‘Watch…’ Scrape, scrape, scrape.
…
‘… me.’
Scrape, scrape. Deep breath. Scrape.
…
There was total silence for ten minutes, before Ian suddenly bellowed: ‘SAFE!’
The next pitch looked unpleasant, and very fall-off-able, with two ways to go: up a narrow icy choked slot to the left, or an off-vertical corner with a dribble of snot-coloured ice running down it to the right. Imagining myself getting upset on the latter option I traversed over to the left and started excavating a way of getting into the slot, which was too narrow to jam myself inside, but too wide to climb with my hands.
‘It looks easier on the right,’ said Ian, unconvinced by my struggle to get nowhere slowly. Neither was I, the difference being he thought I should go right and I thought we should just go down.
Half an hour later I’d jibbered my way up the corner, feeling like a mixed-climbing Homer Simpson. It seemed to me I’d put in a valiant effort and had got higher than I’d expected, but the next section looked like you couldn’t wing it – unless that meant flying off the pitch. So instead I moved around a bit and groaned, putting in and taking out dubious nuts, hoping some protection would spur me on, but finding none that could.
Then I dropped my axe.
Off it went, having ‘unclipped itself’ from my wrist loop, spinning past Ian, and on to the bottom of the first pitch, out of sight.
I swore at my own incompetence, knowing that would be it. We’d have to go down now.
‘I’ll send up one of my axes,’ shouted Ian, sounding helpful rather than annoyed.
I pulled up his axe on a loop of rope and carried on, but not before I down climbed – rather easily, I thought, considering how hard it had been climbing up – and reverted to my first plan, the slot, muttering, ‘I knew I should have gone this way,’ to excuse my poor performance in the corner.
The slot went slowly as well, but frustration is always a good boost to activity, and eventually I made enough progress to make it to easy ground, feeling a little more like a pro.
Then I dropped my other axe.
My heart sank, as no doubt did Ian’s, as it slipped out of my hand and spun away towards him. This time fate felt sorry for me and instead of making a pair at the bottom, it speared a patch of snow and held fast.
‘Bloody leashes,’ I cried, which was about as fair as shouting at a car after crashing while speeding.
I was forced to climb back down, past hard-fought ground, retrieve my axe and climb up once again. I felt a total failure.
The pitch went on for what seemed like several more hours, at which point I was about fifty feet above the belay, poised beneath a dubious hanging pinnacle with nothing to clip into apart from a white sling that seemed to be stuck or frozen under a boulder. I was going far too slow, and so just clipped it and called it a belay.
Unconcerned, Ian came up and just yarded up the pinnacle with his axes, running it out to the wall and making what looked like a series of uncomfortably contorted and bold moves up the direct finish.
We’d done the hard bit.
By the time I reached the top of the route, there was about an hour left before it got dark. Our climb terminated a long way from the summit, which lay at the top of several hundred metres more of easy climbing.
It had taken us all day to climb four pitches.
With only one headtorch we’d have to bivy, something neither of us wanted even though we’d lugged our sleeping bags up the route. We just couldn’t face a miserable night on the mountain.
We felt too old. We were on our holidays.
The desire for a warm bed, warm feet, warm food, warm anything was overpowering our desire to visit the summit of Longs Peak, but without it what would all the effort be worth? The only option was to descend once more, get some rest and food, then come back one more time. We discussed this miserable plan, which would mean yet one more trip back up here, the summit requiring twenty-one miles of walking. There was no paper, stone, scissors or tossed coins. The only things thrown were the rope ends. Down we went.
It was dark by the time we reached the tree line and began stumbling down the four miles of zigzagging trail back to Frank’s truck. Ian lagged behind me in the dark, no doubt wishing he could see where he was going.
By the time we reached the signing-out booth, I was glad to be out of the woods. The sound of our boots on the tarmac was a relief. It meant we’d made it. At the truck we stripped off all our layers and threw the lot into the back, and with aching bodies slowly climbed inside for the hour-long drive back to Boulder, imagining the big Mexican meal we’d have as a reward for nothing in particular and thinking we could invite Rolo and Beth.
