Psychovertical Page 6
A very brave man
Pitch 1 New Dawn
I CARRIED MY first load up to the base of the wall in the cool of pre-dawn. The approach was short, a few hundred metres of track leading through forest to the base of El Cap, then up some zig-zagging paths to the bottom of the Dawn Wall.
I walked slowly, picking out the track with my headtorch which cast scary shadows from the bushes and trees as I twisted the beam around, looking for black bears.
One of the most amazing things about El Cap is the way it simply shoots out of the ground without any warning, like Jack’s beanstalk, rocketing out of the earth and up into the clouds. In the dark you simply bump into it, its grey granite base looking just like a skyscraper of rock, smoother and more perfect than any concrete. Walking along its base, crushed under the weight of a haul bag, hand brushing the rock both to aid balance and because doing so proved it was real, it was only when you spotted an iron deposit or band of black diorite that you would guess this was a natural feature.
I don’t believe in God, and intelligent design is only for those who know nothing about either, but when I stand beneath El Cap I always have second thoughts. How could nature be so brash and showy? And if there is a God, he must be American, or the road wouldn’t be so close to this glorious wall.
My thighs bulged and strained under the load, the weight causing me to move in a slow painful lurch, using the odd rock or tree stump to help me rest and catch my breath, bag balanced. The weight of what I had brought from England had doubled with a twenty-day supply of water – thirty-two litres in plastic lemonade bottles – plus my food, comprising tins of stew, bagels, cheese, cans of Coke and tortillas. Strangely, although I had plenty of water, I probably only had ten days’ food, even though I knew Thomas Humar, one of the best climbers in the world, had taken fourteen days to solo the route in 1998. Maybe subconsciously I knew that being thin would be an asset on such a route, where an extra gram of fat could mean the difference between life and death.
El Cap is one of the biggest ticks for climbers. There were always half a dozen on the wall, and already I could see the odd headtorch springing to life, as climbers woke on portaledges and began preparing to climb as soon as the sun appeared; those at the top were keener to get going than those lower down who still had days to go.
Here and there the base of the wall smelt of toilets, the sign that a ‘shit bag’ lay nearby, tossed by a team in the last week or so and still not collected or desiccated by the sun. In the past, climbers would collect paper grocery bags from the valley store, crap in them and throw them off the wall. The idea was that, once down, the team would return to collect their shit bags, but many were less than diligent. In order to stop this, it was now the law that climbers must bag up their crap and carry it up and then down the wall, generally in a home-made plastic ‘shit-tube’ constructed from a drain pipe. Unfortunately, many climbers found this too grim a job, and so still preferred to toss their bags. However, most felt guilty enough to come back and pick them up. I often wondered if the rangers could dust for prints in order to discover who didn’t.
There had also been a fad a few years ago to set fire to one’s shit bag, creating a ‘flaming shit ball’ and adding a pyrotechnic edge to the throwing experience.
Of course, the downside of neatly packed excreta was being struck by them while climbing or lying in your sleeping bag. Dawn and dusk were always times to keep your eye out for falling faeces. Luckily I’d only had one close call, when a bag had struck my belay and covered my radio in shit. Fortunately, I had a roll of gaffer tape, which I used to cover the offending areas.
My feet stabbed into the talus as I grew close to the start of the Reticent, sweat already running down my face and back, the burden made worse because I knew I had two more loads to carry up before I would have all my gear in place. I seemed to have spent a great deal of my time carrying haul bags up and down this path, and I passed a few minutes trying to work out just how many that had been, and a rough estimate of the total weight. I wondered if carrying Ella on my shoulders was good training, and tried to imagine the straps that dug into my shoulders were her bouncing legs.
Can you remember being on your dad’s shoulders?
