by Red Szell
A final tussle with a troublesome cam and I joined Martin on the ledge just below the summit.
‘That’s a bit of a treat when you get to the top isn’t it,’ I remarked about the cleft.
‘That’s a nice pitch, very positive,’ replied Martin.
‘I am a truly happy man. I know I’m not quite standing on the top yet. But wow, that’s amazing.’
‘You’re nearly there. You’re actually safer than you were a second ago too’ said Martin, screwing shut the second of two karabiners securing me to the belay and to him.
‘So I’m just going to go onto the top and get some sort of a belay then bring you up. It’s only five metres to the top now. We have to be demonstrative apparently,’ Martin sounded amused.
‘So, first blind man on top of the Old Man of Hoy,’ Nick had his phone out and was filming. ‘How does it feel?’
‘Absolutely bloody marvellous. Dreams do come true. I am so happy! Thanks Nick.’
‘Awesome. So, we’re just at the final anchor. Martin’s about five metres above us. He’ll give us a shout in a moment and we’ll bomb on up, wave our arms in celebration’
‘Excellent. Stand there, have our photos taken for posterity, sign the book’.
‘Then bugger off out of here.’
‘The pub doesn’t open till tomorrow. Oh well, not everything on Hoy can be perfect.’
A shout and a tug on my rope and I was scrambling over the shattered rocks and stunted grass that somehow clings to the top of the Old Man. I fought rising exultation, knowing that when you let your concentration lapse is when accidents most often happen on rock. Nick too was taking no chances.
‘Follow my voice. So, you need to cross the gap.’
My fingers measured the distance between the two halves of the Old Man. ‘Blimey, it’s quite a gap. Blind Man falls between two halves of Old Man of Hoy. That would make for a bit of jeopardy on the film, wouldn’t it? Helicopter winches blind man out.’
No one watching me reach the summit would be in any doubt of my inability to see. I crawled on all fours towards Nick’s voice, unable to stand. For hours now I had trusted the motion of my body to all of my limbs equally, to sacrifice half of them now made no sense.
‘This way,’ Nick guided, ‘follow the edge then there’s a big block about a metre away here for your hand and a flat one next to it you can stand up on.’
‘Hey, at last!’ Martin called across.
With a supreme effort I stood tall, raised my arms and shouted. ‘Yay! I’ve done it! Thirty years in the making: Yes!’ And heard a ripple of embarrassed laughter.
I knew what had happened – and I couldn’t care less.
For the first time in the four hours since I’d left the promontory I’d headed off in the wrong direction, unsteady on my legs, in danger of toppling over in the wind, grinning from ear to ear.
‘Aye, you know you’re on the top of something,’ said Martin, coming over to shake my hand.
‘So if you just turn round to face the camera and we’ll spread out a bit,’ he directed.
‘Step left a bit, Red. You’ve got about half a metre.’ Nick was still on guard.
With arms aloft we celebrated our achievement, Martin in the middle like some rock god flanked by his axeman and bassist.
‘YES!’ I bellowed. Then more quietly, ‘one of the better days of my life.’
Once he was satisfied Keith had enough footage Martin said. ‘So what you’ve got to do is just nip over and sign the visitor’s book and then you can drop down to the abseil before we get hypothermic.’
The visitor’s book was an old Woolworths-type notebook stored in a Tupperware box that also contained a Scottish £5 note and a malt loaf, both of which I left for someone hungrier than me.
Instead I scribbled ‘Red Szell – first blind man to climb The Old Man’ and the date – 20th June 2012.
As long as you’ve climbed the Old Man using a 60-metre length of rope you can descend in three abseils, so avoiding the need to leave a guide rope to re-cross the traverse on the crux pitch. Those who miss the guide rope or have tried to descend in three on a 50-metre length, end up dangling in mid-air beneath the overhang, waiting to be rescued.
Martin was shivering as I slid down the broken rocks to the final belay and keen for Nick to clip on and get going. I’d had a couple of refresher masterclasses at Swiss with Andres’ flatmate and fellow instructor Dan, but ab’ing down a climbing wall and down a rock face (especially one as weather-beaten as the Old Man) are about as dissimilar as track-cycling and mountain-biking. I tried blind mountain-biking once – it was a bruising experience.
