Going mountaineering by mistake or what type of fun even is this ????

Exiting number 5 gully, Ben Nevis

Being “left for dead” but not by Kevin

I booked a winter mountaineering course with Rise and Summit. It was in Scotland: Ben Nevis and Glencoe, a place that I had never been to, is very dark in the winter and has much bigger mountains than England and Wales.

I told my climbing friends and Rob and Brian decided to come too.

I was planning to get fit but instead I got Covid.

I thought I would be doing a bit of delicate technical ice climbing and making use of my pristine crampons and shiny super light ice axe

I’d only worn my crampons once before and I didn’t really think it through about how one gets to that little technical piece of ice. In my dreams it was a gentle frozen stream and I’m not sure how I got there. I think Kevin magically transported me there. Apparently there is a difference between ice climbing and mountaineering and I’d booked on mountaineering.

On the first day Kevin, our delightfully direct Dutch instructor, asked us what we wanted from the course and I said “an adventure”. There was plenty of time to talk because the snow was a long way up so there was lots of walking and talking en route. We had fun playing in the snow making bollards to belay off, cutting steps and trying out different ways of using our crampons and ice axes. It was dark as we walked out but we had head torches, it wasn’t too arduous and it had been a really good day.

On day two we met Kevin quite early and he used a special key to unlock a road up to the approach to Ben Nevis which saved us a bit of a walk. I was very excited to go and see Ben Nevis in winter and the aim was to see if we could “operate as an efficient single unit” when climbing so that we could have our own almost independent adventure the following day. That’s what I thought was going to happen. On the walk in I told Kevin that I have asthma and the lungs of a poorly seven year old or maybe an 80 year old. Maybe I was getting my excuses ready because I’d been very worried that I would hold everyone up on the course and that I was being overly ambitious.

After about two and a half hours of fairly consistent but not difficult walking we came to the CIC hut which lies at the base of the route that Kevin had picked out for us. We could see Tower Ridge, which is a route that I want to climb in summer conditions and some snowy gullies. We were to go and practise our skills in number 5 gully. Getting there was a slog over snow that had avalanched. It had been turned into big balls of ice that were hard to walk over.

Once in the gully we geared up and did some climbing where we set up belays using the rocks at the sides of the gully. Kevin belayed us over a nice little pitch where we had a taste of grade 2/3 moves which I enjoyed. Once we’d got over the technical difficulties there was some discussion about whether to continue up or to go down. It was already early afternoon by this time. The upshot of this was that we decided to carry on up to the top. Having never been there before I had absolutely no idea of what that meant.

By this time the terrain was straightforward (not technical) and we didn’t need a rope. We just started to work our way up with crampons and one axe, in my case the cheapest one that I could find in Decathlon. After a while I decided to use two axes as the slope was well frozen, reasonably steep and falling off it looked as though it would probably end badly.

Carrying a rucksack and kicking in crampons and jamming in ice axes over and over again was totally and utterly exhausting and it took a huge amount of concentration to keep going and to keep attached to that compacted snow rather than falling down the mountain. Rob and Brian went ahead and after a while I couldn’t see them anymore. If I tried to look too far ahead my helmet would hit my backpack and stop me from raising my head any further. Kevin stayed near me and provided a calm presence without being intrusive. It must have felt like keeping a snail company to a man so fit and at home in the mountains but he never showed a trace of impatience. I know that he was talking to me to encourage me and keep me going and that he didn’t allow me to stop but sometimes I was so focussed on keeping going that I couldn’t make sense of the words. The only bit I really remember was when he said that I’d lost my sense of humour, which made me laugh and that it was only another 300 metres, which I couldn’t visualise. I also remember that he offered me a rope, which I declined and then I spent a while wondering how bad it would have to get before he stopped letting me make my own decisions and tied me onto a rope and dragged me up the gully.

That afternoon in the gully went on and on, my calves hurt, I was too hot, I couldn’t get enough breath, I was flailing with the axes and crampons but somehow I kept going, partly because I realised that there was no other choice. Eventually we could see the top and Kevin said that I could “make hero moves over the cornice”. In reality I barely got either my axes or crampons in properly because I was so tired and as soon as I reached the horizontal I used my knees, crawled off and collapsed with relief.

I was absolutely pushed to my limit physically and in a sense mentally. Getting down was arduous in a different way but at least my lungs weren’t protesting and I knew that eventually I’d get there. That was after attempting to descend by digging in my ice axe and sliding which seemed like a good idea but felt way too fast and uncontrolled. There was a lot of dark walking over bogs and falling in a stream but by then I could talk to my friends to distract me and keep me happy.

A beautiful moment was when I switched on my head torch and the snow was sparkling in the light. And it meant I could see how deep the footprints that I was trying to follow were.

Afterwards my body felt wrecked but my mind was spinning with all kinds of thoughts about how this day had evolved and what it meant.

I had without doubt had an adventure and we had talked about the types of fun, mainly 1 and 2. Type 1 is fun, when it’s happening it feels enjoyable. The early part of the day and the more technical bits I found fun.