Ian turned the key.
Nothing happened.
Turned out he’d left the lights on.
It was great to be back at Rolo’s house, just lounging around until the tiredness wore off and the guilt at doing nothing took hold again. Soon we’d be able to face the walk up one last time.
We spent the morning checking out secondhand shops in town for music and clothes, enjoying the kind of gigantic breakfast you can only get in the US.
Coming back to the house we found Rolo sorting through boxes of slides of Patagonia. Looking up he asked if we wanted to go climbing, which seemed strange as it would be dark soon, and outside the streets were thick with freshly fallen snow.
‘We can go and climb the First Flatiron,’ he said. ‘It’s a classic. It will be fun.’
Ian made an excuse about having to finish an article, so I felt compelled to say yes. It’s not every day you get to climb with one of the best in the world.
‘You won’t need a harness,’ Rolo said as I stuffed mine into a rucksack. ‘Or boots. Or a chalk bag.’
‘I’d better, just in case,’ I replied, thinking, ‘Just in case I’m as crap and unfit as I think I am.’
‘Maybe I should take a rope?’ he said, as if the same idea had just come to him.
‘Yes. A rope. I think maybe that would be nice,’ I replied, imagining his sadness at my untimely death.
We arrived in the car park below a small granite peak. Rolo donned his harness and grabbed a rope from the back of his truck, a rope that looked to be the same thickness as my shoelaces. I knew that Rolo was weight obsessed when it came to gear, noticing he’d weighed all his climbing clothing, then written down each item’s weight in pen onto it. He obviously picked his ropes for their weight rather than their strength.
His skimpy rack consisted of three jumars and some karabiners and so wasn’t really a rack at all.
‘We’ll put our stuff on here,’ he suggested, ‘then we can just take it easy and jog up to the route.’ With that he proceeded to sprint up the steep trail as though being chased by a bear.
Seconds later we were below the route, a big granite slab about five or six pitches high, probably easy once you knew the way, and in summer. Now snow clung to big sections of it, and damp streaks testified to an unsettling lack of friction.
Rolo grabbed the rope, tied on and said, ‘I’ll climb the first three pitches in one, so don’t bother belaying, just pay out the rope.’ With that he literally ran up the cliff.
In his trainers.
You’d think that I had it easy. All I had to do was stand there until the rope went tight and then climb. Unfortunately I’d underestimated Rolo’s speed and with only one boot on I was shocked to see how fast the man was moving, staring dumbfounded as the rope began to run out. It reminded me of that moment in the movie Jaws when the harpoon hits the shark and the shark speeds off, taking the rope with it at high speed.
I needed a bigger boat.
Within half a minute all the rope was gone and I was away, both shoelaces still untied, climbing, climbing, climbing, moving up the slab without skill or finesse, bullied by the insistent tug and only not falling due to sheer bloody-mindedness. There was no belaying, just simultaneous climbing. Moving together meant that if I fell, so woul
d Rolo, and I didn’t want the embarrassment of falling off a trade route and killing one of the best climbers in the world.
The holds were tiny, the easy-angled rock being climbed on friction, and the cliff became a blur as I pedalled my way up – sometimes literally. After every few feet I’d slip, only stopping myself by jumping upwards.
It seemed a joke, to be moving so fast I couldn’t even see the rock, my hands and feet shooting out faster than I could think where to put them. I got to the first belay and found a jumar providing some small level of protection on the shoe lace, but before I had chance to even unclip it, the rope was pulling again and I had a split second to snatch it off the belay and carry on.
Seven minutes later I was five hundred feet off the deck at the third belay trying my hardest not to puke as I tried to unclip the jumars. Rolo was sat gazing out over Boulder. He looked serene.
‘It’s a great view from up here, isn’t it Andy?’ he sighed, looking as if he’d just awoken from a little nap.
