Psychovertical Read online

  But you can bear it, every day it gets less and less. This is what you’ve always wanted. This is what that life feels like. A life of only climbing. Alone. Scared. Just as uncertain as you would be sitting at home.

  I prepared my gear as I had done every morning, methodically and with care, making sure nothing was left behind. I reset the belay, triple checking every knot and karabiner. I checked my now tatty topo, even though the way ahead was obvious.

  A pillar sprouted up an open-book corner for several metres above the ledge, seemingly devoid of good placements, until it petered out and the corner carried on, blank and smooth. At some point there I would have to move left, out onto the face. One of the second ascensionists had described this pitch as unjustifiable. Any fall would send the leader down onto this very ledge. The lack of any visible protection worried me. Perhaps this pitch was too hard, too scary.

  You can only try.

  The sun began to lighten the sky.

  I felt too sick to eat breakfast, thinking with melancholy that if I were to die I wouldn’t mind doing it on an empty stomach, and if I lived and climbed the pitch, I wouldn’t really care.

  I slipped on my clothes, shoes and harness, feeling my bruises complain as I cinched down the leg loops and waist belt.

  I attached my lead rope to my heaviest haul bag rather than directly to the bolts, so that the bag would act as a counter weight. If I fell, the weight of my body would lift it off the ledge, thus reducing my impact force.

  I had nothing left to do. I started climbing.

  I broke the climb down into the main parts I could see from my position – pillar, corner, traverse – then broke each down into its individual moves. I began with skyhooks and crept up, fingering each edge for the optimum placement. An image came into my mind – of a story a friend had told of seeing a climber fall onto a ledge, smashing his feet, both ankles at right angles, bones sticking out of his shins, blood everywhere.

  Don’t think about that you idiot! Focus or you will fall.

  I took my time and soon reached the top of the pillar where, to my surprise, I found a small flared crack into which I slotted an equally small brass nut, clipping it with relief. It was my first real protection. I felt as if I was getting one over on the pitch and El Cap. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  On a hard lead I often visualise my very own ‘fearometer’, a device in my head used to judge just how hard the climbing is. Each marginal piece of protection inches the needle round the dial, pushing it towards the red, until a bomber piece is found, at which point the needle slowly goes back to zero. The more climbing you do, the greater the range and sensitivity of the fearometer, with moves that would once have pushed you instantly into the red, such as hanging from a skyhook, not even producing a flutter.

  The problem with the fearometer, however, is that it doesn’t measure anything but self-delusion, as simply being on a big wall would push most people into the red. In reality, this wire would be viewed anywhere else as marginal, yet here even marginal protection becomes bombproof, and bad protection becomes good enough.

  I clipped my aiders in and moved up.

  The pitch went on like this, with each metre surrendering more tiny finds, places to sneak micronuts, birdbeaks and copperheads. I moved slowly, as I knew that the pitch was graded A4+, translated as ‘If you fall, you die for sure.’

  The terrain began to change as I traversed a long way on just skyhooks. The ledge disappeared out of sight and mind, only to be replaced by big exposure. The ground above a shallow seam sprouted the odd fixed copperhead.

  One piece at a time.

  I moved very gingerly, again and again, first on hooks, carefully placed, then on heads.

  Take your time.

  The sun beat down. I drank some water. Time passed.

  Think no further than this.

  Tiredness began to take hold of me, making me sloppy; low blood sugar increased my anxiety. Each placement seemed worse than the last. My fearometer crept up. I reached a fixed piece of gear, a copperhead made from a lead fishing weight, the softer lead allowing it to be smeared better against the rock. The downside was its lower than normal strength. The wire that had once passed through the head was missing, probably ripped out while being cleaned. I thought about hooking the top of it, but I feared I might prise it out.

  You can’t afford to fall.