I descended into type 2 (only fun in retrospect) somewhere in the gully and only the presence of Kevin and his knowledge and experience stopped it from going into type 3 (not fun ever, dangerous and scary etc) because I trusted him to know if I was over stretching myself and what to do if something went wrong.

Afterwards I felt amazed that I’d managed it at all and it’s made me consider trying things that I thought were physically beyond me like climbing some more mountains.

Thanks to Kevin for being a great teacher and companion and to Rob and Brian for their patience, friendship and photography.

A Bridge over Salty Water

First pitch of rainbow bridge copyright Tracey R

Looking back at the second pitch

Towards the end of the second pitch

When I traverse I sometimes sing a song to keep me brave and happy, it goes “we love traversing, traversing is fun” and must be sung until the end of the tricky bit. At the start of Rainbow bridge at Mount Sion East in Pembrokeshire I was so busy wondering whether I dared to start the route that I forgot to sing. With over 50 metres of traversing to do this route would need a few more verses. Plus I didn’t recognise it as normal traversing or climbing, it was more like a very exposed obstacle course. Or a bear hunt, going over it, under it, round it.

I didn’t choose this route because Range West wasn’t in my book so I didn’t know anything about it. Luckily my climbing partner Rob is a devotee of definitive guides and put it on his wish-list when it became apparent that the MOD would let us in to the area with a form and a promise that we’d watched a briefing about avoiding touching bits of bombs, bullets, shrapnel etc. Then we had to go and have our pictures taken at the military base (there were 2 tanks at the entrance) and get a pass for the day. Only 50 people are allowed in each day and it’s a big area so very quiet and the rock feels untouched. We had to climb over a gate to get in and I was excited to be surrounded by bits of army surplus but it wasn’t that noticeable. One of our climbing club friends seemed to know a lot about tanks and explained that these days the outer shells stay in the tank. The ancient shells can still blow you up so there were warnings from other climbers: “shell” which in my head was a seashell.

The definitive guide described this climb as “an outrageous expedition into E3 territory”. It was a compelling description, tempting, intriguing, a gauntlet. The approach was a little amble off the path (our friends carried on to climb sensible routes) and the weather was mild and the sea friendly. We geared up on a big ledge from which we couldn’t see the climb at all and consulted the guide. The climb was graded Severe 4a and involved 2 pitches. The second pitch mentioned stepping across a void or something terrifying. To decide who would climb which pitch we did rock, paper, scissors as it makes it nice and random if you are climbing a multi pitch route. I wrapped Rob’s stone in paper and won the first pitch. The big ledge leading to the climb lulled me into a false sense of security and it crossed my mind that I wouldn’t want it to be all walking along a ledge.

A peep round the corner killed my nascent complacency and made me wonder whether I could get around the first big obstacle, a block sticking out above an overhanging drop. The consequences of falling off anywhere on this traverse would be swinging into the air and having to prussik back up to the ledge. Weighing this up and arming myself with 2 prussiks had made me rather apprehensive. I scurried back around the corner for a rethink and to gather myself. My fear was added to by the fact that the belayer can’t see you at all while you’re on the pitch so once I’d gone round the corner I would be alone with the sea and the rock. Luckily we had taken walkie talkies which made me feel a lot better, though I’m sure if I’d fallen into space I would have screamed loudly enough to be heard all around Pembrokeshire. I described the daunting beginning to Rob and then resolved to give it a go and definitely not to fall off.

Back around the corner and I started to move. Sometimes over a block, sometimes around. The pitch wiggled in and out and presented plenty of challenges. I kept reminding myself to place gear for when Rob seconded the route because that was potentially going to be quite scary. The route curved in and I went high up to avoid a bold step out then back down and a crawl over a block and round a corner, the block was so deep that I couldn’t reach the back of it with my hands so belly flopped it whilst telling myself that I couldn’t possibly fall from that position even though my feet were waving in the air and my hands weren’t on positive holds.

After a while I could see the end of the pitch offering me hope of a reprieve and felt a little sense of relief which helped me to overcome another tricky step around an overhanging block. Setting up the belay was easy enough and the stance very exposed and dramatic with a great view out to sea and down into the waves. As I got there it started to rain, coming at me diagonally and soaking my back and legs as I looked back and radioed Rob to climb.

I got a good view of Rob negotiating the obstacles which was entertaining. He joined me quite quickly and then we had a breather while the rain stopped and we convinced ourselves that the rock was so positive that we could climb it wet. The sun and wind dried it really quickly and Rob set off. Soon I could barely see him which made it difficult to belay and he seemed to take a long time on one section. It was difficult to gauge the end of the climb because it didn’t seem as dramatic as the description so Rob took a stance in a convenient place after we reached the halfway mark on one of the ropes. He belayed me on pitch 2 and several times told me to take the gear out after the move but I found it difficult to shake the habit of taking the gear out as soon as I reached it which added to the excitement.

When I reached the point where Rob had stopped we both decided that we had used up all of our nervous energy for one day and that it must be the end of the climb. We had to climb up on ever decreasing rock and to slopey safety. I suspect this climb is like marmite, I loved it. It’s probably the least climbed route I’ve ever done and one of the most absorbing. It deserves its own playlist.

