NEVER-NEVER (5.13) Givler's Dome, Icicle Creek Canyon, Washington

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Todd Skinner during his early attempt.

If you’ve ever climbed Givler’s Dome, you’ve seen it. You can’t miss it. It is simply one of the most wildly overhanging cracks anywhere in Washington. And for many years, it was regarded by local climbers as nearly impossible. It was predicted to be Washington’s first 5.13, if and when anybody got around to climbing it. Peter Croft tried it and failed, along with a legion of other local would-be hard men. Nobody came close.

Todd Skinner on the first ascent. Photo by Mike Jakubal.

During a visit to Joshua Tree in the spring of 1982, I ran into Todd Skinner. This is when Todd was starting his quest to climb the hardest cracks in America. He would effuse about this crack and that, cracks he had seen here and there on his travels, and how hard they would be. So I mentioned this crack on Givler’s Dome, told him it would probably be very hard, but Todd played it cool, like he had already heard about it and it was barely worthy of his attention. But later that summer, while driving up Icicle Road, I spotted a white VW bus with Wyoming plates parked across the road from Z-Crack, and immediately knew what was afoot. I hiked straight up to Givler’s Dome and, sure enough, there was Todd, working the route. He had set up a toprope with a backrope, and his belayer was pretty annoyed by the whole arrangement. First there was the 30-minute hike up to Givler’s Dome every morning until it got too hot, then back down to the canyon floor until late afternoon when it had cooled down. And there was the complicated belay setup for toproping, and for what? A 45-foot crack? So I took over belaying so Robin could take a break, and Todd gave it a go. The trouble was, due to the extreme angle of the overhang, the route couldn’t be worked like a regular crack. Every time Todd fell off, he couldn’t just hang there and pull himself back onto the rock. He would swing away and have to lower back to the ground and start over every time. During his rest breaks, those of us belaying would give it a shot. I managed a few moves, until the crack pinched down to finger size and flared. After a couple of tries, my hands were raw from the rough granite, and that was it for me.

Todd Skinner on the first ascent. Photo by Mike Jakubal.

Todd gave up after several days of effort, and in his usual fashion vowed, "I'll never come back." But the next summer he was right back on it. This time he dispensed with the toprope and went straight to leading, which was not a pretty thing. Again, due to the angle, falling off left him hanging out away from the rock, so he couldn't hangdog without a lot of wasted effort swinging in and then pulling himself up the rope. Also, efforts to yo-yo the crack failed because the rope would block or get stuck at key places in the crack, so Todd was pretty much forced to lower off and pull down the rope after every fall. Despite this obstacle, Todd persisted and in just over a week of effort he almost had it. I went out there for the final day, with Mike Jakubal, to watch the big event. It was kind of anticlimactic. Todd had the crack so wired that on his first try he ticked it. The moves were not at all straightforward jams as one might hope for, but very involved sequences. Still, Todd made it look easy, and when he was done, after some 13 days of effort, he shrugged and said, “It’s 5.12d.” Mind you, that was more than 20 years ago, and I haven’t heard of a second ascent yet, so I would wager that Never-Never was indeed Washington’s first 5.13. If anyone has repeated it, I’d like to hear about it. Anybody?

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