  I thought about cleaning it out of the placement, but I wasn’t sure I could place it any better. The next possible placement was a long way above, and I would have had to step very high on this one to reach it. Be creative. I pulled out a birdbeak and hammered it straight into the lead, the tip sinking in as if it were cheese. Each tap of the hammer, each millimetre further it slid in, the further my fearometer began to slip back. I gave it one last tap.

  The head split in half, toppled out of the crack, and fell into space.

  The needle shot back round, nearly to the red.

  Hours passed.

  I began tying two or three placements together – a skyhook and two copperheads – hoping that bunched on the same sling they might hold a fall. I clipped as many pieces as I could with shock-absorbing ripper slings, long slings sewn together with zig-zag stitching and designed to rip apart and so reduce the impact force. I knew it was all junk, but it was all I could do to keep the needle out of the red.

  Three hours into the lead, I was hanging from a tiny copperhead. I thought I was about to snap, the pressure of keeping a lid on my fear too much to bear. I felt shell-shocked and unable to push myself any further. The needle was in the red.

  Calm down.

  I hung from the piece, knowing there was no escape, no rescue, but unable to move.

  Keep going.

  I pressed my head against the rock, feeling that I was about to fall at any second, already hearing the sound, feeling the sick weightlessness, seeing the blur of the wall passing before me as I dropped into space.

  Move!

  I can’t.

  One more move.

  I was simply too scared.

  An hour later I still hung in the same position. I still hadn’t fallen. The needle of the fearometer was slipping slowly back, just out of the red. The moment had passed. I stepped up high and placed another head.

  You’ll be at the belay in an hour or two.

  The hammer felt slippery with sweat and heavy in my hand. I had to concentrate on each blow to make it perfect, pasting the head into every crystal of granite.

  Get to the belay and you can just go back to Wino Ledge and spend the night there. You don’t have to clean and haul today.

  I unclipped my rack to place a second head next to the first but, as I looked for the correct size, I fumbled the karabiner. The rack dropped between my feet and spun down the wall, taking most of my heads with it.

  FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.

  You’re screwed.

  I pressed my head against the wall again, then looked up at the last stretch. I had maybe ten more metres to go. My few remaining heads were in my haul bag below. They might as well have been in my cupboard at home.

  Maybe you can still put it all together. Keep going.

  The pitch stretched on and on, without copperheads, each placement requiring more thought. Luckily there were still the remains of old copperheads left in place, ‘deadheads’, the wire ripped out of them, either through a fall or while attempting to clean them. I had a few birdbeaks left and tapped them into the tops of some of the heads, telling myself that if the wires ripped out, then the head would still be solid. I hooked others.

  I was trying to find the balance between haste and speed, between blind fear and useful paranoia. Never in my life had I concentrated so hard for so long. Yet the pitch still seemed unending.

  Just keep moving up – one piece at a time.

  Almost all my karabiners, slings and beaks were used up. The pitch was taking me to the very limit of my sixty metres of rope, but the belay was getting closer
and closer, out on the wall to my left. Two beautiful bolts.

  You could hang the world off them.

  Yet seeing them only made it seem more desperate; the nearer they got, the worse the gear became. The copperheads were smaller and smaller. Many of those that were still intact had rusting and corroded wires.

  I would have paid any price for one solid wire or cam.

  I looked down and tried to work out how far below the last really good piece of gear had been. I couldn’t even remember it.

  You’re going to fall 400 feet if you fuck up.

  I won’t fuck up, then.

  I crept on. The bolts were getting nearer. I imagined the sound of my karabiner gate clicking shut on one of them, that euphoria of relief, knowing I was safe, and had climbed the most difficult pitch of my life.

  I was so close now.

  I shook the thought away.

  Stay with the moment.

  I wasn’t there yet.

  I reached a small roof, under which I had to traverse. The bolts were no more than ten feet to my right. I looked for the next placement and spied a minute copperhead, the smallest I’d ever seen, its cable still intact but only the thickness of a guitar string.