Biting off more than I could chew

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  The picture in this case does not tell the story, we need a thousand words

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  How did I get here?*

How did I manage to position myself at the top of the most photogenic pitch in the peak district and how did I get down again? With a little bit of help from my friends that’s how. And a little bit of over confidence from me maybe.

Saturday was a beautiful day at Bamford Edge and there was a lovely group of us there, I was climbing with Bruna and we were enjoying the company of our comrades Liam, James, Rich and Alan. There were plenty of friendly climbers to chat to and one of them I had noticed swinging one handed from the top of gargoyle flake as his friends took pictures. I wanted to look at the climb and when I went to see it he was at the bottom so I asked him what he thought, he said that the hardest part was at the start. I liked the look of it so I decided there was no harm in giving it a go, if it wasn’t for me I would realise soon enough. Bruna was planning my strategy by suggesting that I could “abort” if necessary. I realised later that she was comparing it to an astronaut’s mission.

Liam, a super duper new addition to our club, was at the base and he and Bruna were very encouraging and patient as I kept attempting to get off the ground and trying different angles, I managed to get onto the arete and make some progress by pushing up on a tenuously placed left foot which felt quite scary but I persevered, moved to the left and managed somehow to get onto the massive ledge in the picture. I was lying flat on my front when I landed and happy to be there but not able to stand up as there was a big overhang in the way. I pushed myself along and eventually stood up but felt very out of balance and unsure of how to get myself onto the huge flake that came next.

Much faffing with gear ensued but eventually I came up with a strategy and started to lay back the flake, this was a very satisfying part of the climb but then I decided to stop at the top of the flake and place gear which was tricky and got my leg shaking while I was hanging about there. Wires were getting stuck on carabiners, I had a mouth full of quickdraws and I dropped an offset near the very lovely belaying Bruna. Still I carried on and ended up at the last section of the climb, this was the bit that I had underestimated.

The climber who had caught my eye had made this bit look easy but we differed in some fundamental ways: he was younger, stronger, leaner, fitter and a much much better climber than me. Unfortunately I didn’t tell him during our chat or remember till I got to the top that the only climb that I’d ever led at this grade I’d fallen off the top of.

I tried to put in some gear to protect me from a possible fall but I wasn’t especially convinced by my own best efforts. I experimented with some upward movements and then couldn’t quite reach the next big holds that I needed (he was taller too and I see from the picture that I should have straightened my legs more 😦 ). Plus there is a big bit of overhanging slightly slopey rock before the famous gargoyles. At this point memories of falling off Cosmic Crack came to mind, my unconvincing placements were worrying me and I couldn’t move up or down. I saw my friends James and Rich and shouted for help and they came over. James is very tall and had some lockdown weight as ballast and he lay down and gave me a helping hand and a lot of reassuring presence, Rich was ready to hold onto James, not sure if he did.

Seconds later I was at the top of the climb and very relieved, bleeding and bruised. By the time Bruna arrived she was emotionally drained by my shenanigans and we decided to go to the pub. What a great team effort and many thanks to Liam for taking the photos and gently suggesting (afterwards) that if overhangs are involved then dropping a grade in my ambitions would be a good idea, which was pretty much the opposite of what I did!

*the soundtrack to this adventure is Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime”

The joy of crack gloves and summer dabblings

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At last a summer came where I didn’t break any bones, I had people to climb with and I felt a lot more like a person who knew what she was doing on the rocks. After my trad falling course I acquired some crack climbing gloves and they have made it so much easier for me to attempt jamming when jamming needs to be done. I don’t care if people think it’s cheating, old timers in hob nailed boots probably think you’re cheating, I love my gloves and I’m wearing them all the time. A fellow climber commented : “You’re not in Yosemite” but I can dream. I can hang off the delicate backs of my increasingly thin skinned old lady hands and feel no pain.

Not long ago I read an article in a climbing magazine by an man in his 50’s who was winding down his climbing and being realistic about climbing as an older person. As a late comer to climbing that’s not really an option for me, I don’t want to get worse at this I want to get better. So contrary to received pandemic wisdom I’ve been climbing a tiny bit harder, sometimes.

This grade pushing has been such a mixed bag, the climbs are so varied that it’s hard to know what you will find difficult or scary until the difficult move or scary moment arrives. In one afternoon at Froggatt I had to be rescued from the top of a Severe climb, Tinsel’s Tangle, after deciding that I really couldn’t and shouldn’t make the last move but then I did my second Hard Severe, Sunset Crack, without too much drama. Now that I feel more confident that my gear placements are generally good I find it much easier to focus on the climbing. I managed to do my first Very Severe route, apple arete at Gardoms, there was a part where I looked up, saw a lot of blank rock and couldn’t see what to do next, it felt intimidating but there is a great sense of joy to be had in overcoming the problems and working out how to progress on a new route. This route sounds very pretty and it was, no big muscles required, lots of tip-toey balancy stuff and a beautiful fluted hold right at the top. I was helped by the calm silence (mostly) of my climbing partner Rob who was very patient and didn’t even gasp when my foot slipped alarmingly mid move. Worrying about the nerves of your belayer can be very distracting.