‘Y… y… yes,’ I stuttered, pretending to admire the view, blinded by the blood pounding behind my eyes as my heart fought to keep up.
After half a minute Rolo stood up. ‘Enough rest, I go.’ And he did.
Fifteen minutes after leaving the ground we were at the top, a thousand-foot, six-pitch 5.6 rock climb below us. I swore I could see steam rising from Rolo’s Nikes when I reached him for my second lie-down.
‘I love it up here, it’s just so peaceful,’ he said, blue eyes shining, a breeze ruffling his raven hair, the sun burnishing his tanned cheekbones.
For a second I swore he was going to start singing.
I just knew he’d have a lovely voice but all I heard was the sound of my heart thumping.
‘I need sugar,’ I gasped. ‘And the toilet.’
Rolo laughed, thinking I had made a joke. ‘It’s a few more pitches along the ridge then an abseil and we can jog back to the car. It won’t take long,’ he said, as my eyes recovered their focus.
I didn’t doubt it.
Less than an hour after we left the house we were back. Ian sat at the computer, having barely started his writing.
‘No luck?’ he said without even turning to see my red face. ‘Maybe we can all go and do it tomorrow.’ Then he frowned. ‘By the way, I’ve just seen that someone has made the first winter ascent of the Grand Traverse. They say it’s been in perfect condition.’
We had to get back on the Diamond.
We slept in the car park, this time with three alarm clocks set, starting at stupid o’clock for the familiar walk in – zigzag, zigzag. We marched with earphones in listening to music, ignoring each other, oblivious to the wilderness. Ian was in front, saggy panted in my headtorch beam, my feet keeping time with his familiar quarter limp, like a pirate’s. We shared just one thought – to get up this bloody route.
At dawn, we reached the frozen lake, knackered already as we tramped across its middle. Then we gathered up the gear we’d left behind last time – and the time before that – and went up, zigzagging across the steep snow slope, zagging and zigging, dividing effort by time. How much of both had we given to this lump of rock? It wasn’t that appealing an objective or even that hard.
Why couldn’t we just come on holiday and have fun? Like normal people did.
Having reached our highpoint, we slowly worked up the snow slopes, passing the odd rocky step that barred our way, the effort becoming greater the higher we got as the air thinned.
Snow became soft sand in our tired minds.
Sand then turning to porridge.
Porridge became cement.
We slowed even more, or at least I did, while Ian – the altitude expert – plugged on.
‘I’m totally bollocksed,’ I shouted up at Ian’s arse, code for ‘I’m having another rest,’ knowing from experience that no rest would be long enough. All I could do was grit my teeth and move up.
The sky grew darker a few hundred feet from the top as storms clouds rolled in, wind and snow showers coming close behind.
This was the mountain’s endgame. We plod on and my mind starts to wander.
I think about how familiar we are with this struggle, fighting every instinct to just sit back and be normal, content to do all that brings us pleasure. Instead, we do the opposite. We are drawn to everything that brings us pain. Maybe we’re paying for something we did in a former life, or flagellating ourselves for some guilty secret. I thought about Kelly at home with Bronson, or Rolo at home with Beth, and wondered why they weren’t here. Where were all those good climbers? If they’re so bloody good, so bloody legendary, why weren’t they up here with us?
I had every excuse not to be here.
And yet here I was.
‘I’m really bollocksed now,’ I said to Ian’s arse again, the rope yanking me forward, every fibre of myself wanting to stop, wanting to have something to drink.
‘Yeah,’ said Ian, his answer open-ended, meaning either he was agreeing with me that I was indeed bollocksed, or that he too was knackered. Thankfully, his legs stopped moving and the rope stopped tugging, and in recognition of this fact I slumped down for a moment, one blissful moment, a moment worth all the effort required for its appreciation, a moment when all that becomes important is doing nothing.
To be still.
To be silent.
And thankful.
…
…
…
Nothing.
For a moment I find happiness.
