Alps 2012 Part 1

Sitting on a ferry with 12 hours of driving across Switzerland to look forward to. Pat and I are heading to Saas Fee to climb in the Valais Alps. We have no specific targets, no definate objectives. It depends on weather, conditions, our own fitness and confidence. After a shitty trip last year it will be good just to get up a few peaks, regardless of how easy or difficult they may be. If everything goes well, we might have a go at the Matterhorn, or the Dufourspitze. Something big anyway. There's plenty to do out there.

The Cuillin Traverse Part 2

We arrived at Glen Brittle around 7:30pm. The weather was perfect, the skies completely clear. Just a few patches of mist clung to the highest summits of the Cuillin Ridge. Abandoning our initial plan to camp by the car park, we packed lightweight with the minimum of gear and headed straight up. Our aim was to be on the first peak, Gars Bheinn, by nightfall. It was going to be close.

There was no path, just a steep slope of grass and scree. Nearly 900m of height gain. We followed a vague gully most of the way, until the ground became rockier just before the top. Here we climbed a series of steeper slabs and ribs to avoid dangerous loose terrain. Darkness chased us all the way up. After a series of false summits we finally reached the crest of the ridge at 10pm, and immediately began hunting for a bivy spot. Dad found a small niche between two huge blocks, cramped and uncomfortable, but sheltered from the wind. We got into our sleeping bags and tried to sleep.

It started raining.

We had no tent, no way of escaping the downpour. Fully committed to a bivy, we had no choice but to grit our teeth and suffer it out till dawn. The wind howled around the mountain. In minutes all our gear was soaked. Water found its way through my breathing hole and onto my face. Hours dragged by, unbearably slowly, each more miserable than the last.

Eventually it got light. We hoped for better weather but it was just the same, wet and cold, zero visibility. Not a chance of doing the traverse in these conditions. Our thoughts turned to escape. Neither of us wanted to go back the way we’d come, not with the grass slick with rain, so we decided to push on across the ridge and find another bail out point. It was freezing cold, we couldn’t see 50 feet ahead. The scrambling was never particularly hard, just unnerving over slippery rock. I knew from last year’s attempt there was a corrie on the western side of the ridge we could retreat down as long as we could find it. So we kept climbing. We traversed 3 more summits, navigating with map, compass and GPS. Eventually we reached a col I remembered from last time, and I knew the corrie was just there on the left. A short downclimb through a chimney was the only obstacle. Once in the corrie it was just a case of ignoring the pain and trudging down a streaming path off the mountain. We were down by midday.

We wanted to hang around and try again after a day’s rest, but the updated weather forecast put an end to that. More rain, more cloud, more of the same shit we’d fought through to retreat. Defeated, we drove back south, and hiked up Ben Lomond in a brief window of clear skies as a consolation prize before the long journey home.

The Cuillin Traverse Part 1

Next week Dad and I will once again be heading up to the Isle of Skye to attempt the traverse of the Black Cuillin ridge. Our first go, last August, failed for a number of reasons. Somewhat naively, we didn't gather an awful lot of information about the intricacies of the route, and therefore lost a lot of time trying to figure out where we were supposed to go. We started late in the day, and ended up bivying in a bad position tactically. Day 2 was better, and we managed to negotiate one of the hardest sections of the ridge, and scale the notorious 'Innaccessible Pinnacle', Scotland's toughest 3000 foot peak. But by then it was too late, the weather broke, and we were just too tired to press on in the pouring rain. Although the scrambling is easy enough, the exposure remains constant, and an exhausted mind can often lead to careless mistakes. One slip and you're a goner.

So we escaped off the ridge (which was harrowing enough in its own right) with a promise to try again next year. And here we are. Our goal is much clearer this time. Last year we didn't really have a plan concerning sub-peaks, optional climbs, etc. For example, we skipped the TD Gap pitch, but subsequently lost time doing King's Chimney. So what exactly were we going for? A full traverse with all the trimmings, or just getting from one end to the other? How about the summits, do we only bag the Monroes, or does it only count if we climb every last bump of the ridge?

These were questions we did not consider last year. Big mistake. So this time round we will embark with a very clear goal in mind, and a plan to achieve it. Simply put, the target is the traverse. Up one end, all the way across, down the other. We will climb the Monroes, and ignore any sub-peaks that do not have to be climbed to make progress. The same goes for the graded climbs. Any that can be avoided will be. The less we pitch the quicker we will be. I intend to short rope pretty much the entire thing. If we can get from Gars Bheinn to Sgurr nan Gillean in one push I will consider it a success, and the traverse done, regardless of what we did or did not do inbetween.