I’ve also felt more able to go to a new place without my expert friends and to sort myself out which is a big step forward. I accidentally booked a holiday in the birthplace of Scottish sport climbing (Angus) with my mainly non climbing family. My youngest child, Cai, is luckily blessed with a good head for heights and enjoyed climbing a tiny sandstone sea cliff at Arbroath with me. It was very exciting as the tide was rising and the sea was rough. It took a while to work out how to get to this sector “popular with children and beginners” as it involved stepping around a corner on a ledge above a huge drop with no handholds. It took me a while to believe that it was wise to step around this exposed corner. The thought of small children skipping around it was terrifying. The rest of our family couldn’t watch and ran away at this point. Once on the route I tested Cai’s belaying skills and nerves by climbing terribly and falling off a few times and agreed with the guidebook that this place was “not for fragile egos”. He of course skipped up the route easily after being refreshed by a wave.

It’s been fun to go to some new places : Laddow, Dovestones Tor, Gimmer, Pule Hill, Goldsborough Carr, Arbroath, and a geological trifle that turned out to be far from delicious. I’m getting a sense of the kind of adventures that I want and am capable of with my rubbish lungs. I’ve decided that I’m a big fan of a crazy long walk in with a huge backpack followed by a bit of climbing, some eating, chatting, looking at the view, a big long walk back followed by the pub.

It’s surprising that there are no pictures here of the gloves, I feel as though I’ve had them forever, I wish that I had. Next time you will see the gloves in all their rubbery glory.

The Rise and Fall of the Accidental Comrades

This is a story about me going on a climbing course. I’ve been climbing enthusiastically for quite a few years now but I’ve never had one drop of paid for tuition so when a course on falling on trad popped up somewhere on social media I decided to give it a whirl. It looked suitable for me because I’d realised that I wasn’t able to push myself on trad at all because I was too scared of falling off and the fear was largely due to my lack of confidence in my gear placing. At times it almost felt as though I might be placing gear mainly to convince myself and other people that I was attempting to be safe but in my heart I didn’t trust it. The only times I was completely convinced was if I placed a thread (a sling around a rock for my non climbing friends) or a hex that felt utterly secure.

My fear was not of falling itself, I’m pretty happy falling off sport routes, top ropes and seconding trad but absolutely not when leading unless I’m still very close to the ground. It wasn’t an illogical fear, it was more of a sensible fear that I could do something about.

I booked this course with Rise and Summit not knowing what to expect but trusting that they would know how to help. The course information said that I should be able to second up to VS (very severe) and I could on a good day, depending on the route, if the wind was behind me and all. I thought that by the date of the course I’d have done loads of climbing and be super fit and confident. Then came the lockdown and I did precisely nothing to help maintain any kind of upper body strength other than kneading lots of dough.

The night before the big day I was worrying about being completely unable to climb, looking ridiculous in front of other people. I worried about that considerably more than the falling itself. I didn’t worry about the falling because I reasoned that the teacher would very much want us to survive the course. I decided that if the other participants were totally super duper they wouldn’t have signed up and that if it was too terrible I could just apologise for my poor climbing and go home. I’d helpfully emailed Kevin the teacher to offer my excuses which made me feel better and he reassured me that it would be fine and then told me that we would be going to Millstone. This was great because I’m scared of Millstone and this course is about being less scared, yippee.

We met at 9am on a pretty grim Friday, the eve of my 54th birthday (I was also worried about being old and a woman, only in relation to this course mind you, I’m happy with it in off the crag life). The first great thing was that the car park machine was broken, the second that I found Kevin easily and he was friendly and kind, the third that there was another woman on the course.

Our short walk in gave us time to chat and get to know each other a bit. We were a little group of four including Kevin and it was a nice little approach through puddles. We went to the far end of the quarry and Kevin asked us to place some gear at the bottom so that we could talk about it when he got back from rigging up ropes. We had to look at each others gear placement and rate it which was great except that I immediately convinced myself that the other two didn’t need the course half as much as I did. They seemed pretty good already. There was also some chat about fingerboards and pull up bars ( I kept quiet about my dough kneading and how good it is for the forearms) and Blanca, the other woman on the course, told me that she did body building and weight lifting and could lift twice her own body weight. Blanca was very petite and not the stereotypical weightlifter so I was seriously impressed by this. I think that I could lift another adult person or a few babies but not two of me, definitely not.

Once we’d looked at different placements it was time to try and climb. Kevin chose a climb that was “perfect for today” meaning I think that falling off it would be relatively painless. Climbing it though was another matter. Paul went up while Blanca belayed the lead rope and I belayed him on a top rope. He did some good moves and fell on the gear he placed by the devious method of me having to slacken off the top rope so that it was just there as back up.

Second up was Blanca and she was a lot more vocal than Paul, which was entertaining. She hesitated to let go at first but she did eventually and her giggles and whoops showed that she was enjoying herself in that slightly masochistic way that most sport seems to involve.

