“I had a futon in my cave. I cooked meals up there, you already know,” Ben Zartman tells me from his house in Rhode Island whereas trying again to his days in Yosemite within the 90s. We’re reminiscing about our climbing partnership spanning some 30 years and speaking about his new maritime and climbing gear firm and plans to sail to Baffin Island to climb massive partitions. It’s a low-emissions journey he calls Greenpointing.
I did my first massive wall in Yosemite with Ben again in 1995. Although the RNWF of Half Dome turned trivial through the years, taking us just a few hours as soon as we acquired our wings, that first climb was totally terrifying for me. Armed with tri cams, hexes, and home made cams he picked up in Mexico, I used to be so freaked out all through the entire expertise that I nearly gave up climbing for good. He laughed at my discomfort and coined me the deal with “Spaz.” Nobody within the park knew me again then, however boy, did they like listening to tales across the campfire about Ben tricking Spaz off ledges and him penduluming into corners and shivering the night time away whereas hanging in slings. (I don’t assume anybody knew my identify was Chris for at the least just a few extra years after that.)
For these 30 infinite hours, all I may assume was how a lot I hated climbing and by no means wished to go once more (I used to be additionally just a bit fast-talking, mumbling 18-year-old with the entire world forward of him). Too massive, an excessive amount of rock, too overwhelming. It took me weeks to get better – largely emotionally from being in over my head for too lengthy. By some means, I forgot the awfulness of the expertise and ultimately acquired again on the stone. I’ve since ended up logging a few dozen El Cap routes, freed just a few massive partitions, and nonetheless boulder just a few occasions per week. Climbing is my favourite factor, so I assume I acquired over that first gnarly expertise.
Two years after Half Dome, we climbed the Pacific Ocean Wall on El Cap over 9 stormy days. Flakes ripped off at random, inflicting us to fall, getting old rivets snapped off below physique weight, and at one level, we bivied off 1 / 4 incher whereas raging winds tossed us in our ledge as my pajamas, clipped to the surface, whipped within the wind.
We lived off the identical meals he would feed me once I visited his cave – tortillas with deli honey packets and peanut butter, pudding cups, and tuna with pepper packets. As one storm cleared, he eliminated his harness, stepped out onto a spacious, sloping ledge, and munched down a pudding cup whereas donning cut-off cotton sweatpants and a shirt he snagged behind a Goodwill. He appeared so relaxed, proper in his factor. In the meantime, I used to be wrapped in Gore-Tex since all the pieces I touched within the ledge was damp and soggy, giving me chills.
Over his Valley time, Ben banged out 9 El Cap routes starting from the obscure – the dirt-choked Son of Coronary heart – to A5s, together with the Atlantic Ocean Wall. AO was my first style of A5, and we share our experiences from that, with me telling him that Chris McNamara and I bailed proper after our route joined Iron Hawk due to an incoming storm. I didn’t know you would bail that top on El Cap, however Chris had no hesitation, and we nailed it with out difficulty regardless of rapping off bolts that went into the rock earlier than I used to be born (as we speak, I’m outdated as filth). He talked concerning the attention-grabbing increasing sections and his companion’s fall on the crux, the place he was fortunate sufficient to keep away from slamming right into a ledge.
“Now, once I go climbing, I notice in round 1997 and 98 once I was climbing laborious, I used to be in such depraved good cardio form. I had move, man.”
For extra summers I can keep in mind, he frequented numerous caves by night time – the moldy Harding Cave, the Chongo Cave, and so on. – and by day, he’d free solo and climb as much as 5.12. Ben rope soloed a number of El Cap routes, the place as soon as on Zodiac, he by accident dropped his lead line (it slid via his Gri Gri and dropped to the earlier anchor), and as a substitute of staying put and dropping his thoughts as I’d, he completed the pitch Help Man Bob model and waited for the subsequent workforce to deliver it again to him.
At this time, we nonetheless climb collectively, and that makes me glad. As we catch up, he tells me about shivering in SAR website one winter below the Camp 4 wall, the place rockfall thundered round him.
“Each night time you would hear it from the Camp 4 Wall,” he says. “I stored considering a rock was going to destroy my tent. It was like this infinite drumming of rock fall, cascading off Rickson’s Pinnacle space. It was sketchy the place I bivied, however I by no means anxious about it in my cave as a result of I had a monster rock hanging over.”
At this time, married and with three children in tow (he calls each “little one”), Ben lives a modest way of life, the place he nonetheless has his boat he hand-made in Mariposa, positioned a brief distance from Yosemite, which he used to sail all over the world along with his household. He’s a licensed captain, a author like me, and operates Zartman Rigging, the place he hand splices customized climbing and marine gear, gear that prices a far cry from his dirtbag days the place he tied his slings and wrapped a swami round his waist as he couldn’t afford a store-bought harness. His customized daisy chain prices $220 MSRP, a shoulder-length sling prices $60, and a double-length one prices $160.
