The Hatching of a Climber
The third year of my rock climbing adventures is at an end. Rain, snow and wind – it’s grim up here in the North. The fells of Lakeland are now for winter walking, (although my climbing partner Dave has a plan for us to do some ice-axe stuff up the gullies early next year. Yikes!) What a substantial three years it’s been; but when I think of my start in climbing I wonder just how I got to this point….
My first climbing experience was as a ten year old. My elder brother and I went to climb the smooth face of a local quarry in the village of Whitworth, just north of Rochdale in Lancashire. I was happy to let him go first although as the younger, I didn’t have any choice. And anyway, his hero was Joe Brown, so he kept telling me. Up he went in his pumps and shorts, about twenty feet until “help, I’m stuck; I can’t get up or down. Go and get somebody.” So I left him on his own high and lifted up gripping the rock for grim death. I went to a cottage nearby where an old bloke said he had a ladder, a long one, and he and his wife brought it across. My brother, shaking and tearful, climbed down. No mention of Joe.
The second experience of a climb was again with my brother, who by this time was in his early twenties and me nineteen. A crag Blackstone Edge high on the Pennines above Littleborough and next to a (supposed) Roman road. This time I went first. No rope, just a pair of sandals. I carefully climbed to the top without much trouble. My brother didn’t even attempt it. No doubt the ladder saga came to his mind. It came to mine too. There’s nothing quite like getting one over on an elder brother.
Then it stopped. The years went by and by. Lots of walking and scrambling, lots of yomping and forced marches with the Army. The Yorkshire and Lancashire Pennines, the Cumbrian Mountains (no Scotland though. I discovered that Shangri-La only three years ago. Shame on me!) The Sperrins and Mourns in Northern Ireland, the Umbrian Hills in Italy, Mount Rainier in the USA, Mount Kenya in Africa, the Canadian Rockies, a south to north traverse of Iceland; all these and more but without every seeing or holding a rope, a carabiner, a belay device, nut extractor or friend.
Walking on the fells I saw plenty of folk on the crags but really took no notice and felt little interest or urge to be up there with them. Plenty of times whilst camping in Langdale I saw blokes emerging from their tents burdened down with ropes and climbing ironmongery clanging and tinkling like the yacht marina at Whitehaven on a windy day. They would go into the climbers’ bar at the Old Dungeon Gill, come out well-oiled and then stagger back to their tents not to be seen again ‘till the morning. I began to think that this climbing lark was for southern puffs who had all the best kit but would melt at the first drop of real northern rain.
Then, praise be, three years ago all that changed. I met Dave my now climbing partner. We chatted about walking and then he said that he did a lot of climbing too and would I like to have a go. I said Yes. So a few days later, in my climbing boots and a borrowed harness from Dave we arrived at Head End, a disused quarry on the fells between Wigton and Caldbeck. He had a rope – wow that was a first for me. We spent a few hours there. I did a VD and the greatest triumph was a VS 5a – not that I knew what any of that was, but I could tell that Dave was chuffed, so I was too. That was it. I was hooked. Over the next three years we did a succession of spectacular and fearful climbs. I’m not going to list them all but just to mention a few of the crags (but not the routes – we did many) which stick in my mind: Bowfell Buttress, Shepherd’s Crag, Scafell Crag, The Napes, Gimmer Crag, Rosa Pinnacle on Arran, Gillercombe, Bastier Tooth on Skye. It was just recently that Dave gave me the list of climbs which I’d done with him. It’s a meticulously kept record, the names the dates, the grades and the falls! He’s like that in his climbing style; very precise, neatly done, spot on. I now keep the list myself.
For the first couple of years I do confess that I was scared to death most of the time. Often, the night before we went on a climb, I would hope for rain so that the crag might be too wet to be safe, then we’d have to settle for a walk instead. I invariably found the first pitch the hardest one. I think I need both mind and body to get pumped-up a bit before I can get into things, which at the start of a climb this just isn’t the case. But slowly, the more I climbed and the more experience and courage I gained, the more I began to look forward to the next climb. Dave always led and I was more than happy at that. It took me some time to sort-out the names of the climbing paraphernalia and of the terms of climbing; carabiner, hexi, rock, wire, belay device, belaying, pitch. Trying to overcome my fear and to catch my breath and to remember such technical details all at once took a bit of sinking in.
For me as a beginner, the most important thing was Dave’s patience, his encouragement and his primary concern with safety for us both. He will not move an inch until he is very sure that the placement of a nut is sound and safe. This gave me great confidence when making any move. I knew that the best safety had been properly done and that should I fall (which I did) I wouldn’t be going far. Mind you he can be a stickler. “No knees” “Use your legs for climbing not your hands” “Don’t use the placed kit as a hand hold” (which I did a few times, when I thought he wasn’t looking). Yes, I’ve had a few failures. Falling off as I’ve mentioned. The sheer inability to make a particular move. Requiring a tight rope. And the greatest ignominy; being lowered down to the ground.
This coming 2016 season I’m going to start to lead. I’ve bought a full rack of kit so both look and feel the part. I’ve had a couple of goes at leading already and it ain’t half scary. It concentrates the mind when thinking about safety placement. If it doesn’t hold, whose fault’s that!? It’s also taught me to be patient and none-judgmental. There have been plenty of times when Dave’s been leading and he’s out of sight above me, taking ages before he shouts down that he’s safe. It can be exasperating, as well as very cold and achy. I now know why. Caution and the greatest care in getting himself secure.
As an aside, my youngest son (15) has taken up the sport (is it a sport or a way of life?). So far we’ve been on bouldering walls and indoor climbing walls. This coming season we’ll be adventurous and try some easy climbs down in the Lakes.
I’ll finish by telling of three climbs which gave me the greatest acceleration in climbing skill and courage. Naismith’s Route on the Cuillin, Skye. I’d worked myself into lather for weeks about this climb, thinking it was going to be horrible. It wasn’t. In fact when I reached Dave at the belay he said “Well done mate.” I said, “Why, have I done it, was that it?” “Yep.”
Then we came to Ardverikei Wall on Binnein Shuas in Scotland. Surely, anyone who’s ever done this climb would just want to go on and on to climb the world. Then there was Eliminate A on Dow Crag in the Lakes. It was at the start of the fifth pitch, Dave leading. I thought he was going to go left as I could see no holds for hands or feet on the right, only a sheer drop. Dave said, “We go right.” I thought then that Dave had probably gone mad and that I would be dead or seriously injured within the next thirty minutes, or else – or else I was about to emerge from a shell as a climber. Cracking Dow Crag and reaching the top was one of the highlights of life itself.