  I wanted this to be over. I was too tired to be afraid any more, resigned to whatever fate would bring. I knew I should test the copperhead, but it was so small that surely it would pull out – and what then?

  I had nothing to replace it.

  I reached up and just clipped it. My karabiner looked heavy enough to pull it out.

  Just be quick.

  Breaking the number-one rule I’d set myself from the start, I chose not to test it.

  Heart in my mouth, I transferred my weight from the poor piece below, to this worse piece above.

  Quickly!

  My whole world hung from a small length of steel cable swagged to a lump of alloy, a one-dollar copperhead.

  It held.

  I looked at it and marvelled at how such a device could possibly hold anyone’s weight.

  The answer came in an instant. With a roller-coaster lurch in my chest the copperhead ripped out.

  You’re falling.

  Time slowed.

  For the first twenty feet I felt weightless, my mind shocked, surprised, my brain trying to compute if I really was falling.

  The rope, stretching sixty metres – from me, through dozens of karabiners, all the way back to my haul bags – began to be pulled tight, stretching, trying to catch me.

  You’re falling.

  I felt the rope go tight for a second, my body not yet at terminal velocity. It stretched out, trying to spread the force of me, trying to make my load bearable on the top copperhead.

  Time slowed some more.

  You’re still falling.

  I felt the rope stretch out. Each millionth of a second it continued to hold me would further increase the chance of it saving me. Was it too much to ask? I knew it was.

  The first piece ripped. The second piece ripped. The third piece ripped.

  I felt it through the rope, hopeless; the gear felt as strong as Blu-Tack.

  The fourth piece ripped. The fifth piece ripped. The sixth piece ripped.

  My body gathered speed. Twenty, fifty, a hundred feet of rock sped past.

  Time could no longer be held back, and rushed in. I could hear the sounds of my body spinning down, gear jangling, a long-drawn-out moan of exhaled breath from deep within me.

  You’re falling.

  The seventh piece ripped. The eighth piece ripped. The ninth piece ripped.

  I fell. I fell on. I fell so far I thought I would never stop. A hundred and twenty, a hundred and forty feet. On and on.

  You’re not stopping.

  You’re going to hit the ledge.

  You’re going to go further than the ledge.

  The rope’s snapped?

  There was no fear. Fear was knowing you could fall. Now I was spinning through the air there was only … expectation.

  You’re going to die!

  It doesn’t matter.

  One hundred and fifty feet.

  I stopped.

  A piece had held. A crappy, rusty and corroded copperhead the size of my little finger had plucked me back into the world.

  Everything was spinning.

  I hung there for a second, then screamed out loud.

  Why are you screaming?

  I don’t know, I’ve just fallen a fucking mile!

  No one can hear you.

  I hung there in space for a long time. It was all I could do. All I could do. The worst had happened and I was OK. I had been lucky. I savoured the feeling of security, knowing I was hanging on a good piece of gear.

  You know you have to go back up and do that all again?

  Yes. I can do it.

  I clipped in my jumars and started back up the rope.

  Mad youth

  Chamonix, France. February 2000

  ESMOND TRESIDDER WAS eighteen, almost an alpine virgin, when we ran into each other in Chamonix. I was heading back with Rich Cross from a winter attempt on a route on the Grand Capucin, a needle of rock just below Mont Blanc. As usual I’d had big plans for that winter, but Rich had frostbitten his toes before I’d even arrived on the North Face of the Jorasses and couldn’t climb ice. The vibrations caused by kicking were too painful for his toes to bear. We’d had to have a rethink.

  The Capucin offered us the chance to suffer without the need to kick, and to climb in a wild spot in the Massif, but after two super-cold nights on the face, we retreated due to the slowness of the climbing. It was difficult to climb hard rock moves in thick gloves and clunky plastic boots. We wanted to practise for a planned trip to Patagonia that summer, but only fools practise suffering. As we skied down the Vallée Blanche, the sense of relief at heading back to a warmer world and food was gradually submerged beneath a familiar depression. I had one week of holiday left; I had to climb something hard before another year of work set in.