Maybe that’s what this is all about, this alpine winter climbing, the hedonism of suffering, to know the value of things we take for granted: body heat, a peanut, even nothing itself.
I looked down at the lake far below and knew we’d be on top within an hour, and that the way down, which we knew was complex, would be tough, and long, and knackering, just like the way up; that we’d get lost, and would be half dead when we got back to the car park.
Half dead, but happily so.
Content with nothing at all.
Ian cleared his throat and spat into the snow, his minute warning. He was about to start again. Looking at him, I felt I had let Ian down on this trip. It wasn’t like the Dru or Mermoz, where there had been only us, only climbing. Now my mind was full of dead climbers, and full of myself. I was weighed down. I couldn’t keep up.
This was it for him and me.
I bent down and pretended to tighten my crampon strap, stalling for just one more minute.
Looking down the slope at our tracks, I wondered where we were going. I would have been content to remain slumped there forever. I guess that’s how people die doing this kind of thing. I always imagined you’d fight, always thought of people who just sat and died as being weak, but maybe it would be easy, if it felt like this.
Bliss.
…
I was giving up.
I couldn’t keep up with him anymore.
He was free.
…
Ian moved on.
I follow behind for the last time.
SIXTEEN
Post
I sat as usual in my tiny basement trying to write, trying to find a few hundred words about climbing gear for my column, trying to find a little magic in a dull piece of fabric or lightweight alloy.
Every day was pretty much the same in my life as a freelance writer: get up, get the kids up, take Ella to school, come home and look after Ewen until Jean the child-minder arrived, then go downstairs into the basement, sit in front of the computer and try to work.
It was like word constipation, day after day, just sitting there, attempting to write for High magazine or some other publication or website, struggling to force out the words. They never seemed to come easily.
Only with the approach of a deadline, and all its pressure, would the words start to flow, writing nothing for weeks only to bang out four thousand in a day. Most of it was crap, but I never missed a deadline, although my editor Geoff Birtles would have had a heart attack
if he’d realised how close I was.
Geoff, the editor of High magazine, was a well-known old-school climber. He always scared me a little, probably a good trait in an editor. He had a whole host of funny stories and quotable sayings. On the first day I met him, he said: ‘Andy, I’m a violent man, but…’ It was a good start.
Geoff was a mine of advice on most subjects, such as why you should only have two kids: ‘Because McDonald’s only has tables for four.’ He’d brought the house down at a slideshow given by Doug Scott, who had the tendency to disappear off on lengthy tangents. That night Doug had been talking about the seven summits, the highest peaks on the seven continents, which led his thoughts to a lengthy peroration on the number seven, which concluded: ‘the seven wonders of the world, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, the seven deadly sins…’ at which point Geoff shouted out: ‘Seven minutes till closing time!’ Everyone burst out laughing and made a dash for the exit.
When you’re working as a freelance writer there is always something better to be doing, with the biggest distraction being tea. A cup of tea is needed before each new chapter or article, and with each cup you need toast. The number of slices would increase in proportion to my boredom, thick white bread with marmalade and butter, maybe four slices, or more. I’d have a second helping if I found I still had tea left, although being lukewarm I’d probably make a fresh one, and have another four slices with that. The more I sat and ate and tried to work, the fatter and more frustrated I felt.
I’d discovered myself living a dream, making a go of it as a writer – me, with my stupid brain. Yet even though my words were full of climbing, summits and adventure, I’d never felt so far from these things, sat in that basement.
I missed working with the people at Outside, being immersed in climbing, even if it was often second-hand, listening to the stories or ambitions of customers, sharing and making plans. Working in a climbing shop in the heart of the Peak District was like being at the centre of a climbing universe. Now I felt banished to a distant star.
I also felt trapped, as anyone who’s worked for themselves will know, having the freedom to go climbing when the sun shone, but not, feeling too guilty, and so just sitting there trying to work. Most of all I just wanted to go climbing, so not being able to do it, while forced to think about it all day, was like some slow torture. It was driving me mad.
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