I read recently that a friend and fellow adventurer,
Rob Greenwood was hanging up his axes, at least temporarily, for adventures on safer shores. This led me to contemplate the transition my life has taken since marriage, and the arrival of Logan, Ethan and Dylan. I recently after my
Thursday experience have also forsworn the wilder shores, and I'm getting my head around what exactly that means. I've certainly changed as a person, Its not just the responsibility of fatherhood, maybe I've less to prove to myself, and others, Maybe I've learnt enough from death choss now..
I was Trawling the archives and found this essay I knocked out in the early days. I post it here in trepidation, but as awkward as it reads, it does give an interesting, if cloudy and warped, snapshot into my mindset back then.
"Death Dance"
"Keep
it loose, and if you can't keep it loose, keep it stupid..." parting words
upon leaving the safe cyber shores of rocktalk and moving all my possessions to
the powerfully real surrounds of Llanberis.. Having managed to get into my new
abode, despite having to fish the keys from the letterbox of an absent mate
(long story) I soon felt totally out of my depth. Here was I, a low to mid
grade adventure climber, attempting to join in with one of the most important
climbing communities in the country.
With
my few firm friends in Llanber' on holiday or keeping a low profile, I went
through the motions, fixing up the house and wondering why I'm here.
Lounging
lethargically round the house, watching the drizzle slide down the windows, I
thought about going home.
Bollocks
to that. I checked the weather forecast and this afternoon was going to be the
only dry weather in ages. I packed a drink and boots and chalk bag and set off
for the lake. My goal was upper Dinorwic, with only one Crook route up there,
there must be some scope, and the walk will stop me feeling lazy. The Oil drum
glacier was interesting, and I could easily imagine getting buried up there.
Only Katie and Rob saw me go, I didn't tell them my plans, too easy to be
dissuaded. No help there then.
Upper Australia, Dinorwic,
whatever you call it is huge. And scary, don't forget scary. Can I forget?
Red
slate that's all blocky and slopey, the purple havens and grey evilness that
gives way to sheets like punk wood and shivering bands of mud and shale. Quartz
filled dolerite that crumbles like salt and life saving sheets of brown sand
paper. Memories of the place come unbidden like the passage of tunnels on an
intercity train journey.
It
would be too simplistic to say I was cocky. I knew that if I set out trying to
prove something then I would die. However, I was feeling a spare part, unsure
whether I had a right to be there in the first place. I needed an enema for the
soul.
Suited
and booted I immediately regretted not bringing a helmet, the occasional gust
of wind bringing down tiny flakes like autumn leaves. Maybe if I had brought a
helmet I wouldn't have come, too thought provoking a hell-met is. I attacked
the most beautiful line, and retreated in fear. I found a solid arête and got
fifteen feet up before pulling a huge block off that tried to propel me to the
deck. I turned instead to an easy gully. My first encounter with the bands of
vertical shale that insinuate themselves through the cliff, brought only anger.
Especially as there was a possible, if sustained, crack above me that I would
have relished if I had some gear, a rope and a partner. Too much uncertainty,
but I couldn't turn back so early. Once I'd crossed it, I couldn't turn back.
Grovelling, digging and knitting the solid patches together I was spat out onto
the terrace. I could walk off here. Leaving what? a shitty shaley loose pitch
going nowhere of merit? Arrogance forced me to seek a second pitch, one that
flowed from the first.
A
ledge system spotted from the ground gave hope, and I emerged shaken onto a
platform containing a simple VS layback that had held so much promise from
below. It ran with water and was capped by a loose wig of death blocks. Arse. A
brief consultation with my maker left me a little calmer and I saw a series of
ledges leading round the left arête of this niche. they were coated with brown
crystals that rivalled grit in friction. Yummy. Unfortunately, as I strode
forth, it became apparent that all I touched started to move. "Seek the
easy path" became my mantra and I oscillated between oases of brown
sandpaper, my fear rising like vomit. The doors had closed, the heavens were
like brass; silent. Twenty minutes, half an hour must have elapsed in this
tortured groove, pinned between a rotting miner's hut and my mortality. I gave
up. I headed back knowing how dangerous retreat was on terrain such as this.
You see when you go up, your hands pioneer the path, sensitively selecting the
good nuts from the bad. My feet are pretty crap at this. Somehow, my path down
differed from my path up, probably due to my paranoia over loose footholds. My
fingers sank behind a solid flake. The doors opened again and choirs of angels
sung a tentative chorus. One jug and some solid footholds do not equal an end
to trouble. I commit and am immediately taken back to long repressed memories
of past epics. A fragile rock over into the unknown, with death patrolling the
depths below like a restless shark. Time shuffled its feet and so did I.
Romanticising
aside, I made it to the next terrace. Took off my boots and prepared to bugger
off. I was stopped by the notion that I was still alive, and before me lay a
beautiful and most importantly safe looking corner. Short and perfectly formed,
it succumbed to a struggle and I was back in the race. The worst was over.
Steadily following the easiest path in the straightest line, two more
interesting and non death-like pitches were dispatched. It was the end of
festivities. A short scramble up moss and scree led to the final terrace, a
walk to safety, and an ogle at Crook's Big Thursday. Smashing.
Maybe
there's a life for me here after all. Better find a climb partner effing quick
though. Life's too precious.
Why
I am here again? Alone in the shattered heart of Dinorwic. I'm booted and
suiting at the bottom of a chaotic fissure gaping like a festering wound. This
is actually serious. a grade I haven't attempted on a real and proven route.
Its not my imagination, its someone else's. I hope they aren't ill humoured. A
helmet this time, There's no fooling myself of this crucibles potential. Peace
sits uneasily on my heart while my head cycles through what little beta I
scraped. A solo to prevent a seconds death. First pitch hard to reverse. Don't
do in an earthquake. Check. Why am I here? The threshing floor awaits, I'm off
to meet myself.
