Psychovertical Read online

  ‘How do you know if this mouse beak’s any good?’ shouted Airlie as she tap-tapped on the tiny peg.

  ‘Just hit it really hard until it won’t come out,’ I shouted back unhelpfully.

  I wondered why I’d chosen to come here with these two. They were friends, and I’d guessed they had the right stuff. Esmond was a young champion athlete and Airlie Anderson was one the best female rock climbers in the UK. I’d realised that I’d become, and perhaps had always been, a die-hard optimist, and this optimism had spread to the abilities of others. Perhaps just as people had taken me under their wing: Dick Turnbull, Paul Tattersall and Andy Perkins. Now it was my time to do the same.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ said Airlie, as what sounded to me like crying drifted down.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, trying to remain patient.

  ‘I’m too slow.’

  ‘Well stop fucking crying and get a move on then.’

  That night it rained hard, the storm continuing into a dull and claggy morning, our portaledges and sleeping bags soaking up the rain. Things weren’t going to plan and, still close enough to the ground to tie our ropes together and escape, we found the draw of dry beds and showers too hard to resist. We abseiled off, leaving our bags and portaledges in place ready for better weather. I wasn’t sure if all of us would return to finish the route, the reality of which far outstripped the crazy dream we’d had in Sheffield.

  Staggering down through the dripping woods we found Airlie’s boyfriend Matt Dickinson, equally bedraggled, wandering up to meet us, having seen us retreating from the road. Matt was one of those immensely physical people you meet, seemingly pure muscle with nothing to spare. I thought he looked like Frankenstein’s climbing monster. He was well known for being a little bit extra. He once attempted to solo the North Face of the Eiger, only to break his leg near the start. Having no insurance, he dragged himself back to the train station and got all the way back to Leeds before seeing a doctor. He had also soloed the Bonatti Pillar above Chamonix, a route that had achieved a mystical quality, higher than even the Eiger, an ascent that singled Matt out as a pretty extraordinary and ballsy climber. I expect he would have done well in the SAS, but in fact he was a supply teacher in between climbing trips.

  He’d come to the valley intent on soloing the Nose of El Cap, but to me at least his technique seemed to be lacking a little, his only rope a length of 7-mm cord probably best employed as a clothes line. The difference between me and Matt was that I knew he could probably pull it off through sheer brute force and ignorance of a better way. When I’d asked him how he’d jumared up his rope when soloing the Bonatti Pillar, he just said, ‘I used my hands.’ He had an awesome self-confidence that he could simply hang on – a confidence I lacked, and so burdened myself with ropes and haul bags. Although I had begun as a rock climber, things seemed to have changed for me and it was no longer about the joy of climbing, as it was with Matt, but simply the struggle of it. In my heart I wasn’t a climber anymore, and people like Matt intimidated me a little, because I felt he could see through me. Perhaps that was why I was climbing with Es and Airlie?

  We walked down the track, Matt telling us that the storm would clear tomorrow and after one good day a second bigger front would pass through the valley. Matt had to leave for a guiding job in the Himalaya in a week, and it looked as if his hopes for climbing El Cap were as over as ours were if the weather didn’t improve.

  Standing beside the car, I felt the pressure to grasp something from the trip. The idea of coming all this way for nothing was unthinkable, and so in the time it took me to take off my rucksack I had formed a plan.

  ‘Why don’t we both go and climb El Cap in a day?’ I suggested to Matt. ‘We could set off at midnight tonight, and be at the top before the big storm hits?’

  ‘What route?’ asked Matt, helping Airlie with her haul bag.

  ‘Why don’t we try and climb Tangerine Trip?’ I said ‘It’s only had one one-day ascent – it’s super-steep and I’ve done the first four pitches and the last three when I soloed Aurora. It would go in a push.’

  ‘Yeah, that sounds good,’ said Matt, obviously not having a clue what a stupid idea this was, having no real knowledge of El Cap beyond the Nose.

  Airlie turned around and raised her eyebrows then let out a loud laugh as if to prove that we were crazy, and perhaps even relief that for the time being she was off the hook.

