Tuesday 12 June 2012

Falling off bits of rock...

...is always much easier than climbing them.

I recall saying once that I could never be persuaded to try BASE jumping. My argument was that, as a climber, I’m simply too accustomed to not falling, to doing everything in my power to maintain contact with the rock rather than embrace the void. Only now I’ve sort of changed my mind. Climbing, you see, is very difficult. Falling isn’t.

My first lead fall came during an onsight attempt of a route called Stroof at Swanage. The crux was a steep finger crack and to be honest would have been at my limit on bolts let alone trad gear. I don’t remember much beyond clinging to tiny holds one moment and dangling in my harness at the bottom of the cliff the next. As my belayer lowered me I think I said something along the lines of “I’ll get back on it next time, there’s no excuse now I know the protection’s good.”

I still haven’t though. “It’s too hard,” I say, when what I really mean is “I’m too scared to lob off again.”
Not long ago I screwed up some deeply misguided courage and tried to climb my first Boulder Ruckle E1. This went badly. Despite what had happened on Stroof, I picked a route with a similarly fingery crux section, and only realised after the rock and I had become suddenly and profoundly disconnected that this really was a particularly stupid idea. With my last bit of strength, one hand clawing at a desperately small crimp, I’d clipped a shitty old rusty peg and slumped straight onto it a millisecond later. Not a proper fall as such, but had the peg broken I would have gone a long way indeed. And had the gear below the peg blown as well, you could’ve scraped what was left of me off the boulders below and presented it to my parents in one of those little jam jars you get at breakfast in hotels.

Now fast forward a week to the wind-swept, wave battered expanse of Guillemot Ledge, where I further indulged in my new passion for Ueli Steck-style speed descents of routes that have traditionally taken climbers hours to negotiate in the old-school upward fashion.
I was with my long suffering friend Pat, and neither of us had ever climbed at this part of Swanage before. So, glorious leader that I am, I jumped straight onto a route near the top of my grade limit with the eternal words “It’ll be OK” ringing about the towering grey cliffs.

Basically, it wasn’t.
Most of the first pitch was easy, bridging type climbing, and I got up to the last resting ledge before the crux pretty quick. Above the rock steepened into a thin tapered crack that guarded access to the midway belay. I placed some gear and pulled up. The holds demanded lay-backing technique, something I conveniently happen to be rubbish at. With strength draining from my arms like air from a punctured balloon I stuttered higher, a Quasimodo of the stone, legs shaking like Elvis with Parkinson’s. The last gear placements were getting further and further below me, but the ledge was getting closer, just a few moves away, all I needed was a good hold and everything would be alright...

One last all or nothing lunge, my fingers wrapped around what I urgently hoped was a thank god jug.
Basically, it wasn’t.

With the weak resignation of a man who knows he’s beaten I pawed at some other holds with my right hand, while good old lefty uncurled finger by finger. One good hold, just one, come on, there’s got to be-
My hand slipped off the hold and I was falling. I shot down past the crack a lot faster than I’d climbed up it, tumbling through the air, still wondering where I might find a nice jug. Then my harness jerked, a huge pain shot through my right leg and I was unaccountably hanging and inverted about halfway back down the pitch. My aforementioned right leg was entangled snake-like around the blue rope, foot high above my head, and I swayed merrily in space like some grotesque, misshapen ornament.

“Oh bugger,” I thought, “I seem to have fallen off...”
I probably went about 4m or so; not massively far, but far enough, believe me. At least all the gear had held. After untangling my wayward leg, and a few bemused minutes resting on the rope, I climbed back up, had another go, and folded off the rock like wet paper the moment my weight came onto my arms. Strangely enough, considering the climbing to rope-dogging ratio, I was knackered.

But we had to get out somehow, and since I didn’t want to lower off and sacrifice gear, I decided to aid climb the crack instead, by clipping slings to the runners and using them as foot stirrups. I’d never used aid before, and naively assumed it would be a piece of cake.
Basically, it wasn’t.

It felt awkward and undignified and I eventually reached the belay ledge feeling like I should do the one honourable thing left to me; untie the ropes and fling myself into oblivion, the still sadly hanging slings my only epitaph. Pat followed me up in the solemn silence that befitted the moment. He led through to the top, and it was only when I seconded the pitch that I noticed a distinctly growing pain in my right ankle. By the time I finished it hurt to put any weight on it at all. So that was the end of the day, and possibly of climbing for some time.
So now I’m going to buy a parachute instead, and explore my new found talent for rapid vertical displacement of altitude. It would seem I’m already a natural. What can possibly go wrong?

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