him again.

Yes, I know you've done way bigger runouts and I just need to stop being a baby. But this is the 21st century, gawshdarnit, and I'm not English.

Would I add bolts to this nameless strumpet? Naw, I'm not that big of a jerk. (Also, I have no idea how to install a bolt.)

Am I proud of this little lapse in judgement? Definitely. In the year that I've been climbing gear routes, this is the most intimidating and difficult that I've done, and to do it as a pure onsight makes me feel warm and bubbly inside. Or maybe I just pooped a little bit while pretending to be Honnold.

That Dam Wilderness

I first read the rumor on Dean Lords' blog—There are boulders below the old Teton Dam.
Like any aspiring explorer, I immediately consulted my maps and assembled a team for the expedition. Edmund Hillary I was not, so instead of paper maps wrapped in fragrant leather, I had satellite photos downloaded from the Internet. My expeditionary team did not include any bearded hardmen, instead I brought a girl that I had been trying to impress for weeks. Her name was Brionna.
We drove until we found a rusty white gate that said Bureau of Reclamation. I parked in the sagebrush and we hiked down into the canyon, eager at the prospect of untouched boulders. Passing a huge mound of earth, I wondered where the wreckage of the dam was. We were definitely in the right place—twisted metal was everywhere and the concrete spillway was unmistakable. I didn’t realize for a few months that the dirt mound actually was the dam.
After a mile or so, we found a shining white boulder sticking out of the pebbled valley floor. Though I was hardly in the wilderness, I wondered why we had walked all this way just to climb one ten-foot rock.

Over the next summer, this shallow canyon, carved by disaster, would be the focus of the local rock climbing community. We soldiered out day after day with landing pads, chalk, and very tight shoes. Our purpose was to find new rocks to climb. Our real goal was to find some peace and quiet, in ourselves and our surroundings.
When climbing boulders, ropes are not used. A boulderist will not typically venture more than 15 feet from the ground, and will protect himself with thick foam mats.
Some have compared climbing boulders to sprinting 100 feet, calling it pointless. They may not understand that climbing boulders is much different from climbing mountains. A mountaineer has a destination firmly in mind and will usually follow the path of least resistance to get there. A boulderist looks for the hardest way up. A mountaineer follows a route; a boulderist solves a problem.
This last bit is quite literal—in the common speech of rock climbers, the path up a boulder is called a problem. Solving it requires a delicate mix of awareness, power, and faith, and a willingness to try the same few moves hundreds of times until the motion is perfect.
The time spent repeating the same moves and slowly creeping towards exhaustion gives a person time to solve other problems. Last summer I often thought about what I should do when I graduated college. Chad Witbeck, a math student and one of my frequent cohorts, solves math problems in his head.
He let this slip a few weeks ago on the drive out to the dam site. It was a practice I had never heard of, but coming from one of our university’s brightest students, it made sense. He explained, “I find climbing relaxing and it clears my mind. The kind of math I do requires abstract thinking, so I like to have a problem in my head when my mind is clear.”
Others of this diverse group find that there’s no room to think about anything but the climb. “I think about the crux [the most difficult move]” said Riley Rollins, another local. “I do the moves over and over in my head when I’m going to sleep at night. My hands start sweating.”
Of course, the peace of the outdoors could never be limited to only climbers. The Teton River is a common fly fishing spot, and many sportsmen like to ride the trails on four-wheelers and mountain bikes.
I remember one day when a roommate came home after a very disappointing day. He wasn’t a climber, but I still thought he could use a visit to the Teton Dam site. We hiked down about an hour before sunset and cooked our dinner over a small fire. The driftwood we used was almost certainly deposited there by the flood. Using it to feed ourselves seemed a fitting symbol for the unique way that the dam can help a body recharge.
Thirty three years ago, a worker noticed a wet spot on the leeward side of the dam. Within a day, the entire left side of the dam was gone, seven communities were flooded, and 11 people were gone forever. It was a day that residents of the valley will never forget. Yet amid the wreckage and the scars emerged a peaceful place to enjoy Idaho.

This article will appear in Idaho Magazine this summer.

Early Spring Desperation

Thursday is my day off.

I planned it that way when I signed up for classes; I was extra careful not to sign up for anything that had any resemblance of commitment on Thursdays. Of course, Fridays off would be preferable, but a free Thursday is surprisingly good for the soul. Wednesdays are a hundred percent more bearable when immediately followed by an almost-Saturday.

Every day I obsessively check the weather forecasts for the next week. It's one of the first things I do when I get out of bed. I usually don’t look at Rexburg, though. What do I care if it’s going to snow here? That wouldn’t stop me from going to school or the grocery store or any of the other Wednesdayish things that I do in town. I don’t check the weather to see if I need a jacket. I’m looking for the perfect winter climbing day.

We had one in January. At Massacre Rocks State Park, a 200 foot cliff rears silent and black from the bank of the Snake River. It faces south, baking in the sun all day. One lucky Saturday, the mercury was at 35 and the sun was out. Russell’s battered old jeep slogged through the snow and the mud, and Mike spastically hollered “Yeah! Party party party!” every time we hit a puddle.