I also kept an eye on the ground for wall booty, gear dropped by climbers above. I once met a climber who braved the rain of shit bags by living at the base of the wall, claiming that everything a man could ever want fell there: food, climbing gear, water, even the odd wallet, sleeping bag and fully packed haul bag. He said all you needed was to pray for it, and the next day it would appear. This high-risk but lonely life seemed to work for him, and he lived there for years, until a female base jumper smashed into the ground from half a mile up after her parachute failed to open. After that he moved on. I suppose you have to be careful what you wish for.
I smeared up the final slab to the base of the wall just as the first rays of the sun struck the summit overhangs three thousand feet above me, giving this area of El Cap its name: the Dawn Wall. It would soon be roasting down here, but I rested my bag on an old dead tree and marvelled as the wall lit up.
You’ll be up there soon enough.
All big routes are primarily about logistics, carrying heavy gear around, and waiting; but soon all that would be over and the climb would begin. The beauty for me of big-wall climbing is that the moment you step from the ground, your life is suspended – in every sense of the word – with days or weeks of honest hard work, the bizarre joy of struggle, the escapism. Up high, there would be no bills to pay, no emotional demands, no distractions, only climbing, dawn till dusk, and the reward of seeing the sun set at the end of the day.
This was why I was there. I needed to escape from normality. To leave the din of my life, leave my thoughts and troubles behind. The only thing that always seemed to be simple was this piece of rock.
You know you can’t escape.
You have to come back down sometime.
Unless …
I looked up again. The sun had moved down the wall a few more metres, making slow progress, each minute illuminating more and more of the route, the fearsome and feared Reticent Wall.
The Reticent was climbed in 1995 by Americans Steve Gerberding, Lori Reddel and Scott Stowe, and was immediately hailed as the hardest big wall in the world: fourteen of the most dangerous and difficult pitches possible, climbed from a feature called Lay Lady Ledge six pitches up the wall. This title of super-route came primarily from the fact that Gerberding proclaimed it his hardest route, something people took notice of, given his 100 ascents of El Cap, including almost all its hardest routes, in addition to big walls that stretched from Patagonia to the Himalayas. Gerberding was the strong silent type; he had no need to impress. So when he said it was hard we believed him.
The route began with six easy existing pitches, put up in 1975, before branching off at Lay Lady Ledge. From there it took a direct line up the Dawn Wall, the longest and steepest section of El Cap.
This route had acquired mythical status from the start. The second ascent only added to this myth, with tales of ‘death falls’ and pitches that were so dangerous they were ‘unjustifiable’. Each pitch had been at the very limit of what was possible, connecting up minute and fragile features, stretching the rope out in order to drill the least number of bolts. This meant that huge falls threatened on most pitches, with many other dangers lurking: sharp flakes; loose rock; ledges ready to kill or maim the unlucky.
It was said that if you fell, you died. It was ‘Pringles’ climbing: once you pop you don’t stop.
You won’t fall.
I pulled out the paper topo I had for the climb, a simple map of lines and crosses that showed me where the route went. Today I would climb the first easy pitch, abseil down, and come back tomorrow with another load and do a further pitch. This would give me a little more time to psych myself up before committing to the route.
I carried on, reached the base of the route, and took off my haul bag. As I set it
down, I noticed I wasn’t alone. Two climbers were already sorting out gear a few metres away. I said hello and they nodded back, as two more climbers appeared up the trail behind me, also carrying giant haul bags.
So much for solitude.
One of the climbers walking up shouted what sounded like orders in Russian, and the two climbers on the ledge speeded up their gear sorting.
It was obvious they also had plans to climb the Reticent Wall.
Russian teams often have clearly defined roles, with an overall leader, deputy, cleaner, etc., each person given their own job to do. Unlike Western climbers, who share all the tasks – taking turns leading, hauling gear, and cleaning the gear out of the pitches – the Russian system works on putting the strongest climbers up front. The best climber does all the leading, the strongest the hauling, the one with the highest boredom threshold the belaying. It may seem strange to a Western climber, but there is a lot to be said for applying the strongest elements to the task at hand, with the ultimate goal of success coming before the individual’s desire to shine.
