In reply to UKC Articles: ha ha, love Gaz's self-justifiying "YOU wanted me to film you!" Reminds me of an experience I wrote about it a few years' back:
It just doesn’t work. Climbing with your other half. Keep it separate. Otherwise ‘Relate here we come’. I’m leading this VS 4c slab – should be straightforward. But my confidence canister began to leak a bit when Daisy (back from her fling with Mr Lawnmower) asked me to show her how to tie on again for the umpteenth time and then proceeded to hold me with the dead end of the rope. A slow leak became a major haemorrhage when I suddenly felt myself being tugged off (no double entendre intended):
- What are you doing?!”
- “I’m keeping it tight like you do”
- “Yes, but that’s when you’re seconding” -
- “ Doesn’t it help when you fall off if I keep it tight?”
- “But I’ve got no bloody gear in at the moment!”
A major haemorrhage becomes a Titanic-scale iceberg-inflicted catastrophe when I peer down between my jitterbugging knees to see her with her camera rapturously stalking a sheep 10 yards away (leaving my rope as carefree and unattended as Manchester City’s goalposts). The mantra ‘Respond not React’ echoes in my tin-drum mind: I try to be patient: I try…
- “For F*ck’s Sake, are you belaying me or what?! My f*cking life’s on the line here!” .
She’s been waiting for this. My momentary indignation is drowned by a seething torrent of long-nurtured grievances:
- “I was only taking a photo! Anyway, you said this climb was a piece of piss and you were only putting the rope on so I could have a go at it, though like you said, I probably couldn’t do it, because the only climb I’ve ever done was a Vdiff crack over at Birchen’s, and that took all day, and you didn’t have any time left to climb any ‘real’ routes, and then you moaned all day and acted like a big spoilt child cause we had to go to Mum’s party on Sunday and you made a fool of yourself pissing about on the swing and split your trousers…”
There’s probably more life in this perpetual sentence, but I turn back to the comforting silence of the rock and carry on. Better to climb upwards and away (no matter how precariously) than climb down and face a three-hour argument ending in a stony silence on the long drive back home. I manage to get a piece of pro in: it’s not the right size, it wobbles, but I haven’t the strength to hang on to find a better fit:
- “Slack!”
The rope goes tight!! I’m nearly pulled to my doom.
- “Slack!?!??!!!
- “Why didn’t you say so?”
Amazingly, ten feet of slack is sent out. I grab the rope to clip in, but my pathetically loose Wallnut has long since rejoined my rucksack twenty feet below…
- “Do you want this?!” she calls up.
This is no VS! It might have been with old Derek holding my rope (why of all days did he have to suddenly do some DIY this weekend?) – but factor in the lack of trust, the emotional upset, the weariness, the potential husband-killer on the other end of the rope - and it’s now E10 7b. I risk another downwards glance – in spite of the alarming sensation of feeling I’m about to part company with the rock and smash myself badly on a sharp boulder ten feet below (strangely enough, this fate has become more and more attractive an option). She’s sulking! The rope’s being paid out desultorily every few seconds – but she’s not looking at me – her head’s in this month’s edition of Hello! magazine.
Only one thing for it! Untie and solo to the top. My right hand’s crimping some minuscule edge, whilst my left hand loosens my bowline. The rope snakes downwards (I don’t think she even notices). My technique’s fallen apart – I’m doing the opposite of everything the textbook would tell me to do: I’m hugging the rock, using my knees, scrabbling at arms’ length, rushing blindly upwards…and then I feel rain…just a subtle few spots at first…but then a steady shower…then tides of water running down the slab. Swallowing my last vestige of Pride (that last indomitable unsundered bastion: Male pride), I call down:
- “Daisy, love, can you run round to the top and throw me a rope down? please?”
I’m no longer in a bargaining position – all my masculine power has rushed downwards – transmuting en route into the primal energy of the Wild Woman. I beseechingly behold my Nemesis…
- “Please, love…Please. I’m sorry.”
I would have asked her to climb up, but I’ve never had cause to doubt Chauncely-Phibes’ opinion of lady climbers in his seminal ‘Mountaineering for the Married Man’ (1911):
“In general – notwithstanding some freaks of nature – the male of the species is biologically advantaged in matters of leading. Studies have conclusively established that men have longer necks, cooler heads, more developed powers of concentration, greater athleticism, and greater powers of route-finding and navigation. Haply, as in may other areas of life, The Maker has established a natural harmony; for just as men are naturally endowed with the qualities required for leading up steep courses of rock, women have innate proclivities for subordination – perfectly suited to seconding. The fairer sex has (and this is amply evidenced by any disinterested observer of the human species) a psychological and emotional constitution that lends itself to admiring, hero-worshipping, and approval-seeking.
A lady’s voluptuous physique – whilst most pleasing to an admiring male’s eye – lacks the well-developed musculature of the male for. Her mind – whilst excellently suited to concentrating on quite extraordinarily detailed pieces of needlework, and even following quite complex political and philosophical debates that we men are wont to indulge in whilst enjoying our pipes on a capacious belay ledge – similarly lacks the steely resolve that characterises the cultivated male climber’s. Amid the manly terrain of mountains and high precipices, the more adventurous specimens of modern womanhood – whilst unable to emulate the skill and courage of her male mountaineering colleagues and chaperones – may gratify their desire for approval, affection, and love by following their husbands on courses of moderate severity.”
Wise words indeed. However, at this point I’m flabbergasted! She solos gracefully over and past me with the rope tied around her (somehow she must have discovered some hidden holds or an easier variation ??). Two minutes later (the longest two minutes of my life), the rope slithers down to save me.
Monday morning – the hand tremors having just abated – I take out my climbing diary – turn to a fresh page; slowly, guiltily, then more assuredly, I write, “Had a great day – did Condor Slab with the missus…nice climb…bit of a soft touch VS though…had to give her a bit of a tight rope on the crux”.