The wall was sandy and littered with loose blocks, but being back on real stone in the middle of the winter made me feel free as the hawks circling above. My cup was full as we arrived back at the jeep with the sun going down. I know that day wasn’t one in a million, so I check the weather. Every. Single. Day.

Monday morning my alarm clock rang. On my computer I saw a little sun icon next to the number 59. And on Thursday. My day off. Choruses of angels.

Tuesday the alarm clock rang, and the weather still looked good. With a little flutter in my stomach I realized that I could even make the four hour drive to the City of the Rocks. At my current stage in life, I’m having a hard time making any distinction between the white granite spires of the City and the gold-paved streets of the Celestial Kingdom.

Wednesday the clock rang. Rain tomorrow.

Obviously Yahoo had caught on to my habits and was trying to play a cruel joke. I called Russell and made sure that he hadn’t succumbed to the propaganda. Luckily, he’s more fanatical than I. We were still on. To be prudent, we chose a much closer cliff.

Thursday afternoon I found myself under an arching roof of stone, wind-battered and desperately trying to grip the rock with numb hands. It wasn't 59 degrees. It wasn't sunny. And I had the time of my life.

Thank heaven for Thursdays.





Photo by Mike Womack, Editing by Sam Perkins

2011 looks and sounds better than 2010. [updated]

Like most of the world i'm thinking about this invisible boundary we just crossed from one year into another, although for myself it's much more visible. For me its the difference between full time work and full-time school, between career apathy and at last an end to the undergrad indecision that i've let go on for so long.

2010 wasn't a bad year. 

2007 was. I remember the sense of relief on 1 January 2008 when I thought that maybe since the year was over things could finally get better. They did, significantly. 

Funny, I said the same thing on 1 January 2009. And things got better still. 

2010 wasn't a bad year. It wasn't particularly great either. 

Somehow I remained in school, even when, halfway through my junior year, the drive back to Rexburg and the bleak future made me physically ill. As I continued coursework for a degree in communications, I did my best to fight away the nagging feeling that I was wasting my time in a field that would only let me be miserable. Public Relations. How did that ever sound like a good idea? I knew it was wrong, but I was stuck.  

While tuning the PA in BYUI's new 15,000 seat auditorium, we listened to James Taylor's "Line 'Em Up" probably two or three hundred times. One line bugged me every single time-- "[I'll] try to leave my body and live in my mind." I was firmly engaged in the opposite pursuit. I was attempting to live only in the body, only in the present. Any other state presented a serious hazard.

Sam Perkins' ascent of Hairdresser on Fire V4

 My favorite pastime, rock climbing, grew and took up more and more of my life because it gave me the choicest snatches of zen living. I lived for the opportunity to be up on another plane, in constant motion but quiet and still.  I loved the limited space of the present, where I could only be concerned with matters which were immediately related to my safe return to the ground. I loved the sensation of rain falling on my bare shoulders as I flowed up warm, familiar stone during a midsummer squall. I loved the sweeping euphoria after successfully managing fear on New York is not the City. I told all my friends proudly about my first traditional climb, where I placed all of my own fall-arresting devices rather than trusting permanent bolts. I looked peacefully up at a brilliant starscape while my friend Chad and I made repeated midnight attempts at the hardest boulder problem in the Upper Snake River Valley. 

I watched the hawks circle, and I was as happy as I've ever been.

Old friends and new ones at Gora's ice cream shop. 

By the goodwill of gracious parents I was able to visit Albania in September. Three years ago I lived there, looking for ways to help spread love and Christ among the most welcoming people I've ever met. I would spend hours on street corners, filled with love and exuberance. Some research suggests we develop a slightly different personality for each language we learn. I'm not claiming to be a house divided, but my Albanian temperament is outgoing, talkative and loving in ways that my English self cannot hope to achieve.

I dreaded the trip, because Albania occupies a sanctified place in my heart, and going there again threatened that sanctity. What if no one remembered me? What if Mount Tomorr looked small and round-shouldered, rather than tall, white and savage like I remember? Worst of all contingencies, what if people were rude? It seems like most folks wake up in the morning because they believe in something perfect, and every step towards perfection is a worthy and satisfying effort. Understandably they become disagreeable if that perfect goal comes under scrutiny.

My fears were stupid, and I knew it on the plane as I shot the breeze with a Kosovar woman returning home to visit family. The taxi ride to Tirana reassured me further. The driver lived in Laprake, and he pointed out his house and his little girl's school on the way to our hotel. I think his name was Bujar.

The next day we walked down Myslym Shyri to the 4th branch chapel for a better reunion than I could have hoped for. I served in this quarter of the city twice, and it felt like I had never left. I took pictures with friends, hugged my old comrade-in-arms Mira [which felt good since I was never allowed to hug Albanian girls before], and kissed old men on both cheeks.

It's funny how the simplest dishes taste like king's fare when the food is locally grown. It's refreshing how 3-dimensional the world is when there are no pixels in the way. I'm not about to chop the power to my apartment and buy a horse-drawn buggy, but there's definitely a quality lacking in the abundance of American living. When I lived here, I imagined my return every day. I saw myself standing at the base of the statue of Skanderbeu with my arms outstretched like his eagle standard, complete.