The leader of the team was older and stockier than the rest, with grey hair and hairy shoulders. Stripping off, he revealed a red 70s-style body-building vest, making him look like an old Soviet Olympic coach. He came over to introduce himself. His name was Seregin, and his team was from Leningrad. I’d heard about these guys, that they’d been travelling around the world ticking off big walls, often with new routes. They looked strong and capable, and seemed to have a jovial and humorous way to them. I had no doubt they were the real deal.
‘Tell me,’ Seregin asked, ‘what do you climb?’
‘The Reticent,’ I replied, almost embarrassed, as I pulled out my ropes and uncoiled them, dropping karabiners into neat piles at my feet.
Ah yes, we also do Reticent … but tell me, where is your friend?’
‘I have no friend, I’m going to solo it,’ I said, the words seeming preposterous as they passed my lips.
The man raised his eyebrows. ‘You are very brave,’ he said before saying something in Russian to the other climbers, at which they all laughed.
He turned back to me. ‘I have soloed many climbs, and scaled many difficult walls, but I would not dare solo the Reticent Wall. You are very brave.’
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I just don’t have any stupid friends.’
The leader introduced the rest of the team, and told me that they would be leaving tomorrow, their ropes already fixed almost up to Lay Lady Ledge, six pitches higher. I asked him about himself and Russian climbing, and he told me that for twenty years he’d been a quantum physicist, but now he owned a Mercedes dealership.
I liked the Russians and part of me wished I could go with them. It would be fun. However, I knew that even if they offered, I would turn them down. Although the route terrified me I had to do the whole climb myself. I wanted it all. All the rewards and all the suffering.
Life’s too short to have fun.
The Russians would be much faster than me, and we joked that I would still be halfway up the wall when they were back down in the bar celebrating, but they promised to leave me presents on the route. It was the Russian way.
‘In a few hours,’ said Seregin, ‘we go up to Lay Lady Ledge and camp before Reticent. We have barbecue. You are welcome.’
I tried to imagine a Russian barbecue: visions of potatoes turning black while the cook lay on the ground with a bottle of vodka.
‘Thank you – that would be nice,’ I accepted, and carried on unpacking.
We worked together, both teams, their team of four and my team of one, silent apart from the odd question and command, until the Russians disappeared up their ropes, fixing their way up to Lay Lady Ledge.
Are you brave?
I thought about the word. Is it brave to attempt something against all the odds, something you view as being beyond you, yet you try anyway?
Are you just deluded?
Half my water bottles stood in a line against the wall, food in bags sat beside my climbing gear, ropes stacked in buckets were ready to be fed out as I climbed. I put on my harness, rock boots and helmet, and started clipping in my gear and readying myself to climb the first pitch.
Everything was done. Now I could start to climb.
I pushed my sweaty hands into the chalk bag clipped to the back of my harness, wiped off the excess and placed both hands on the rock. The orange and yellow light high on the wall had now made it past the overhangs and was rolling down to where I figured the crux would be.
Will you make it that far?
Most climbs, even the Reticent, where every pitch was said to be harder than anything else on El Cap, have a crux, a pitch you know is harder and more dangerous than the rest. On some routes this could just mean the risk of a big fall, while on the harder routes it could involve easy climbing but on loose features that could snap off and either crush you or chop your rope.
The Reticent crux involved all these things, with the added worry of taking place above a large ledge: hard climbing on loose rock above a death ledge that would smash any falling climber to pieces. No route is assured until you stand on the top, but only when the crux is finished are you really able to believe you can make it and relax. Before that time, the crux is always at the back of your mind and, no matter how well you’re climbing, you never relax until it’s been completed. The worst thing about this route was the knowledge that its crux came on the last day, pitch thirteen. It would be a real bummer to fall and die on the last day of such a route, especially having taken weeks to get there.
Think how good you’ll feel if you get that far.