Obviously Skye weather is hugely fickle, and we may very well encounter bad conditions up there. If so, we must decide whether to still attempt the full traverse or just go for day hikes in the Cuillin. A bivy will be pretty horrific in the rain, but at the same time I'm not confident enough in our ability to do the whole lot in a single day to not take bivy kit with me. It's an age old mountaineers conundrum; to bivy or not to bivy? Take the gear with you and you'll almost certainly end up using it due to lugging the extra weight around. But to get caught out without it...

Hopefully, whatever happens, we should have an adventurous few days in some of Britain's most beautiful hills. The Cuillin Traverse is alpine in scale, pretty much the biggest traditional mountaineering challenge in the country, and completing it with Dad would mean the world to me.

Fingers crossed then. Here's some pictures from last years attempt.

The Cuillin ridge from the car park, just before we set out.

Me on the summit of Sgurr Alasdair, the highest point of the ridge, at dusk.

Our bivy...

...and the view looking out.

Day 2, and the weather turns.

On top of the Inn Pinn between showers.

Dad abbing off.

Undoubtedly not the right way down!

Benny

The ledge ended abruptly, dropping straight down into the sea. A black cave was carved out of the cliff before us. I could see steep, slimy rock walls disappearing into the darkness, foaming waves crashing all around, the noise incredible. This, apparently, was where the route called Benny went.

I belayed Luke, who had done it before, as he vanished around a corner into the mouth of the cavern. Slowly paying out rope, I sat on the ledge and wondered what the hell I was doing. Why, I thought, am I going into this hellish place; this miserable, sun-forsaken pit of pitch black hopelessness? Why?

To get back out again. Obviously.

“Safe!” came the shout, and I started dismantling the belay. Here was my chance to escape, to pretend that I had never come to Swanage on this piss wet day, and I could tell the authorities that Luke had been soloing and that I didn’t know who the hell he was anyway. Then the rope came tight. Too late. Attached to a single skinny 8.6 mil half I lay down on my stomach on the soaking ledge and wormed my way lower, feet feeling for footholds on the steep wall. Once established I began traversing into the cave. Into the very jaws of hell itself...

A few tenuous moves later I could see the first of the aid slings hanging off the wall. The rock was far too featureless and slippery to climb conventionally, so instead you had to follow a line of tatty old threads, clipping them directly to your harness using extended slings as foot stirrups. Or something like that. Apparently the person who had placed them was a giant, because I found each one to be just far away enough to necessitate a sort of desperate horizontal stretch, one foot scrabbling and sliding all over the slimy rock in a vain attempt to find some kind of purchase. All the while I could hear the sea crashing just beneath me. If any of the shitty old threads broke under my weight I would get very wet indeed.

And probably very drowned as well.

But as I delved deeper into the cave I developed a steady rhythm of reach, clip, step, unclip, and soon enough made my way to Luke’s belay. He was sitting on a small ledge at the back of the zawn, maybe 20 feet above the sea. Above him was the dark chimney of the second pitch. The one I was going to lead.

After some awkward shuffling on the confined stance, I established myself above Luke and started sorting out the gear for my pitch. It looked genuinely terrifying. The black walls rose up above me, leaning out all the way, towards a tiny circle of light at the top. In the darkness I couldn’t tell whether it was 10 or 10,000 meters away.

“This is perverse,” I muttered, wedging myself into a corner and trying to wriggle higher. There were plenty of good handholds where the walls converged, but not much for the feet. After struggling past a chockstone I finally found a decent foot ledge. With both feet pressed into it, I simply pushed my back and arse into the opposing wall, and got myself into a suspended sitting position. Proper old school chimney climbing, no fancy moves here. Inch by inch I wormed my way upwards, squirming towards the distant light. The sound of water and waves echoed around me, joined by my own grunts of exertion as I climbed higher.

All this in darkness. I could hardly see a thing, didn’t have a clue what my feet were on. I blindly fumbled with my hands to find holds, hoping all the while that I wouldn’t grease off and go plummeting back down into the foaming sea. At least the protection was good. There were several fixed threads, some of which felt almost new, and I realised that somehow, unfathomably, I was enjoying the route. A hard move past another chockstone, and I saw that the roof of the cave was just above my head. The blowhole was in front of me, a vision of salvation, a window into a forgotten world of brightness and life. Still wedged in like a tic I worked towards it, pressed one way then the other, bridging and smearing on the slippery rock, using my own body as a block to prevent me falling.

A last step out to the opposite wall brought me into an open tunnel of light. I walked through the blowhole to a huge ledge covered in bird crap and feathers, actually kind of sad that it was over. I had become almost used to the bizarre contortions and sweaty jams of the chimney.