‘I don’t know how you don’t bash your knees all the time, you’re amazing’ said Martin, having watched me down the first abseil. I assured him it was just a matter of time and sure enough halfway down the next descent it happened. I was traversing right to left down towards the niche above the overhang, negotiating a succession of ledges and trying not to lose my feet in the deep cracks when an angry squawking erupted between my legs.
I recoiled in surprise, lost my footing as I tried to avoid stepping on the fulmar, spun left on the rope and crashed into a protruding flake of rock. The sharp end punched between two ribs, winding me and provoking a stream of invective against the surprised gull. As the initial shock subsided the pain radiated across my left side. I desperately wanted to test the area with my fingers but knew I had to keep both hands on the rope. Nick, who had seen me arc round into the rocks, guided me slowly down to the niche and asked if I was okay.
‘Nothing broken’ I confirmed, massaging round the spot, ‘but I’m going to have a bruise the size of a Crème Egg tomorrow.’
Martin arrived and, keen not to dwell on the subject, I asked: ‘So we’re not going to have another crack at the crux then?’
‘You can stop on the abseil and have a feel around,’ he replied dryly.
‘I might just stick my fingers up at it and go. I’ve ticked that box.’
‘Exactly, you don’t need to do it again,’ Nick chipped in.
‘Yeah, I’ll come back when I’m 93, do it as a sort of fiftieth anniversary. You’ll still be running the tour won’t you, Martin?’
He groaned. ‘I’ll be going for the oldest.’
‘The oldest man on the Old Man.’ Nick considered, ‘they might film it.’
With no obstacles to negotiate, a 200ft abseil in mid-air is great fun, as long as you’re not going first and wanting a dry landing. Nick, who is larger and heavier than me, got blown over the sea and had to swing himself back onto the causeway. But, certain of landing beside him on terra firma, I came flying down the same rope and could not resist a loud ‘Wheeee!’ as I did so. I was glad I’d followed Martin’s advice and invested in a pair of leather rigger’s gloves (that Matthew rudely referred to as my ‘gardening gloves’) – the belay plate was too hot to handle afterwards.
I hardly noticed my throbbing feet as I eased off my climbing shoes. They had survived, just, though my left big toe bulged against the thinned leather.
‘I’ll sleep well tonight,’ I predicted.
Fortified by a large wedge of Mrs Moran’s chocolate cake, we started what seemed an interminable slog back up the cliff.
Keith captured my exhausted return for the show and Matthew and Andres were allowed in for a group hug and backslapping session before I collapsed on the grass and, at last, removed my harness. I felt oddly weightless, as if floating in a bubble a couple of inches off the ground; self-contained and detached.
I was dimly aware of a strained conversation between Keith and Nick.
‘How did you find using the Handycam?’
‘Yeah fine. I think I got some good footage on the overhang.’
‘Can I have a look?’ Long pause, Keith exhaling in frustration. ‘I can’t find any files, Nick.’
‘They should be there.’
‘Take me through exactly how you went about filming.’
‘Well, like you
told me. I opened the camera up, pointed it in the right direction so Red was in shot and filmed. Then closed it up to stop it.’
‘Did you press ‘record’?’
Another long silence. ‘I didn’t think you had to.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Oh!’
‘Shit!’
‘What about the Go-Pros?’
‘Too wobbly. Only good for short clips.’
‘Ah . . .’
A sombre, foreboding atmosphere hung over us on the walk back to Rackwick, reflected in the dark, pregnant clouds scudding low over the bay. We hurried along the cliff path and I think the others would have run had I not been there.
Matthew had already texted news of my success to Omri, who’d posted it on Facebook and before we lost the signal he gave me his phone for a quick call to Kate, informing her of my continuing existence. I didn’t tell her everything – there wasn’t time.