  We bumped into Es in the town centre as we carried our gear home. He looked like a schoolkid who’d slipped away from his teachers, appearing more like a fifteen-year-old with his painfully skinny frame and schoolboy haircut.

  I knew Es well, as he’d worked at Outside in the summer before going to Edinburgh University. No doubt he was here due to my raving about alpine winter climbing all summer long.

  I’d interviewed him in the spring for the job, and, although he was a typical 18-year-old, socially awkward, shy, the side of the brain that made people spark and zap still undeveloped, you could tell he was super-keen. He was a champion fell runner, would often cycle fifty miles to work, and really wanted to improve his climbing, going out on the rock at any opportunity. I told him that working in a climbing shop was easy, but low-paid, but that as a climber he would blossom, and no doubt do things he would never have dreamed of as he would often be working with much better climbers. I suppose I wanted to say to him the things I had wanted older people to say to me.

  Walking back to the flat where we were staying, Rich hobbling along behind us, I talked to Es and started to form a plan, a way to salvage something from this trip. Rich was happy just to go skiing for the rest of his time, training for the guides’ exam he planned to do next winter. I, however, wanted to climb something hard, something harder than I could solo, and so I needed a partner.

  Climbers interested in spending multiple nights on a face in winter are thin on the ground. They are a rare breed, and most of those who would say yes are also the type of climber I wouldn’t want to climb with. Basically, if you want the job, then you can’t have it.

  The alternative was to find someone who had no idea what he was in for, and was young and innocent enough to sign on, someone you knew had it in him, only he didn’t realise it yet. He would be along for the ride, with me leading everything, and he’d be belaying and seconding. A perfect symbiotic relationship: I couldn’t climb without him and vice versa.

  As we walked up the s
tairs to the flat, kicking the snow off our boots, I asked Es if he fancied doing a route with me. He was here to do some easy valley ice climbs, two-pitch pure ice routes which you could get to in an hour and be home again for tea. I was going to suggest something a little harder.

  The route I had in mind was called The Maria Callas Memorial route, a kilometre-high mixed climb on my old favourite, the North Face of Les Droites. The route had yet to have a second ascent, and had been put up by three German hard men a few years ago. I’m not sure why I wanted to climb it, but it was probably because it looked like one of the hardest routes in the guidebook – and I sort of liked the name.

  On paper, or in the mind of any sane climber, taking a novice on such a route was crazy: 700 metres of steep ice capped by a 200-metre vertical wall of tough free and aid climbing, followed by a final 100-metre ice slope. It was madness, but it would be amazing if we could pull it off. I had soloed the first part and knew that it would be OK for a strong novice like Es, and I would lead the top section, with him jumaring up behind me as I went. I doubted he knew how to jumar up a rope, but I guessed if he was doing a degree he must be clever enough to work it out, even if that degree was in environmental science.

  The route would take two days, the first spent climbing the ice slope, the second negotiating the rock shield to the summit. We would have to sleep tied to ice screws on seats we had cut out of the ice and maybe we’d sleep on the knife-edge summit. In alpine north face terms it would be a short outing.

  I asked him over a beer.

  ‘That sounds great,’ said Es immediately. He had no idea what the words really meant, but the mad glint of youth in his eyes was enough for me to know he had what it would take.

  Something was wrong. I was sitting bent over, pushed over, unsure for a second where I was. Pinned in place, I was finding it hard to breathe. Something was moving over me like sand, building up behind me, trying to shove me off. My feet thrashed around in my sleeping bag, but I could find only smooth ice, nothing to push against …

  I woke up. There was a roaring all around and snow really was pouring down over me, building up behind my back and prising me off the mountain. It was a full-on storm, and I wondered if the anchors would hold against the strain.