By the time it was my go the weather was pretty grim, raining and then a blast of hail as I got onto the rock. The good thing was that the pressure to climb the route and get to the top was completely absent so we could really focus on placing the gear and trusting it to hold us. If we struggled to make upward progress then the top rope could be tightened dramatically to help. I placed quite a few pieces of gear and definitely fell on my cam few times which was magically reassuring, a revelation that it would actually hold me when I fell. Kevin made sure that I’d had the chance to fall on different pieces of gear and that I felt happy to stop before lowering me to the ground. When I asked him to look at my placement he would always ask me what I thought of it first which was great, I need to be able to assess the safety myself and decide whether or not to trust it.

We had a shivery wet attempt at lunch while Kevin rigged up a second route. I was dreaming of log fires and hot chocolate and Blanca’s lips looked blue. Paul was being stoic but looked frozen. He and Kevin had both expressed joy in suffering earlier so I assumed he was having a good time.

We went to look at the second route, it was everything that I hate in climbing, just one big crack up the face of the rock. Kevin told us that it was dry inside the crack, the face of the rock was streaming with water. The crack looked like a good place for pixies to shelter. I went first this time to get it over with which was a bad idea as it was so wet. Then again I wouldn’t have been able to climb it dry either. Bobbling around near this crack and trying to jam my cold soggy hands inside it was a great opportunity for me to remember why I avoid such climbs. But the challenge is to do the thing you hate isn’t it? I read this climbing book once: 9 of 10 climbers make the same mistakes by Dave MacLoed, he told me to practise the things that I tend to avoid. Well that’s exactly what this was. The good news was that I got to place some big cams in that crack and was delighted to fall off it. Falling off meant less pain than jamming my appendages into it.

Thankfully neither of the other two made this look easy either which made me feel so much better about my feeble rope dangling.

Once we were back on the horizontal the sun briefly tempted us to think of leading another route, this would have been the normal end to the day but the rain and hail came back to send us home again.

In the car park Kevin gave us all individual feedback, straightforward and not technical in my case which was definitely what I needed and more or less what I knew myself. Then we all drove off in our socially distanced little boxes hopefully feeling happier and eager to put what we’d learnt into practice soon.

Thanks very much to Kevin Roet for the pictures above and for a great course and thanks to Blanca and Paul for being kind and fun comrades for the day.

Sea Tube Shenanigans

I saw a picture in the guidebook to climbing in Pembrokeshire of a woman looking slightly stressed and surrounded by rock and thought : “there’s no way I’m doing that, it looks more like caving and I’m scared of enclosed spaces”. Over the next couple of days I kept being drawn back to that page and the diagram of the route going in and out of the rock and I wanted to see what it looked like in real life. And I wanted to do something a bit different and exciting. Howard, one of our fellow climbers, asssured me that it was “more like tunnelling than caving” which for some reason made me feel more enthusiastic about doing it. I have since realised that Howard’s soothing tones and deadpan understatement are not to be trusted.

Finding ourselves very near this route one day me and Rob decided to give it a go. We offered our friend Henry the chance to join us and he said that he was “not terribly keen” so we left the rest of the club members and set off to find the Sea tube. The problem was that it’s by its very nature hidden inside the rock so a lot of wandering about the cliff top ensued. This culminated in my standing on a headland and gesturing to Rob “left a bit, right a bit..” until he was above it. Like a rocky episode of Golden Shot for you 70’s kids.

We then (mainly Rob) set up an abseil which took ages as some of the rocks were rather loose and unconvincing. Eventually Rob abseiled down and stood on the beach. He was doing a lot of arm flapping at this point and I could tell that he wasn’t sure about something but I didn’t know what. He then indicated that I should follow and I went down past the entrance to the sea tube and down to the beach. The issue was that it wasn’t much of a beach by then, more of a shallow sea with waves washing right up to the cliff. We’d intended to climb at low tide but with all the faffing the tide had now turned and it comes in super fast as we’d seen in the previous few days. There had been talk of it having the second highest tidal coefficient in the world.

We considered our options, going back up the ab rope was one, but that seemed like hard work. And would have been very disappointing and probably quite slow. So we decided to climb it. There was a slab from the beach up to the mouth of the tube that had been washed very smooth by the sea and was beautiful. We ran through the water and got up that and set up  a belay at the bottom of the tube. The view over to the rocks looking out to the left of this stance was amazing, all bits of rock and sky and sea making spectacular shapes jumbled together.

The entrance to the tube was intimidatingly narrow and steep and smooth. I decided that I didn’t want to lead it with the time pressure but neither did I want to belay just above an incoming tide for  too long. I was feeling a bit sick at the thought of being inside the tube with the sea coming up into it. I started planning my escape from the belay if the tide came up to where I was and settled on swimming out. We decided to do it in two pitches as there was a good stance at the end of the first tube.

Rob then set off and squirmed his way into the tube. The getting in was tricky but once in it was possible to brace body parts against the sides of the rock and feel fairly secure. He told me it was like crawling but the angle was fairly steep and never felt like a crawl to me. More of an undignified vertical grovel. The good thing was that we could see the end of it and it was fairly light inside so I didn’t get too terrified. I still laughed slightly hysterically once I’d got my body into the tube. Then I sang a bit to keep myself  happy. The surface at the bottom was smooth and rippled so I did imagine that I might be squeezing myself through a giant colon. I had thought of rebirth but constipation might be more apt. Before leaving that tube I vowed never to go caving, I think I’d go into full on panic underground in the dark.

