So … Tim and Clint Cummings had been jugging their fixed lines to work on Zeus, a major new 5.10 A3 line. It cut across the old Rowell route Sean was “resurrecting,” and shared the third pitch before heading off into the striking Hetch Hetchy dihedral. Hundreds of feet higher, the fixed line zagged sharply left under a small roof. That’s where Tim’s ascenders abruptly came off his rope, sending him into freefall. With moments to think or die, he reached out and barely managed to grab the line. But, now, he was rocketing down the wall. He clamped down so hard on the line that skin burned off his palms. The pain was intense, but so was the acceleration. “I would ease up my grip, then clamp down again,” he says. “There’s only so much meat on a hand.” He holds up his mitts, and you can see where the whole pad of his little finger got torqued sideways. You can also see a big scar inside the elbow.
While the rope burned through his arms and hands, Tim fell. Guided by the grace of “the great Miwok Spirit,” as he credits it, Tim crash-landed on a 4x4 platform on the wall, now more than aptly dubbed Savior Ledge. Crumbled and broken, but alive, Tim yelled up to Cummings, at the top of the lines above him, that he didn’t need any help. In fact, in his adrenalized state, Tim had become so concerned about the two of them rapping off a still-
unfinished anchor that he insisted Clint keep drilling. Tim settled in with burned paws for a long wait, then hobbled out of the Fjord to recover, leaving the ropes for Sean to discover. Resurrection had taken on yet another meaning.
Still, Sean found the line on Resurrection to be “as clean as anything I’ve ever been on.” It provided the motivation to return westward across the falls to the Nose of Wapama Rock. Tim and others had already put up a few routes on the wall, most notably their proudest line, Photomultiplier, in 2005 — a VI 5.9 A3 featuring Cummings, Joel Ager, and Chris Chan.