Adam catches my gaze scouring the walls, and says, “I’m excited to put up routes here someday.” He pauses, then adds, “In a few years when I’m a better climber.”
Coming from a typical Fortress visitor, this comment might be expected, but Stack’s qualifications already seem solid. He repeated Kryptonite (sans the questionable hold) last January. The remark exemplifies Stack’s modesty — and patience. At nineteen, he is one of the nicest climbers I have met, low on ego and worries, big on smiles. With a Jokeresque grin on his face, he points out a line he’s been looking at, a series of pockets through roofs on the left end of the main cave, perhaps so tall that it would be two pitches long and leave you twenty-five to thirty meters out when you rapped back to earth.