Once we’d both escaped the first tube I led the second one which was a breeze, much wider. By the time I got out of it I was so relieved that I scrambled up the rest of the climb to the top without placing any more gear and was then far above the abseil point so I had another scramble back down and belayed Rob from there. Done and dusted, my strangest climb so far. It was exciting and a bit crazy and I’d love to try another one. Just not yet.

Climbing with Seddy

It’s two years today since my dear friend and erstwhile climbing partner Seddy buggered off, so time for some anniversary commemorative musings from me.

First I want to tell him about breaking my foot while riding a bike at 3 in the morning after a party because I know that he would have really taken the piss out of me. Once I complained after I’d dropped a bottle of gin on my foot and his response was: “pah, you have 9 other toes”

I still miss climbing and hanging out with him, it was such a good laugh. Funny how someone who was often very depressed could be so much fun to be with. Mind you there were many times when he couldn’t get out of bed at all so he’d come climbing in the times when he felt better.

As a climber Seddy always pushed himself and loved a challenge. He had a knack of making a route look difficult and watching him could be scary. I read the other day that many women climbers worried about their ability to catch men falling but I don’t need to worry as Seddy trained me to catch heavier people by falling off repeatedly.

He was quite concerned about style in climbing and would complain loudly if he saw me use my knee “Sam and Ewan use their knees which is also technically cheating and not very pleasing to the eye”. He was very appreciative of watching women climb though and would often put me off by making remarks about my bum while I was trying to concentrate. One time when he was watching our friend Sharon he turned round and asked me: “Why aren’t all women lesbians?”

We disagreed about where to climb, he loved quarries, I didn’t, but he was very persuasive so we went to quite a few quarries, some so obscure that I’ll never find them again. His favourite was called Wilton, three quarries near Bolton and very convenient because I could pick him up at the train station. They’re not pretty, there’s no view and if you go on the wrong day you risk being shot as some of them are used as a shooting range. Wilton 1 was/is particularly terrifying  – a stand alone wall of rock, I seconded Seddy and was horrified to discover that when I reached the top he expected me to walk along a very narrow ridge with sheer drops on either side. We’d climbed up the shorter side but when I looked over the top there was a huge drop on the other side which to me said certain death. My reluctance to walk off it unattached to a rope caused Seddy to call me “a big girl’s blouse who needs to man up and earn her right to drink beer in the pub”. It was a constant battle to stop him saying stuff like that, a battle that I would always lose. Our disagreement about the merits of Wilton led him to tell me “If I could I would marry them, all three of them. Even if it meant becoming a mormon”

Last time we went to Wilton Seddy had spent a few months in bed with anxiety and depression and was quite weak physically but he was determined to give it a go and warned me that he was about to fall off about 2 seconds before he did. Luckily his gear held and I caught him although I swung and slammed into the rock and we alarmed the other climbers who were there. I want to go back and scatter a bit of him at the top of one of those climbs.

Seddy taught me a lot about climbing and was amazingly patient as a teacher. He convinced me that I could climb all sorts of routes just by saying: “You can do this, this is well within your capabilities” and I believed him. He’d often realise when he followed me up that it wasn’t that easy at all. One of our fun end of the day at the climbing wall activities was to climb harder routes until we failed. That has helped me to push myself and not mind falling off. If I got scared he would just tell me it was my “monkey brain” talking, he’d read a book about that and often quoted it when my legs started to wobble.

For a person who struggled with life a lot Seddy was always full of advice for other people. We covered mental health, statins, diet, childrearing, driving, navigating, cycling, sex and relationships. He had a strong opinion on everything it seemed. And wasn’t afraid to tell me the gory detail about his own health, mental and physical.  Whatever he did he certainly wasn’t suffering in silence, we knew he was ill but he had a very long term and intractable illness that we (his many friends) couldn’t fix, neither could spells in psychiatric hospital so we just tried to be there with him to make it more bearable.

I think Seddy loved climbing for many reasons but one of them was the freedom from anxiety that it affords. You have no space in your head to worry about life when you’re clinging to a crag wondering what to do next. I found this quote for his funeral that summed this aspect of climbing up for me, it may seem a little melodramatic to be able to sense this on a VDiff in the Peak district but some of us have wild imaginations and senstive souls:

“They are fragile, transient times when the borders between living and dying seem to overlap, when the past and future cease to exist and you are free”

With lots and lots of love to you Seddy xxxxx

 

Learning to love Stanage: an arranged marriage.

*

Love isn’t always easy, sometimes you have to work at it. Or so I’ve heard. This is my relationship with Stanage. When I first climbed there I was impressed and intimidated (a fancy word for scared). But I live in Manchester and love climbing so ignoring “the finest of gritstone edges” seemed churlish and rather defeatist. Everything I tried to climb there seemed too big and too rounded and too green, cracky, dark, chimney like or too slabby and exposed. The edge is 4 kilometres long so you’d think they’d be lots to do but I kept trying to climb things and failing. There’s the odd tick in the book but I have horrible memories of backing off climbs and wading through bracken or stumbling around in the dark looking for fellow climbing club members.