  Very often in my climbing life I’ve really questioned if I’m not mentally ill, something that seemed clearly obvious thirty-five hours later, as I clung to a greasy hold with my left hand, my left knee balanced on a smooth sloping shelf, searching for another hold in the dark, my only protection, a sky hook clipped at my feet. That conversation in the car park suddenly seemed ten thousand years ago.

  When we’d got back to Camp 4 the previous day, the inhabitants hiding under a carnival of tarps from the rain, I’d begun packing straight away. The Tangerine Trip is one of the steepest routes on El Cap, nineteen pitches long, with no ledges big enough to stand on from pitch two to pitch eighteen. A portaledge is vital, but having one would have slowed us down, and so I left it behind, thinking that without it, and with no chance of sleep, we’d have a big incentive to get to the top. Instead I threw in our wooden belay seat, a plank of wood with swing-like ropes attached to its corners, and a string hammock I’d bought from a garden centre. Our emergency gear was a single Gore-Tex bivy bag and a sleeping bag, which I guessed we could drape over us if we got to the summit in the dark. Matt supplied a bag of food, and I sorted out the rack, taking only the bare minimum. The space that was left in the haul bag was filled with warm clothes. I asked Matt what storm gear he had and he said he didn’t need any, just the red fleece he had on, telling me he had ‘excellent circulation’. This seemed typical of Matt, who it appeared went out of his way not to conform to the normal manner of doing anything, depending instead on bull-headed stubborn ness and grit; wearing jeans when climbing rather than stretchy fast-drying trousers, a heavy duty sailing jacket rather than a lightweight waterproof, a cotton sweatshirt rather than a fleece.

  ‘Matt, if we get in a storm up there it’s the most serious place on the planet, there’s no abseiling off, no rescue, you’ll fucking die if you’ve only got a fleece on.’ Matt didn’t agree, and seeing as he was still alive after countless epics I wondered if it was I who was being over-cautious. But being cautious had also kept me alive so far, so I just stuffed in some extra clothes for him instead. While packing, I had found that I had left behind my warm gloves, socks and trousers, plus some vital gear, like our long tent pole used as a cheater stick, in our bags on Zenyatta Mondatta. It was decided that Matt would jumar up our fixed ropes and get the gear, while I soloed the first pitches of The Trip.

  The rain stopped and I lay down in my tent and tried to get some sleep. Most speed ascents were made by local climbers who were well rested, and knowledgeable, having done several walls already that season. I on the other hand was just getting back into it, and was feeling neither fit nor fully confident. I thought about Matt, and how he really had no experience for this climb, having almost no knowledge of hauling or jumaring. A speed team needs to be just that, a team, whereas we were really just strangers. I had big doubts about this, but my burning ambition outweighed them, and something inside me was exhilarated by the stupidity of trying. It was as if I wanted to get into trouble.

  With midnight approaching I got up, having not slept, and rechecked all our gear. I asked to see Matt’s headtorch. Mine was super-bright, with a halogen bulb and plenty of juice in the batteries. Matt’s looked like he’d won it in a cracker, or got it free with a litre of petrol. ‘Have you got any spare batteries?’ I asked, to which Matt produced from his pocket some grubby-looking batteries that looked as though he’d found them down the side of a settee.

  It was too late to make a fuss.

  Walking back to the base had seemed odd, the woods and wall now silent. We talked a little, but
really our thoughts were only of the climb. The best things were the light haul bag on my back, one day’s food and water, two ropes and a minimum of gear. I could see the appeal of trying to climb big walls in a day.

  Now, nearly twenty-four hours later, I could think of nothing worse or more stupid than pitting myself against a route such as this with so little gear, sleep or talent, stuck on one knee, barely holding on, knowing Matt was sat below, probably asleep, and we weren’t even half way up the wall.

  I reached up again and tried to find the right hold, any hold, but there was nothing. I had to be off-route. I searched around with my right foot for the aider I had stepped off, the one attached to the skyhook, feeling my knee sliding, the waterproof trousers offering almost zero friction on the glassy granite. I searched harder, trying not to knock the hook off in the process, knowing the next gear was about ten feet below, just an old bent rivet. I tried to control my breathing, and focus, but it was no good, I knew I was about to fall. The worst kind of fall there is.

