Feels Like the First Time

I´m stood up on a shard of some godforsaken rock, some twenty metres off the ground. Steve is shouting from below that the next move is horizontally to the right, across the face of an immediately adjacent, equally godforsaken rock.

We've driven out to a rocky outcrop somewhere north of Minas to climb up some rocks. My climbing experience is largely limited to The Arch, at a lowly four or so metres high, and over a lovely deep foam surface. Mostly, I´d climb for a couple hours, then run home to be back in Shoreditch for 'Close of Business' so I could drink a bunch of ales, usually with KK or Dug. Even in my university days, I only ever top rope climbed, where the danger and potential fall are both almost zero.

We started with a trek to the top. It´s a nice view, not dissimilar to Pan de Azúcar, sans the sea. Whilst looking for the far side of the rock, where we hope to find more climbs, we're soon quite lost. As Steve is keeping an eye on the path ahead of us, I´m looking at my footing. I notice something on the ground that he's dropped. On closer inspection, I realise that he can't have dropped this, because I know he wasn't carrying a big, hairy, man-eating spider. The creature's body and legs would happily cover my entire palm. Maybe it´s not eating locals and tourists, but I think it could stomach the best part of a small bird.

Eventually, we've found our way back to the climbs we'd spotted earlier and suit up for the job. The rock is not very trad'-friendly, and so it's been setup as a sport route, which we're lead climbing. Steve takes the first shot, but doesn't like the first crack between godforsaken rock A and godforsaken rock B. We swap, and being a foot shorter, I manage to squeeze into the crack and push on up into the next part. I find crack climbing perfectly pleasant.You have all the friction of your back against the rear wall, and your feet pressed against the other. You'd struggle to fall. I'm happy to look down. I´m not scared of heights. I'm scared of falling. I´m not sure, but I might be more scared of the falling itself than I am of the potentially ensuing death.

At the twenty metre mark, I'm looking for the next bolt by way of Steve's description. It's outside my cosy crack, two metres horizontally across a wind exposed rock face. I like my crack. I don't like rock face B. Not even a little bit. I climb out to atop my crack, on rock face A, and edge toward the tip of a shard to get a view of the next bolt. I can see it, but I still don't like it. I study the rock to see what the move might be. I can see good hand holds, but no foot holds. I don't like it. I back up to a comfortable position, still atop the shard. I work out that if I climb higher, then I can go horizontally and use those hand holds as foot holds. I still don´t like it. I suppose that if I were back in the comfort and safety of The Arch, I'd do this with ease. As it stands, here and now, if I move to the next bolt, I´ll have at least two metres of slack on my rope. That means a potential four metre fall. At best, the fall would have me swing and slam into a rock face, or back into the crack, neither with any elegance. At worst, I´d fall and catch the tip of the shard and die, con mucho sangrado - at worst. The latter is quite vivid in my imagination. I consider the attractive but shameful option of climbing down to my last bolt and being safely lowered down to the ground. For a full five minutes I stand there, clutching the rock with one hand, carefully and repetitively considering all of this.

After that five minutes, the winning thought is that my calculated route is probably comfortably within my ability. It takes another minute to mentally inflate my balls until they're big enough to start the move toward the next bolt.

As the quick draw snaps closed around my rope, with the other end securely on the bolt. I am suddenly enveloped in my own sense of self satisfaction - even feeling a little heroic. Surprisingly, the move didn't terrify me beyond the capacity for rational thought. Somehow, the fear is briefly suspended.

With fear somewhat suspended, and now with "the pump", I can tackle to next one or two bolts. I look up for the next bolt. Then I look down at my waist harness. I've run out of quick draws. I shout at Steve to ask what the heck I'm meant to do now. He tells me with a sympathetic shout, that I'll need to pick up some of those that are now redundant, lower down. I don't need this shit. I have the option of being lowered down on the now secure rope, but I decide that a "real" climber would climb down, and so I do - reversing back across the face of doom. Although my rope is above me, it's at an ugly angle of twenty or thirty degrees, so I won't fall down, but I might swing out and slam into the protruding bits of rock face A with some force. Thankfully, that thought doesn't occur to me in the heat of the moment. I restock my quick draws and climb back across the face for the third time. The fear is still suspended, so I get back up to my best position without too much trouble.

Alas, as I pull and push toward the next bolt, the move is asking for strength that I've just expelled in restocking. This move also involves a likely fall and this time, there's no agreeable position of comfort from which to study and 'man up.' My heroism is fading fast, so I opt to get the hell back to earth with the remaining amount intact.