‘Keith went mental when he heard Nick tell Martin all he had to do was open and point the Handycam’ said Matthew. ‘He ripped off his headphones and started railing.’ We’d fallen behind; the rest of the party was out of earshot. ‘We tried to tell you’.
‘Oh, that’s what all the shouting was about. We couldn’t hear a word, the wind was too strong.’
‘Maybe if you’d been carrying the radios we could have told you via the spare.’
Martin had been against taking them up with us on the grounds of weight and necessity. Keith hadn’t been keen either, concerned about crackly radio communication interfering with his audio recording. Besides, Nick was climbing so close I’d had little trouble hearing him. No one had foreseen where they could have proved their worth.
‘The thing is, Red, it’s all there apart from the close-ups of you on the overhang. The interview, the footage on the boat over, the walk in, all the long shots of the climb are all brilliant. In fact there’s probably enough to justify two 15-minute features on the show. But without the close-up footage it loses that edge-of-the- seat feeling and I’m not sure we’ll be able to use it at all.’
I’d sensed this was coming. Had he heard me say I’d like to give The Coffin another shot? Whatever, it proved you should be careful what you wish for.
‘You want me to do it again.’
‘Would you?’
We were about to eat supper, a bottle of wine had just been uncorked and if we were going to celebrate it would start now. But the mood was wrong; the shadow of unfinished business was squatting in the hostel with us.
‘I’ll need to run it past Matthew and Andres.’
‘It would only be the first two pitches,’ said Keith hopefully.
‘Well if they can find something else to do, I’m up for it.’
‘It’s your gig, Red. If you’re happy doing it again and it’s necessary for the show then there’s no question.’ Matthew too must have seen this coming. Not fancying The Long Hope he and Andres got out the guidebook and began looking for other places to climb on the island.
Martin, for whom this would be the third ascent he’d led in as many days, had been savouring the prospect of dropping in on the Orkney’s folk festival the next day but showed his professionalism and agreed.
Nick merely shrugged and said, ‘sure.’
‘Okay Keith, I’ll do it. But in return can you do me a favour?’
‘Name it.’
‘Can I have a copy of your audio recording of me doing the final pitch? I pulled the jack out of the machine the BBC lent me.’
With a mutual sense of having saved each other’s bacon we settled down to a sober evening contemplating all things climbing – apart from the sea stack two miles up the coast and the rain gusting against the window.
20
Day 4, Take Two
‘If there’s only one thing I would like to say, this is: enjoy the process. Don’t worry about the result. Climbing must be fun.’
– Marc LeMenestrel
Despite being exhausted I slept fitfully. My side hurt and woke me every time I rolled onto it. Andres was snoring in the bunk opposite. And I kept replaying the crux pitch in my head, wondering how I could do it better, if indeed it would be dry enough to attempt, and what would happen if my original success should prove to have been no more than a lucky one-off. Dosed up with ibuprofen I’d finally fallen into a heavy slumber just as the first rays of light were poking past the curtain and I was contemplating getting up to watch the dawn.
‘Rise and shine. It’s stopped raining.’ Martin had the air of a sergeant-major rousing his raw recruits. It was 9.00 am. He’d let us sleep in because it had still been chucking it down at seven when he’d first woken.
‘Oh fuck,’ moaned Andres, pulling the duvet over his head and turning to face the wall.
I rolled reluctantly out of bed and started to pull on yesterday’s stinking clothes – because continuity demanded it.
Nick handed me a cup of black coffee and Martin gave me the option of melon with my muesli and one or two eggs on toast. It had pissed down till about 7.30 am but now with a light wind and the sun threatening to show its face the rock should be drying off sufficiently. The forecast was clear until about 3.00 pm so if we got a move on we should be okay.
Matthew emerged to wish me luck, then disappeared back to bed with a cup of tea.
It was a subdued trudge across the cliffs. We were four men on the way to work. The muggy weather made my clothes feel all the more rank. I thought of Andres and Matthew. They had the keys to Martin’s minibus, sketchy descriptions of a couple of unpromising and rarely-climbed gullies and instructions from Martin to find the off-licence for what we all hoped would be a belated celebration this evening. Whatever happened I had the guilty suspicion that my last day on Hoy would be more entertaining than theirs.