  ‘Watch me, Matt,’ I shouted. ‘Watch m …’

  And I fell off.

  It had been a disaster from the start.

  I had soloed the first pitch while Matt went off to jumar the ropes, but on reaching the first belay there was still no sign of him, and so, using what rope I had left, I began up the next pitch. I ran out of rope and hung there waiting, worrying that he might have fallen off in the dark. I thought about the reality of him dying; finding his body, telling Airlie and his parents he was dead. Had I asked him if he could jumar?

  Then I heard a commotion in the trees below.

  ‘Matt is that you?’ I shouted down.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, sounding a bit flustered.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘My headtorch stopped working, so I couldn’t find any of your gear,’ he shouted back, ‘I’m looking for something to use as a cheater stick.’

  ‘Well, unless you can find a folding collapsible stick that’s twenty feet long, don’t bother,’ I said coldly.

  I felt mad with Matt, knowing that a stick wouldn’t do, and having only shorts, no socks, gloves or trousers, it would be foolish to carry on. It was already nearly 2 a.m., and our time was running out. It was obvious that we should call it off and go down to our beds.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Matt shouted up, climbing language for, ‘I don’t want to do it anymore.’

  This could well be my last chance to climb a route for many months. I’d spent most of my money on the trip and I knew once down, I’d regret not at least trying. The only problem was this was a Yoda kind of route, where there could be no ‘try’, only ‘do’.

  ‘Just jumar up,’ I shouted. ‘We need to get a move on.’

  And so after a full day’s climbing, going as fast as we could, but not fast enough, I had climbed into a dead end and was now falling.

  I probably would have screamed, but before I could, I came to a jarring halt a metre below. The skyhook, no bigger than the tip of a pencil, had held me.

  I tried to be sick.

  I knew I had given all I could today, and so, climbing back down to the last rivet, I abseiled down to Matt, who sat slumped in the belay seat, his head resting on the wall, uninterested in me or in life in general.

  ‘I need some sleep,’ I said, clipping myself to the belay, suddenly feeling the exhaustion, and the chance of rest, robbing me of the last of my energy. With no portaledge we tossed a coin to see who would get the hammock, but the coin slipped from my hand and fell into the night, so it went to Matt.

  I had barely seen Matt since we started climbing. Employing a technique called short-roping, on reaching the belay I would immediately start up the next pitch on what was left of the rope, with Matt jumaring up behind as fast as he could.

  Usually climbing a wall is a great way to get to know someone, but this wasn’t. We just tried to make ourselves as comfortable as possible.

  I got the sleeping bag and pulled it around my shoulders as I shuffled on the belay seat, wrapping a sling around my back to stop me falling off in the night, my helmet my only pillow. It was the equivalent of sleeping sitting on a swing.

  I hadn’t eaten anything since leaving Camp 4, and with my stomach churning, and feeling nauseous with hunger, I asked Matt to pass me the food sack I’d seen him stash in the haul bag, the only thing I’d asked him to bring. Taking it from the hammock, I opened it to find it didn’t contain the cheese and bagels I’d been expecting, only a single glass jar of salsa.

  ‘I brought some chocolate as well,’ said Matt sheepishly, his menu obviously designed for a very short ascent.

  ‘Where is it?’ I asked, thinking that it would at least raise my zero blood sugar level.

  ‘I ate it when I was belaying.’

  We woke feeling like tramps, groaning and rubbing ourselves in the first grey light of morning. I looked up at Matt, looking like a shipwrecked pirate in his hammock, washed up on El Cap. ‘Don’t worry Matt,’ I said, as I began clipping the rack back on, breakfast nothing more than cold air, ‘we just need to get to the last couple of pitches in the light and the rest will be easy, in fact I can climb it with my hands in my pockets.’ Matt looked down at me, his helmet askew, no doubt wondering where my confidence came from – not knowing that all I had was words, as clouds rolled down the valley.

  The day progressed faster than we did.

  Half way up a pitch I shouted, ‘Send up the rest of the pegs,’ to Matt, who hung below me from two bolts, hauling up the bag.