Luke followed, far quicker than me, and led through the blowhole, across a loose traverse, and back onto the clifftop. This was made only slightly harder for him by the flocks of birds perched on all the holds. I seconded the pitch easily enough, and we made our way back to the ledge where we’d stashed our gear. It was gone 9 by the time we got to the car, we’d been in the cave climbing Benny for hours. I felt like I’d just had the shit kicked out of me. My hands were bleeding, Luke had smashed his knee somewhere; we were both absolutely knackered.

And my conclusion? If Swanage is climbing porn, Benny would be the weird German stuff they keep behind the counter.

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?

Vertical Limit Review

There are very few mainstream Hollywood films centred around climbing, and up until recently I had only seen one of them; Sylvester Stallone’s Cliffhanger. The only scene I can still remember from it involves Stallone free-soloing an overhanging mountain face with something like 12 TRILLION KARABINERS hanging off his harness to rescue two climbers stuck on the summit of a neighbouring peak. Exactly why he does this I cannot say, given that there’s a perfectly good helicopter hovering in the sky besides them, but there you go. An elaborate escape is conceived (using shockingly few karabiners, considering the efforts our hero had gone to in order to bring them all), it goes WRONG, one of them PLUMMETS to a dramatic and messy DEATH, and so the film goes on. Audiences everywhere sit back and gasp in amazement at just how dramatic and death-defying climbing really is.

But as bad as I recall Cliffhanger being, it pales in comparison to Vertical Limit. Just thinking about it makes me angry. Take the first scene, for example. We see three intrepid climbers, father, son and daughter, scaling a sandstone tower in the desert. The son reaches a roof on what looks to be a difficult pitch, all the while singing an Eagles song that his sister, dammit, simply DOESN’T RECOGNISE. He cuts loose and hangs there, like a TWAT, saying “You give up?”

And her response? She scowls, does something (I don’t know what) with the ropes, and says;

“On belay.”

WHAT THE LITERAL EVER-LOVING FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!?

The father was the one who led the pitch, he’s way up on the next stance, surely he’s the one belaying? Or maybe the siblings are so competitive they only allow each other the security of a belay if they succeed in baffling the other as to what song they are singing? But no, look closely and you will see that the son is indeed climbing with a rope from both above and below. What’s more, it’s only after he surmounts the roof, and presumably the crux, that good old Dad decides to strap on a gri-gri and actually safeguard his son’s climbing.

I am not exaggerating, you could sit me in a room with every climber who has ever lived, is living, and will live, for the rest of time, and I could not be made to understand what kind of system they are using in this scene. Fortunately it doesn’t matter, because a few seconds later the team above them fall off, all their bolts EXPLODE, and the trailing ropes floss everyone off the face.

BUT WAIT!!!

A single cam holds them all, and, despite the incalculable force of a 5 person mega whipper, does not break. Surely this is the most bomber gear placement in the world? Well yes, except for the fact that it then starts merrily sliding down the crack, threatening to send them all to their frankly well-deserved DEATHS. How does that work? Is the cam ALIVE???

Whole essays could be written on everything that is wrong with this scene, but suffice it to say there is a lot. And that’s only the opening 10 minutes. Good old Dad, the world’s most haphazard belayer, is CUT FREE in order that his horrible children survive, and so the emotional drama is cunningly set up for the remainder of the film.

It focuses on an egocentric millionaire and his desire to summit K2 at the exact moment his new fleet of planes fly over. Or something like that. I think. Anyway, the daughter is a member of the team, and her brother, who she blames for Dad’s DEATH, just happens to be in the area. They meet up, sparks fly, it becomes quickly apparent that a lot of VERY STUPID PEOPLE are about to set foot on a VERY DANGEROUS MOUNTAIN, and that’s about that. The brother stays behind with a predictable bunch of mismatched idiots, and the sister and the millionaire begin the climb. At one point real life mountaineer Ed Viesturs shows up, with the dazed expression of a man who can’t quite believe what he is witnessing. You’re not alone there, Ed.

They climb. It all goes TITS UP.

Avalanches, blah blah, bad desicions, blah blah blah, “we can’t possibly turn back now”, etc etc, they all end up trapped in a crevasse, injured and cut off, IN THE DEATH ZONE. Now the brother, who hasn’t climbed since Dad’s DEATH, must venture up to save his sister. And maybe the others, but they don’t matter as much. Because, you know.

In a sequence of events that bend over and arse-rape credulity, climbing logic, and even the fundamental laws of reality themselves, our team of chalk ’n’ cheese rescuers inch closer to the crevasse. They take with them NITRO-GLYCERINE, so obviously some of them EXPLODE before they get there. We witness wonders such as dynamic cam placements (for the uninitiated, this is where an un-roped climber escapes from a ledge by jumping, cam first, at what may or may not be a suitable crack placement, sinks the device, and thus is saved). More people DIE, but that’s OK, because none of them are AMERICAN.

