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About a year ago, Ian Dorko was at the top of a giant rock. It had taken him and his two fellow rock climbers, along with a few hundred pounds of gear and supplies, four days — yes, they slept on the side of the mountain — to ascend the 3,000 foot sheer rock face. The sun was setting just as they reached the top.
Their plan was to hike back down that night by headlamp — but, with four feet of snow covering the ground, the unmarked trail had vanished.
The climbers spent the night on the top of El Capitan, Yosemite’s most infamous climbing rock, with no food, water or proper snow attire. They hiked down the next day in a snowstorm, traveling 10 to 12 miles though the trail was supposed to be 8 miles.
“That was definitely one of the worst days of hiking I’ve ever had,” Dorko said. “You’re walking through drifts that are anywhere from knee-deep to up to your waist, with a backpack that weighs probably at least 50 or 60 pounds. We didn’t bring snow gear because we thought we were going rock climbing.”
Even with the sub-zero temperatures this week, the walk from your car to class doesn’t seem so bad now, right?
Besides the Carhartt pants and hiking boots, there’s no dead giveaway of Dorko’s adventurous spirit just by looking at him. He has a relatively thin frame and his face is covered by a wispy, reddish-blonde beard.
A senior computer science student, Dorko has been rock climbing since he was 11 years old. His parents took him and his sister to the rock gym at the YMCA in their hometown of Skowhegan. Dorko became friends with some of the staff members and before he knew it, he was out of the gym and on the rocks.
“I’d say by the time I got into high school, I was already self-sufficient,” Dorko said.
He is now a certified climbing instructor through the American Mountain Guides Association — he gets paid to teach during the summer — and his endeavors have taken him to rock climbing destinations across the country and south of the border. He honed most of his skills in middle school under the tutelage of a few key college-aged climbers and one 40-something mentor. While he was more focused on team sports during high school — soccer, hockey, swimming and tennis — he has devoted a large majority of his collegiate life to climbing.
“Rock climbing presents a lot of challenges,” Dorko said. “Our goal is to get to the top of this piece of rock. I guess I enjoy that challenge of, ‘All right, let’s figure out how to do it’.”
His journey to El Capitan took place last spring break, but Dorko has found himself at different locations throughout the last few years, including Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, California and all across New England, including Mt. Katahdin.
His first big expedition was with MaineBound to Mexico during his first year. He returned to the same spot winter break of his second year because he wasn’t allowed to do some of the longer routes, even though he and some fellow climbers had the experience.
Normally there are no rules stopping anyone from attempting any climb, however dangerous, according to Dorko.
“I think most people have enough of a self-preservation instinct to figure out that they need some sort of formal instruction or some sort of training before they go out and do this stuff,” Dorko said.
He never received formal training himself, but Dorko has built up his confidence and expertise through his different trips. Most often, each area has a different type of rock, which means a different type of technique and different kinds of equipment.
While Mexico had mainly longer sport climbs — 2,400 to 2,500 foot climbs that take all day and utilize man-made bolts in the rock — Dorko’s journey to Devil’s Tower in Wyoming after his sophomore year had him doing some “traditional climbing.”
Devil’s Tower looks pretty daunting — it’s an 800-foot-high natural structure, dominating the tree line. Dorko and his friends relied solely on their gear, fitting wedged, metal “nuts” into cracks in the rock. Dorko said as the cracks got bigger and rocks got looser, things got scarier. Climbers must trust their skills to succeed, according to Dorko.
“It’s mostly a process of having experiences,” Dorko said. “You do something once and you either see why it was a good idea or a bad idea and you kind of learn from that — build on that framework.”
Accepting defeat is all part of the game. When a climb can’t be completed, Dorko and his friends will often joke about how the mountain isn’t going anywhere.
So far, Dorko’s most serious injury came two summers ago when he broke his ankle after a 25-foot fall. Even when discussing that incident, he has a very “s— happens” attitude, though it’s obvious he has replayed the scenario over and over in his mind to prevent it from happening again.
His travels have brought him back out west a few times, a couple by road trip, but for the amount of adventures Dorko has been on, he says his hobby is still relatively inexpensive. Apart from the price of gear, the cost of each trip is able to stay low because he is usually camping out or staying with friends across the country.
Having a network of climbing friends can be a big advantage. A trip to Arizona turned into a trip to Joshua Tree in California when Arizona was hit with snow and Dorko was able to meet up with a friend living there. For most places he has gone to, he has been able to meet up with familiar faces.
“There’s definitely sort of a community of people that climb,” Dorko said. “I’ve met a lot of people in my travels that I’ve seen again at different places. I think most of my friends really are rock climbers, or at least have tried it out.”
For Dorko, his biggest struggles with the sport come from finding the time to do it. Schoolwork and other priorities can keep him off the rocks and as graduation looms ahead, he is unsure how climbing will fit in.
“[Climbing] is just what I do,” Dorko said. “It’s about the experiences that you get. You drive across country with a bunch of friends and have a good time.”