The next two days took us south as far as Dhermi. We visited Elbasan, where nights are quiet and the streets are as old as Christianity. We passed through Lushnja and Fier, the twin crucibles. In every place was rapid change and warm familiarity. When we arrived at the clearest sea in the world I jumped right in and was surprised by the pool-warm water. I guess I'm too used to freezing mountain lakes.

I wanted to spend years in each place we stopped. It hurt to leave. I suppose it always will.

Often I've accused myself of using my pastimes as an escape from a poorly planned real life. In this case, the shallow momentary escape eventually pointed me to the real way out. In Fall 2009 I read an article written by Rock and Ice editor Andrew Bisharat which covered a climbing trip to Venezuela. The feature was unique; it has as much to do with climbing as "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" had to do with motorcycles.  I realized that there was room for great writing in the outdoor industry. Simultaneously I was exposed to the noble, articulate language of the law, and suddenly a subject which had before seemed dry was coursing with life and creativity.

This seed grew into a comprehensive plan for a real future, one where I would stop foolish pretending and fuel my real talents with real passion. That seed is the invisible difference between last year and this one.

zen and the art of falling repeatedly from ridiculously overhung rock

Sam Perkins going for seconds after Chicken Dinner

Tucked into the mountains above Riggins, Idaho lies a gaping limestone cave known as the Amphitheatre. Our trip there this weekend marked a few notables for me-

1. the furthest i've ever traveled just to climb (486 miles)

2. my first sample of 5.13 (Chicken Dinner 5.13a)

3. most exciting personal lead fall (couldn't fight the concrete forearms enough to clip the anchors... wheeeeeeeee)

4. most exciting lead fall by a comrade (the unparalleled Joe Crane)

5. the wussiest i've ever been. (so much for Jack and I's discussions on boldness)

#2 and #5 may seem incongruous, but for two days I consistently chose not to climb. I did all the moves (except the very last) on chicken dinner bolt-to-bolt, hanging direct and taking long rests. I took several falls, all of them good clean fun. Yet with two full days to spend I never came back to it, nor did i try anything else harder than .11b.

The crew enjoying Riley's performance on Grey Matter 5.11d

Granted,  most of the time the stone was cold enough that numbness set in within a couple of minutes on a route, making it a little difficult to judge the best way to crank on a handhold. And true, it was just as fun for me to watch our crew get after their projects as it was to tie in and try hard. There's no question that the trip was worth it-- I can't remember the last time I've laughed so hard so often. I've still got Nat and Dean's campfire rendition of punk rock girl stuck in my head. The prospect of hanging in the gym all winter with these folks makes me welcome the change in seasons! 

Still, as we limped home, nursing flappers, grated fingers, and paralyzed core muscles, I had to look at my own smooth fingertips with a little regret.

The long drive home, I thought about why I had come and why I was so reticent to try anything. There was some fear, but honestly very little. Falling doesn't bother me when there's nothing to hit. This was a whole different animal. This wasn't physical fear, this was mental exposure. The hugeness of the Amphitheatre pressed in on me and the route grades didn't help. Dean calls this the cave funk-- "that lasting effect of failure that lingers in the cave from repeatedly falling off of your project and it feeling just as hard on the fifth go as it did on the first attempt."

Sam, in direct on his first inspection of So Thin So Fat 5.13c

That one noun-turned verb, project. That's what was killing me. Projecting is not what I love about climbing. I'm in it for the flow. I like feeling light and powerful. I like crossing through and backstepping when I can only hear my breathing and the crisp tap of my shoes echoing in the intimate space between my body and the stone. I don't really care for repetitive failure. 

Well, that's just a personal preference. Nothing wrong with that, right?  I honestly don't know; I need to dig a little deeper into this cave funk to decide. 

The mountains will humble you from time to time. Often its the weather forcing you down, or your desperation in contrast with the timeless serenity of your surroundings. If you're well prepared, you can just hunker down and let the wonder engulf you. The problem here was that that wonder was somehow twisting into horror.

Sam airing out at the apex of Tractor Girl 5.13b

A Zen adherent can quickly find the problem here. Humility problems come from an ego that insists on creating a separation between the individual and the world around him. The ego is constantly staking claims, attempting to own and define the indomitable truth. The truth being that I like success without toil, and the recognition of being good at something. The ego would like to change that truth, telling the world that I'm a better climber than I actually am, that i'm a better student, a better sound engineer, a better churchgoer, a better person than I really am. 


Shoot dang, there's the common thread. I wouldn't try hard at the Amphitheatre because the ego wouldn't let me struggle publicly. I return sarcasm for advice from audience members at work because listening to their suggestions would mean admitting that my mixes need improvement. Ad nauseum. 


I've talked about breaking the 5.12 barrier this season, but not with a whole lot of spirit. 


Starting with tomorrow's crank cave session, that goal is on in a big way. Not because I need to be better than somebody, but because I need to be better than I've been, and crossing that line is going to mean some serious projecting.