I can’t actually be bothered to type anymore, so here’s a quick conclusion. The sister is rescued, with the NITRO-GLYCERINE, of course, but the foolish millionaire PLUNGES TO HIS DEATH in a crevasse. However, this is alright, because prior to that moment there is a lingering shot where he clearly, beyond any reasonable doubt, does THE EVIL EYES. The brother and sister reconcile, new relationships are forged, and no one seems to mind the fact that dozens of people DIED in order to save just one.

So, after much careful consideration, I have decided to award this film a score of 27 hexes out of a pair of 50m half ropes, and now I’m going to KILL MYSELF.

The Black Zawn

I took a deep breath and lowered myself off the edge. The cliff overhung by about 10 feet, and the abseil rope went 25m straight down into the sea. Will, who went in first, had clipped the line into some nuts on the way down to pin it to the rock. However, as the second man, I would have to take them out again, and rely on him to pull me in. The target was a hanging belay stance just above the water line. I slid down the rope, thinking that the battle music from the Lord of the Rings would be a perfect soundtrack to this.

Enter the Nine Riders. I descended into the Black Zawn.

Many months ago, when I first read through a Swanage guidebook, two routes immediately jumped out at me. One, Behemoth of the Boulder Ruckle, I had since done. The other was called Astrid. A HVS, it lies in a deep, gloomy fissure known as the Black Zawn, hemmed in on three sides by vertical cliffs. A difficult and committing free hanging abseil is the only way in. Just a stones’ throw away from the crowded Subluminal area, the Black Zawn is an altogether more serious venue. The sun rarely reaches the dark rock walls, and the routes are often wet and slimy. For some reason, this appealed to me. Now, as I swung in towards the stance, I wondered why.

Will had done a brilliant job of building the belay, even making two loops in the static line to hang the climbing ropes from. I attached myself and studied the route. It followed an obvious crack all the way to the top. A steep bit getting around a flake looked to be the crux. The entire lower section was damp, and droplets of water kept splattering on my helmet. I gazed around at the overhanging walls surrounding me, unable to quite believe where I was. No way out but straight up. Time to get going.

I got established on a good foot-ledge and placed some nuts to prevent a direct fall onto the belay. Above me was the start of the hard climbing. I pulled upwards, aiming for the bottom of the flake. I placed a hex. Then one of my feet greased off a wet hold.

“FUCK!!!” I yelled, fingers digging into the rock, somehow keeping me in place. Lunging higher, I managed to reach a decent hold and bridge out to gain an OK rest position.

“Jesus, you scared me there,” said Will.

“Bloody well nearly shat myself,” I muttered, fumbling around on my harness for some more gear.

I was at the crux now. A thin, damp crack snaked immediately above me, promising protection but few holds. To the right was the bulging flake. I felt around, finding nothing. Fantastic. I gripped a wet undercling, trying to wedge my shoulder under the flake to take some of the strain off my arms. Slick footholds gave me no confidence whatsoever. Shit. I was getting pumped. Shit.

Desperately, I reached above rightwards, hoping to find a thank god jug. No chance. I moved my feet higher, tried to pull through, instead almost fell off again. Eyes bulging, chest heaving, I scuttled back down to the undercling, shouting “Watch me!” with each movement. Will held the ropes and waited for me to peel off. It felt like even if I figured out a sequence I wouldn’t have enough strength to go through with it. The gear was good, there was nothing to hit but air; still I refused to give up. I wanted this route badly, had been dreaming of it for too long to fuck it up now.

“This is it mate,” I said through gritted teeth, bridged out and hauled for glory. The holds were greasy and unhelpful, the angle forced me outwards. I squirmed higher, my arm muscles burning. It was all or nothing climbing. The steepness demanded intricate footwork, I was splayed out X-shaped to use the best possible edges. Then suddenly, wonderfully, my left hand grabbed an uber-jug, and I yanked myself on top of the flake to a decent resting ledge, whimpering with relief.

It wasn’t over yet though. The crack spiralled upwards, still steep. I placed some gear and carried on, as pumped as I’d ever been before. My arms were shagged out so I paid attention to my feet and rested wherever I could. It got progressively easier, the rock drier. Putting in tons of gear, I climbed my way towards the sun.

“Keep it together,” I whispered to myself, “Just keep it together...”

Then at last I reached the point where the route branched off left to easy ground, and I knew it was in the bag. A final undignified belly-flop mantle onto a block, which made Will piss himself laughing, and I was there. A simple scramble brought me up onto the abseil ledge, where I pitched forwards face first and lay there for a few minutes with a mouthful of grass. The passing kayakers must’ve found this particularly amusing.

Both my hands were bleeding and stank of salt, everything hurt, but it was done. The terrifying Black Zawn conquered at last.