This year I decided that I wanted to make some progress with my climbing so I decided to try and climb outside twice a week and to keep going to Stanage until I enjoyed it, loved it even. Climbing partners were needed and have long been an issue, in the past my favourites had been injured, busy working, died and stopped speaking to me (well he wasn’t a favourite but he was useful!). Things have looked up considerably since joining a club and so I decided to set up a whatsapp group so that I’d be able to find a partner whenever I needed one.

A day after starting the group, on a sunny Thursday afternoon I went to Stanage with Henry, an amazing climber, dainty, light, very experienced and a joy to be with. We were joined by Howard who very very patiently watched me lead Black Hawk Traverse left and later told me I’d done Burgess’s variation which was a harder grade. I dithered horribly about the traverse on this and went up and down lots of times before being brave enough to step left but the rest of the climb was easier and made me very happy. Howard stayed completely calm throughout and let me work it out for myself. The day was delightful even though I hated seconding Anatomy and ended up with my feet higher than my head and doing an awkward bum shuffle.

Another day I was very happy to lead Heaven Crack and enjoy it and to lie in the sun on the balcony of Robin Hood’s cave appreciating the beauty of the place.  A rainy day cowering under an overhang at Apparent North was a climbing write off but made me feel more at home there. It was lovely just wandering about and imagining super duper climbers making strenuous moves.

On Saturday we returned with a group. My friend Sharon was determined to climb flying buttress so we headed there first. Seconding was made much more fun by the company of the guys on the adjacent climb, watching them scale an E1 while exchanging pleasantries with us and going back for dropped specs was very entertaining.

We headed over to balcony buttress to meet our friends. It was my turn to lead and I wasn’t sure what to do, a friend suggested that it was time we stopped climbing VDiffs and moved on so he suggested Balcony Buttress. He soloed it so I decided it looked doable and gave it a go. I tried to place more gear when it was convenient than I sometimes do and to focus and stay calm when I got stuck. There were a few up and down movements near the top when I didn’t trust myself to move up but eventually I went for it. Rope drag threatened to pull me back down but I got over the top by pulling rope through and crawling a bit. Undignified but it felt like a real achievement. I looked back at my friends down below and out at the view with a big smile and felt a genuine surge of love for Stanage. Our relationship is definitely improving with time.

After that Sharon did a fantastic lead on Amazon Crack with gear so well placed that the swearing that ensued shattered the peace of the crag and prompted complaints from passers by. Well done Sharon, I was super impressed and the exercising of the lungs was great fun.

*Thanks to Martin E for this photo, not Stanage I know but it’s very very close.

Innominata go via ferrata

It was the first attempt at via ferrata for 5 out of 6 of our party (we started as an 8 but more of that later). I had a bad feeling about this the night I borrowed a via ferrata kit, a thing that looks like a mutated octopus, or as Dave said, an afterbirth. The kit came with strict instructions not to “open the package”. The package was a small box with a zip that opens if you fall off the rock and hopefully lets out some tape to absorb your fall and stop the whole thing from breaking and leading to disaster. After my introduction to this rather unconvincing kit I had a nightmare about via ferrata and wasn’t massively looking forward to it.

A couple of weeks later we were all having a lovely time climbing in the Costa Blanca when it was suggested that we might want to try a via ferrata. There was a discussion the night before about the grades: 1,2 3, 4 and 5. I made the mistake of being very unassertive about my desire to start on a 2 as we’d never done it before and more vocal members of the group decided a 3 would be better because “we’re rock climbers, holiday makers do this, we’ll have no problems” we/they chose a long and involved route called El Cid but we decided to call in at a place called “The Orange House” on the way.

After a rather stressful trip in the car (too many alternative attitudes to navigating all competing for world domination) we found the orange house which is a climbing lodge run by an ex marine called Rich. He looked fit in both senses of the word.  We told Rich our plan and he made it pretty clear that he thought it was beyond us/daft. Maybe we looked too old, small, female, incompetent for such an ambitious undertaking? Maybe we were giving off an air of unprepared innocence? Rich proceeded to tell us that he had tested these kits and they were no good for very small people (one of us) and that if we attached them with a karrabiner they would fail, if we threaded it as we were intending it might fail and that there was a fair chance of massive internal injuries or death. He stressed that El Cid would take too long so we decided to head to Ponoch which promised to be shorter.

By the time we found Ponoch: look for a green building, a car park and a helicopter pad I felt like I was in a James Bond movie.  A pretty amateurish James Bond movie at that. Two of our companions decided to go for a walk, one of these had not only opened the package but he’d left the package back in the villa and had had to bundle the life saving tapes together with a hair band. Not the most auspicious start to the day.

It was a shame to lose Martin and Dave because they were really fun but I admired their good sense in deciding not to participate in a potential disaster. I was semi tempted to join them but they seemed happy to get away from the rest of us as soon as they could.

We walked through some woods and up a steep rocky path until we reached the start of the via ferrata. The more experienced climbers told us that the intimidating runged rock we were about to ascend would only last 30 metres. We embarked on our mission looking like space men with our curly lanyards. Getting used to clipping the lanyards for the first time in an extremely exposed and steep position is something I would advise you to avoid.

