Project 365: One man’s daily grind at 1,267 feet

Published: Sunday, July 6, 2008 12:37 AM MDT in the Gillette News-Record , Gillette, WY
Story and photos by News-Record Photo Editor Nathan Payne npayne@gillettenewsrecord.net

The door groans to a close when Frank Sanders moseys out of his house and to his car with a tall cup of milked coffee in hand and a satchel slung over his shoulder.

Sanders’ commute to work is a mile at most and when he arrives, he is greeted by a “good morning, Frank” while he drops a card into a slot. Like most people, the first minutes of Sanders’ day are filled with polite chatting and obligatory greetings, but that is where similarities end.

His office is the side of the 1,267-foot-tall Devils Tower and his job is to climb.

Every day.

To put that into perspective, the 56-year-old man did 365 times last year what some people spend a lifetime wishing they could do: Get to the top of the nation’s first national monument and gaze out.

He did it on easy routes and ones that challenge the most experienced climbers ��” if there is one more experienced at climbing Devils Tower than Frank Sanders.

He did it at first to call attention to poverty on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and to raise money for a medical clinic there.

But by the end, he did it because he wanted to prove to himself that he could.

He calls it Project 365, one that began July 4, 2007, and ended July 3, 2008, with 365 summits of the crack-laden Tower that beckons world-class climbers and novices alike.

He tried to climb every day regardless of ��” and in spite of ��” Wyoming’s weather.

Today is no different.

“Let’s go climbing,” says Sanders as he exits the parking area at the base of the Tower with haste.

He hikes up the trail and, ahead of him, the rock rises like a giant tree stump, flat on top as though a lumberjack hacked it off millions of years ago.

In 1972 at age 20, Sanders hitchhiked to Devils Tower from his native Washington, D.C., and was taken by it. He returned several times, moving for good to Devils Tower nine years ago when he bought a house that borders the monument property and converted it into the Devils Tower Bed and Breakfast and the base for his guiding business.

“I walked out here and fell in love with the Tower,” says Sanders while his sandpaper paws inch rope through his belay device and his lodge hostess, Kristin Rothaupt, climbs higher.

“That-a-girl, Kristin. Keep your right side high,” he shouts to her.

Rothaupt tries to tell him she is done, but Sanders calls up the 150-foot route and tells her to stand up and take one more step. After a couple of repetitions of this routine, almost sounding like an old Abbott and Costello comedy bit, Rothaupt is at the top of the route far beyond her chosen end.

Sanders takes pride in pushing people beyond their limits and by doing so breaking down mental barriers.

“We’re just working on bettering personal bests,” says Sanders about people he guides and himself. “If I’m not pressing myself then what am I doing asking others to push themselves?”

To prove his words, Sanders takes off up a route called El Cracko Diablo, his rack of cams jingling on his harness, placing his hands and feet in the first-pitch crack with blind ease. According to Devilstowerclimbing.com, a typical climber should count on spending a half day on the two-pitch route ��” which means the climbers go up high enough that they run out of rope and must pull up the rope to start a new pitch to be able to continue to climb.

Sanders holds the ascent-speed record on this route ��” 13 minutes ��” �-and his prowess shows. Before long, his silhouetted figure disappears over the top of the second pitch 245 feet above. Without visible effort, he is at the top of the route in about 15 minutes.

As he rappels off the second-pitch of the route, a pair of Finlanders on a climbing vacation call out from around the corner. They are on the route Soler but they can’t find the top of their route and its rappel bolts.

Sanders leans back and calls to the pair and from around the corner, out of sight, and explains how the route finishes, where to place the last few cams and where to find their rappel bolts.

He knows the Tower.

During the year-long endeavour, he has had the opportunity to climb with many people and even rescue a few who got in over their heads.

That’s something that a pair of climbers will be ever thankful for.

On Christmas night, after summiting during the day, Sanders walked to the base of the Tower and heard voices on the face above him.

It was clear that someone was in trouble and needed help finding rappel bolts on the side of the Tower to get down. The park rangers had left for the holiday. He was alone in the park in the dark with two climbers who couldn’t get down.

He called a friend and highway patrolman who came with lights and a bull horn to help the pair find their way to safety.

“They were cold but they were having an adventure,” says Sanders about the pair in a philosophical tone. “I’d honestly just assume those people having incidents didn’t happen. I don’t find ’em as high spots.”

Aside from a few hearty climbers and a skeleton crew working at the park, Sanders spent his winter solitarily. Climbing. Thinking.

“I can say it’s kept me alive another winter and it kept me in shape for summer,” says Sanders, who prides himself on being in top physical condition. “My biggest growth has been acceptance. If it’s a raging blizzard, there’s not much arguing with it. There isn’t.”

During a mid-day break sitting along the Tower Trail as tourists pass, Sanders relaxes as he watches a handful of climbers from a distance making their way up the Tower. After helping one family use a spotting scope to find the remnants of a ladder that still hangs on the side of Devils Tower, the matriarch of the group asks Sanders about the view from the top.

“The view from the top looking out is fantastic,” says Sanders with his toothy grin from under a purple-sparkley doo rag. “But the greatest views are when you’re on the side of the Tower looking in.”

The year has been a marathon of introspection for a man who has had struggles in his life ��” the most prominent being alcoholism. Since becoming sober June 22, 1999, the same summer Sanders moved back to the Tower for good, his sobriety has been a more important climb every day than the ones he makes on the granite near him.

“The first thing in the morning, I pray and say I give it up, I gotta stay sober today,” Sanders says. Climbing Devils Tower is an important part in Sanders’ sobriety because it’s a form of meditation. The solitude of hanging on the side of a column high above the ground ��” alone ��” is a time of deep clarity.

It’s what makes him climb ��” or try to climb ��” despite a back injury and a bout of Colorado tick fever this year that would have derailed most people from a similar goal.

But it didn’t. Those setbacks just made him want to make up for lost time.

Climbing usually is done in tandem with a partner. Sanders often does his climbs solo ��” and “free” or without safety gear that climbers use. It’s the most dangerous way to climb, and he knows it.

Sanders says he often asks himself why he climbs alone. But it is in those climbs those times that he is forced to overcome himself.

“I like climbing alone, it’s peaceful,” Sanders says.

As the sun begins its descent to the horizon, Sanders sends Rothaupt ��” and with her his guiding responsibility for the day ��” down the trail toward home. He turns back to El Cracko Diablo, head lamp securely fixed to his head, to get some summits ��” plural ��” in before dark.

As he walks up to the the base of the Tower away from the trail, he answers the question “what will you do on July Fourth?”

He doesn’t hesitate with his answer, which he calls out over his shoulder as the Tower beckons.

“I’m going climbing!” Sanders says.

Every day.