The reality, even on the Reticent, is that, irrespective of where the crux is marked on the topo, the first pitch, the first move, is always the hardest.
I started climbing.
Windows
I CURSED HAVING a broken window beside my bed. All winter long a cold draught blew over me, flapping the brown parcel tape I used to attempt a repair of its fractures before the whole lot fell into the back yard below.
My room was really no room at all. It was a corridor, one wall simply a curtain, the rest hung with my paintings, the paper slowly curling in the damp. I was nineteen, and unemployed. Although far from perfect, this was the first space of my own, a ramshackle squat close to Hull University.
We never knew who owned the flat, and I had moved in as others moved out, the usual hot-bunking you find in squats. For some reason, no one ever came looking for rent, and no bills or final demands ever dropped on the mat. The only gas we used was for frying up chips, our only diet, cut from potatoes bought in a fifty-pound sack once a month for a few quid. I wonder why we never got scurvy.
I lived there with my friend Wayne, and whoever was sleeping on the dirty settees or on the ashtray floor at the time. Life was simple – and wonderfully grim. There were no real jobs at the time, well no real jobs you would risk dropping off the dole for, only picking turnips or packing fish fingers. All we lived for was the giro every fortnight, and so life was a waiting game, eking out our £24 a week by eating potatoes, sitting around figuring out what to do with our lives and attempting to mend the windows.
Wayne had been in the house longer than me, and so had a room with a lock on the door, and spent all his days trying to make the ultimate compilation tape. He was impulsive, and would often blow his whole giro in a day, then spend the next two weeks simply living on chips. Once he lived for a week on nothing but powdered bran and water.
We lived mainly for the nights, getting into cheap nightclubs and stealing drinks from students. I loved dancing, but for me it was simply training. With my eyes closed, I imagined myself far away on a distant mountain.
Each night when I got home I would jump in my mouldy sleeping bag and wrap myself up in blankets from Oxfam, burying myself so deep it was almost impossible to wipe away the feathers that tickled my nose as they escaped from the tired cotton shell of my bag.
The room contained all my posses
sions, packed tightly under the bed and hidden behind bin bags in case anyone tried to steal them. My curtain wall was no defence against anything, and anyway the flat had no lock on the door. In fact, I’m not sure it even had a door.
Under my bed was all my outdoor gear, each piece more valuable to me than anything in the world. I would lie there, my hat on, listening to the wind outside and inside, and imagine I was somewhere else: Death Bivy on the Eiger, the South Col of Everest, the summit of Fitzroy. The colder the place, the warmer I felt. For me this was all simply training for my escape.
I was dropped off near Kendal, scrambling over piles of snow beside the motorway as my lift sped off, my hitching over. I pulled the rucksack tight onto my back, did up its hip belt and started walking towards the mountains in my army boots. I’d hitched to the hills before, but only with other people, generally with disastrous consequences. The last time had been to the Peak District with Wayne, who’d run a mile when he saw a sheep. He’d never seen a real one before. But this time I’d come alone.
The mountains disappeared into the dark before I reached them, and so I spent the first night under two wooden pallets propped against a drystone wall.
The morning dawned cold, and my trusty cotton sleeping bag was stiff as I packed it away, the feathers that escaped as I pushed it into its stuff-sack blowing away across the snow.
I reached the mountains and began up a ridge, excited to kick my way up patches of snow, to feel the ground fall away, until I reached the top. There was so much space, and it was all mine.
Moving along the tops I scrambled down to a lake, its surface frozen thick, and put up my tiny orange cotton tent.
I stayed there a week, picking off tops and coming back to the tent each evening, where I’d lie in my bag as my tea slowly warmed on my meths stove, the porch open, looking out into the dark, listening to the crack of the ice, the wind blowing around me.
Each night my tent got frostier and frostier. The foot section of my sleeping bag froze solid, forcing me to wrap my feet in my fleece jacket.