The rungs were very widely spaced and sliippery so I braced my feet sideways and used the rock as much as possible. I reassured myself that this would only last for 30 metres. This turned out to be an absolute load of bollocks, every time I looked up there were more rungs. I had left my jumper on and began to boil but there was no way of taking it off.  We had to swing sideways a few times  which felt quite tricky and on the very steep bits I just climbed as quickly as I could and didn’t look down. Eventually I caught up with the rest of the group having a break on a tiny ridge, I thought it was nearly over, but then I looked up and saw yet more rungs going up the crag.

At the top of those rungs was a scree ridden slope that my dear friend Sharon did not like at all. She was tied to a rock with a sling while we had lunch. I was enjoying my vertiginous sandwich when my rucksack suddenly started to roll down towards the edge shedding flasks as it went. It came to a rest extremely close to the edge and I resisted the urge to run towards it, unlike my climbing friend Rob who hastened to retrieve it. I thanked him profusely but he insisted that people do not roll uncontrollably like rucksacks because our arms and legs get caught so it was fine to hasten to the edge as he had.

We then traversed along the edge, down climbed a little with the aid of more wire and came to the abseil point. Our more experienced friends set up the abseil and we took it in turns to go down to a ridge. This ridge was advertised as being roomy enough for 4-5 people but we had 6.  We had some very small people, some smallish people and two “normal sized” men who  redeemed their relative largeness by being very useful in the abseiling knowledge department.

We all fitted on the ledge but I was concerned that we only had one rope between all of us (take more if you ever do this) as we’d been having a lot of issues with stuck rope. Happily the rope came down and the second abseil was set up. The rope got caught but our super calm friend Howard sorted it out. When we got to the bottom and said how much we’d enjoyed abseiling he told us that was because we didn’t understand it. Ignorance is often bliss.

So all 6 of us survived the Ponoch and walked back to the helipad feeling extremely glad that we had. It was a top day out if you enjoy a bit of fear with your picnic.

Thanks to Henry for taking the pictures

Just red pointing like Alex? How I finally managed to get a bit better at climbing.

I went to see Free Solo last night which tells the story of  Alex Honnold’s amazing achievement in soloing El Capitan after years of painstaking preparation. I was struck by how tiny his chalk bag was, the fact that at least one of his pairs of shoes was the same brand as mine and how when he’d finally survived his climb and fulfilled his ambition to free solo this unbelievably daunting wall he was very low key in the way he demonstrated his joy. There was no screaming, shouting or crying at all, just a very cute beaming smile. I’ve actually seen and heard a much more extreme reaction from a man at my local climbing wall (Awesome Walls in Stockport) who sounded elatedly orgasmic on reaching the top of his wall.

Today I visited the wall full of enthusiasm after seeing the film and determined to make an attempt on my resolution to climb a 6b (a climbing grade I’d never managed before but have been attempting for a few weeks). I was with my dear friend Sharon who was not feeling tip top but assured me that she was happy to catch me if I fell. We warmed up on all kinds of easy routes and then I sought out a 6b that I’d yet to attempt and crucially yet to fail, we were a bit surrounded by my previous failures. Up I went and it was all flowing and groovy until the penultimate move that I found too tricky at this point and cheated on by grabbing a pink hold instead of a black. It was nearer and bigger and brighter.

The good news was that I had worked out what I needed to do and felt that I would be able to do it. Down I went and Sharon did her next climb and asked me what I wanted to do. I told her I wanted to do the same route again but was still a bit tired- my forearms were suffering. So we hung about chatting about various emotional dilemmas as we often do and having a laugh until my arms recovered.

By this time there was a man starting the adjacent climb and usually I get quite worried about being too near other people but he looked nice and unintimidating  so I set off pretty much with him. After a few moves my climb veered right towards his and I offered to wait but he very calmly told me he would wait and to take as much time as I needed. He had a very reassuring presence which made me feel warm and focused. I got back to the difficult move and had a good think, remembered Alex Honnold and his incredible achievement and this time I just did it without too much effort. There I was at the belay point, in a much better position than the first time, clipped in and resisting the urge to shout and be dramatic.

Sharon lowered me down and I was very happy, so happy that I had to tell the lovely random man what I’d just done. He was very patient but I think he might have thought it was quite a low grade to get excited about. Never mind, it doesn’t matter what he thinks, I don’t even know him.

It’s made a big difference to me to stop worrying about falling and just focus on the climbing. I’m calmer and try to think of a strategy instead of panicking and giving up too soon.  I’m thinking  a lot less about the clips too and getting much nearer to them before I clip in which I think saves energy. The other big change is the commitment to climbing twice a week, we’ve been aiming for this for years but it’s only recently that I’ve managed it consistently. It’s improved my confidence a lot and so much of climbing is about your head, self doubt is not very helpful when halfway up a wall.

Finally I’d recommend joining a club, it’s so much more fun, there are more people to climb with and you get to go to exciting places. Thanks to all my new friends at Innominata Mountain Club, you’ve been very encouraging and helpful.

P.S. For the climbing pedants- I know you can’t really red point a route that’s not in a book because where would you put your biro dot? This is artistic license, forgive me.