His gear is UIAA-certified and is obtainable at specialty outlets all through the Northeast. He says 95 p.c of his gear is bought by mariners, with a scant 5 p.c bought to climbers. His gear takes loads of time to craft, as he wraps Dyneema thread constantly, making his nearly indestructible gear. He nonetheless wears his first daisy chain when crusing and climbing, one he used to cross the Northwest Passage with Mark Synott and Renan Ozturk in 2020. He tells me it nonetheless seems to be model new and has no plans to retire it within the foreseeable future.
I think about Ben out to sea throughout that journey, rocking the home made swami that fastens with Dyneema twine as a substitute of the knot his Yosemite model had – as he captained the ship via ice-chocked peninsulas and navigated via slushy seas.
“I take it each time I’m going crusing; I take advantage of it as my tether on the boat,” he says. “And each time I’m going up the mast for work, I take advantage of it as my security leash. And that’s a part of my on a regular basis work.”
“It’s not promoting as quick as I want,” he tells me of his new gear. “I do have some web gross sales right here and there. However I do promote it to some climbing outlets, the place they’ve it on the cabinets. I’m randomly emailing climbing outlets. I’ll simply Google ‘climbing store, Utah’ and, you already know, get in contact with Pagan Mountaineering, and I ship them an e mail via the contact type. I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m making gear right here within the US, blah, blah, blah.’ I’ve in all probability gotten a 60% response price from outlets like that. I’ve been involved with 4 or 5 outlets which may carry my stuff.”
“I’ve but to go to REI or the massive ones. I thought of working an advert in Gripped, however they’re costly.”
“I needed to be a part of the UIAA as a producer, what they name a security label holder, which implies I needed to pay them €400. Then, I needed to ship a pattern of my gear to a lab in order that it was ISO-certified. They’ve a listing of the testing labs, and I chosen one within the UK as a result of they converse English. I paid them about $500 or no matter to break-test it. I despatched them some samples, they usually broke them. They despatched me a certificates saying this breaks at this price. Then, they despatched me a UIAA certificates that I placed on the slings. Now, when you have a look at my enterprise Abednego Marine, you possibly can see all of the merchandise I’ve had rated, and I can put a security label on them that claims UIAA, USA 2024.
“You’re supposed to place the yr of manufacture in there. They have to be UIAA-rated since insurance coverage corporations require that.”
Although most of his gear is out of my worth vary, there’s one new invention that I may see shopping for and utilizing on the common. “These slings that I’m promoting for $60 would by no means get out of a marine store door for lower than $110. These guys are going for a distinct demographic, and you’ve got totally different parameters. I’m promoting this for as little as potential in order that I can break into the market and see what occurs.”
“I got here up with a greater technique to make a middle mark on a rope. You recognize how one can purchase a pen from Black Diamond, and it’s like $12, and then you definately lose the pen behind your truck?
“I’m placing rope dye into little soy sauce packets that may value nearly nothing. They’re single-use. You set the dye in your rope and throw the soy sauce packet away. It’s a dye that’s made particularly for ropes, so it doesn’t harm them. I made a countertop show that mountain outlets can have, so this fashion my emblem is on all people’s countertop. I’ll put a video out about it on Instagram as quickly as I’ve all of it collectively.”
We swap matters and talk about what he has arising, together with a crusing expedition the place he plans to climb massive partitions with potential companions Caro North and Matt Cornell. On a private word, Matt is one in every of my favourite climbing companions. We climbed Astroman in Yosemite just a few seasons in the past below smoke-filled orange skies. I don’t know Caro, however I helped join them via social media channels. Ben tells me North Face ambassodor and sailor Mark Synott helps him safe funding for the journey. The expedition would take 4 months.
In typical Ben trend, he’ll journey in a minimalist model. No fuel, no photo voltaic panels – he hates how they give the impression of being when mounted on prime of a ship – as a substitute counting on a methanol gasoline cell to generate some electrical energy to cost batteries. “This little generator could be contained in the boat because it doesn’t make noise and it doesn’t make emissions. I can simply put it proper within the cabin, it’ll simply sit there and trickle cost the batteries utilizing Methanol. That’s a part of the proposal.”
He plans to deliver prototype titanium jumars and a scant 6mm marine twine for fixing. The twine is ultra-abrasion resistant and designed to face up to tough sea circumstances, reminiscent of salt water, winches, and jammers.
“There’s crusing know-how that blows doorways on what climbers have, and climbers are beginning to uncover it. The climbing corporations are beginning to put Aramid into rope covers, however like mariners are miles forward of them already with the know-how. For an expedition like this, utilizing my stuff would actually put the corporate on the map as a result of then folks could be like, oh, that is legit expedition gear.”
Ben hopes to sail to Baffin subsequent yr. Within the meantime, he tells me he’ll be at house stockpiling his gear for that journey and extra for his spouse, Danielle, to promote when he’s within the discipline.