  ‘What pegs?’ he replied.

  It turned out that Matt hadn’t realised that I had been placing pegs, and so had neglected to remove them as he followed. Added to this, although I’d shown him the correct way to remove a cam when jumaring, he had chosen just to pull on them as hard as he could, which had broken a couple. I began to think he was an idiot, forgetting that learning to climb big walls had taken me many years, and I was expecting Matt to pick it up in a day. It was I who was the idiot.

  All day the storm grew, rain turning to snow. Luckily the steepness that trapped us also offered protection, the snow falling metres away. It felt as if we were climbing under glass.

  I convinced myself we could make it to the top, but darkness came again with the summit still out of reach, and with it came paranoia. Every placement became a time bomb, every crack expanding, every flake loose. I hadn’t slept properly for three days, and my mind was crumbling. I could hear whispers, and my body was acting strangely, sharp pains in my stomach, flashes of light when my eyes moved quickly, and hands that closed involuntarily when I stretched out my arms to place gear.

  Feeling beyond wasted at midnight, I knew we had to do the unthinkable and bivy once more, our speed ascent crashing into a third day. Matt jumared up silently, while I hauled apathetically, feeling guilty for suggesting such a stupid idea. Matt never said a word.

  This time there were no tossed coins, and Matt got the hammock, which he had to sit in above me, as both anchors were too close together for him to string it out to sleep. He wrapped himself up in the bivy sack, wearing most of the clothes I’d stuffed into the haul bag, a new item going on for each pitch climbed.

  My arse was sore from the night before, but exhaustion is a fine painkiller, beating even my hunger for attention, as wrapped in slings, my feet balanced on the haul bag, I dropped into a pool of sleep in an instant, thinking that nothing could ever beat this night for its discomfort, but waking a little while later to find I had been wrong. Matt’s string hammock had stretched until his whole weight was pressing down on me, forcing my head against El Cap.

  ‘Matt,’ I shouted, ‘You’re sitting on my head.’ All I heard were snores in reply. I felt like sobbing, but it would have required too much energy, and so, too tired to do anything else, I closed my eyes and went into a long period of waking and sleeping, pain on top of pain.

  We woke in a cloud, thick mist everywhere, a light wind whistling snow flakes around us. My head throbbed an
d I felt sick as Matt got his weight off my head and began gearing up to leave. I wondered why no one had called out the mountain rescue, seeing as we were two days late.

  Airlie and Es had in fact been to the Yosemite search and rescue and had been told we’d be OK and would just have to sit it out in our portaledge. They didn’t tell them we didn’t have one. They had come down to the meadow, where people had gathered to check on loved ones sitting out the storm, and found we were the star attraction, binoculars and spotting scopes trained on us through gaps in the clouds. ‘Look at those crazy Russians climbing through the storm,’ someone had said.

  It was late afternoon when we got to the vertical section of the wall. The overhanging world below, with its dry cold drop, was replaced within a few moves by waterfalls and snow. Matt belayed me as I set off up the third-to-last pitch, water draining directly onto him, and pushing him close to hypothermia. Although we were bound together it was every man for himself now when it came to staying alive, and as I moved away up a rivet ladder I saw him doing sit-ups on the belay seat, singing ‘One man went to mow,’ over and over again. I also got soaking wet, water rushing down my sleeves each time I lifted my arms up, my shoes filling with icy water, my legs burning with the cold wind, with only my waterproof trousers to keep them warm.

  I looked down as I climbed. The wall barrelled away into the clouds, the snow whizzing past, mixed with torrents of water drifting from the summit. Perhaps it was malnutrition, but I stopped to take a photo, thinking, for the first time since I’d started, how amazing this was.

  With relief I got to the second-to-last pitch, and waited shivering while Matt came up, sleet piling up on my shoulders, my fingers wrapped around my neck for warmth. I could feel my body temperature dropping by the second, every gram of clothing soaked through, forcing me to draw on everything I had learnt in order to stave off the debilitating cold. I began tensing my muscles as hard as I could until they cramped. If either of us succumbed we would die up here in a matter of hours. We wouldn’t be the first.