The scramble down the cliff and across the causeway was even more gruelling than the previous day, and it was slippery. I was both mentally and physically shattered by the time I stood at the base of the stack. Keith had set up a tripod near the cave and was planning to use that and a portable camera to get a couple of additional angles. He gave my Go-Pro and MP3 a final check, thanked me for agreeing to repeat the climb, and clambered away to start filming.
Martin began his slow rhythmic ascent and Nick and I got chatting about how becoming a father is like discovering you have an upstairs room in the bungalow you inhabit but that losing a parent leads you to mothball a part of your dwelling space.
The rock was cold and damp, the cracks slick with wet sand that had been washed through the porous stone by the night’s heavy rain. At least I had no problem with the glare today; the sun was fighting a losing battle with the cloud. I made swift progress up the first 70 feet to The Gallery, feeling looser and better balanced with every move. I could do this, I’d already proved that, but it would be a whole lot easier to repeat the exercise if I was relaxed and in tune with the rock.
‘Nice climbing,’ said Martin, ‘very fluid.’
Before he left he tugged at an ancient and frayed rope that stretched out across the traverse and had acted as a guide back to The Gallery for those equipped with 50-metre ropes.
‘I’m wondering if I should just cut this down, Nick. What do you think?’
‘It’s pretty tatty but I suppose it might save someone a cold night someday.’
‘Well, I wouldn’t put any trust in it,’ Martin sniffed, but left it in place.
Without the distraction of making an audio-diary I had plenty of time to consider the crux pitch ahead. As Martin had disappeared round the corner onto the East Face he’d paused to call back ‘It’s extremely slippery today Nick, you’ll need to be careful.’ This didn’t sound great.
The tea-tray sized flake that had felt so solid yesterday when I used it to swing round the corner and over the two-foot void today felt like half-dried clay, liable to crumble in my hand as soon as I put any pressure on it. It held but tested my nerve.
The east face was like a skating rink. Being in the lee o
f the wind the sand that had been washed through had settled and built up on every available surface. It stuck to fingers and shoes like grease making every hold doubly hard to grasp. All the friction moves I’d managed yesterday were going to be useless, today would be all about accuracy and balance.
I crept along the narrow ledge, lifting my feet regularly to kick off the sand. The single handhold was smooth as an apple-skin and I tried to dig my fingers into it for extra purchase. My heart was in my mouth when I finally made it to the bottom of the corner chimney.
‘That was hairy,’ I said to Nick, ‘a bit more difficult than yesterday.’
The chimney was filthy and wet, but at least the cracks were wide and jagged, so knowing I wasn’t going to be climbing the next day I threw caution to the wind and jammed hands, knees, elbows and feet deep into them with little care for the consequences to my skin. Remembering a technique favoured by Joe Brown, I also put a handful of pebbles in my pocket to wedge into narrow cracks and act as chock-stones, or instant holds, if need be in The Coffin.
The walls of that bottomless hellhole chimney were coated in thick, wet slime. At no time while I was in there did I feel anything less than precariously balanced and for once I was in no doubt of my level of exposure. To make matters worse, the big hex that Martin had inserted at the top of the crack had become twisted and stuck.
Nick read my discomfort and swung in on his Jumars. ‘I’ll try and get that out,’ he said ‘you feel around for some good footholds. There’s a crack behind your left elbow, feel along that.’
It took Nick a good few minutes and the help of a nut key to dig the hex out. He slid it down the rope to me and I attempted one-handed to loop the long sling it was attached to over my head and clip it to the back of my harness with the rest of my gear. It was impossible, I had to let it hang like some bling necklace slung by my navel. I had however found what had eluded me yesterday, a five-toe sized pocket for my foot on the back wall. I scooped as much sand out of it as I could, hung my right in it then edged my left along a jagged crack in the wall ahead. Using the scallop shell hold as a side-pull I could now reach further round the corner onto the outside wall, but my questing fingers still found nothing positive to grip.