Section
one twists up like a Crag Lough corner. A niche is entered via a soft fist jam.
looseness abounds but in a unthreatening curious way. I'm moving through but
not part of it all. Until a big lump come off in my hand that is. Shit. Still I
was in balance and, therefore not dead. I lob it into the abyss, cursing as I'm
forced to digest the reality of the depths. All the effing way to the bottom.
Eff. Must remember not to fall off, that's all. Mantling out to the arete I
find the move Ray talked about; reversible but not in a pretty way. Never mind,
I'll walk off the easy way. Now Ray said the first pitch was the hard one. The
gorge rises out of the rubble like a stage set from star trek meets Bram
Stoker. Its a lot wider than I thought, and carpeted with shit and surfboards.
I pause to take in the scenery, you must pop up for the view of the rest of Australia,
its quite a pleasant perspective. I stick to the walls of the gorge, at least
once I confirm the status of the flooring. The dolerite makes it feel unlike
any of the other experiences I've had out here. as does the thick coat of mud
everything has. More like Cheddar than North Wales.
The gorge ends. A chimney huh? More like a huge boulder choke that caps the
gorge with choss and sludge. No bloody roof in the description! Here I face the
crucible. Here I see myself clearly. here I hope the obviously loose rock will
gain gravity and immobility, bolt themselves down. I clean the sludge off the
few holds, a rock comes away and hits me in the bollocks. pulling on shite I
insinuate myself onto the horizontal. Weirdness, all is stupidity. Fun though,
and it feeds my head.
The
smell from smashing slate is like standing too close to fireworks. a smell of
danger, a warning of the place you have brought yourself into. It screams
"Get out! Mine!" There are treasures in the darkness that it
protects. but they are slid between the borders of life and death. I doubt I
will ever see them, not for long anyway. When a Jewish priest entered the holy
of holies, the other of otherness, the sacred heart of the temple, the other
priests tied a rope to his leg, so that if he was overcome by the power of God
and died, they could drag him out without endangering themselves. I'm getting
worried, I'm beginning to get excited by slate's vaporisation. Its real, a
sentry to a more real place.
I'm
not afraid of death, but I don't want to die, please believe that. I've made
peace with my maker and there is much to be done. But I believe in an
otherness; a yearning for a different life. I feel a need to place my self in a
crucible of my own making, parameters of my choosing rather than the fashions
of the day. I yearn for a place for chivalry within climbing. Indeed it may be
its last refuge in this fearful, controlled and contrived "safe"
society. The heroes are stretched thin as paper and extrapolated far from their
templates and their root form. A knight is known by their deeds. this is not
their works, their calculated actions, but the spontaneous actions driven by
who they are and who they are made to be. Climbing for yourself, striving
towards a point where this is a soul drive, just for you, and maybe your
climbing partner, but no one else. That should be our goal. The arena of
testing is dispassionate and the earth does not feel our passing. It is on the
surface that life passes; like condensation on a mirror. There are, however,
guides to the threshing floor. I listen for the quiet voice that made me, and
the smell of combat.
Having
said the crucible of Dinorwic is a cold and impartial to our passing, it seems
strange to now turn to the moods of the quarries. During a buzzing, crackling
summer, with ropes coiled like snakes in the grass, all may be good in the
world. Meanwhile, out in the badlands under leeched grey skies, with shattered
battlements tipping their hand, Death might be your belayer. A single location
may charge through the full spectrum of emotion like a bull in a psyche ward.
It is in truth a lot like the dark side's dwelling place on Dagobar, found in
“The Empire Strikes Back”. Here is an arena where spirits may dwell, and all
that is with you is just what you have taken in your self, or have attracted to
yourself. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld has the dungeon dimensions which strive
to pierce through reality into the world, in places where the boundary between
the two realm’s are stretched thin. Maybe the quarries are a nexus in a similar
vein. No matter.
Adorning
the sterile substrate of slate like a rainbow on a soap bubble, life clings and
shadows roam; projected, trespassing, or otherwise. These stirrings impinge on
us in differing ways. While below the surface dirt and rock and worms and water
dwell, the surface is a slick of grass and heather and gorse and goats. This in
turn is punctured by monoliths of man's failings, hopes and natures solutions.
These connect with us through our wiring and baggage. They trigger the positive
and the negative, the constructive and the destructive within us. Whether we
are conscious of this or not is depends on our tuning. When in a group we are
insulated by the projections from our comrades. Like a lake in the rain;
patterns are dispersed to an even murmur. When numbers are reduced the ripples
are more discernible. And alone there is just you and the residents; bouncing
off the quarry walls, oinking crows, wailing goats and the bowels of the hill
humming a melody that's manmade. There is something reassuring about the
generator hum. It tells you that you are not alone, Sometimes a whisper
sometimes a roar. Where is doesn't tread, these seem to be the dark places.
Wind fights generator. Man against anti-man. For wind, and the rain for that
matter, can tip you off the threshing floor into the machinery. The dark places
in the quarries are found where the anti-man elements gain a stronghold.
Twilight seems reinforce this, long regarded as a time where worlds meet, maybe
its merely the leaving of the light, taking away a point of security. Try to
take the light with you, that's what I reckon.
What
is anti man? Things that are destructive and negative. A mild breeze stimulates
the upturned cheek as you contemplate your next rockover, A sudden gust takes
you off and down the hole. I feel that all aspects of life must be split to one
camp or the other to a certain degree, if something is truly neutral then it is
of no use and therefore a hindrance. Characteristics and quirks can be
expressed for good or evil also. Nothing is irredeemable, it is how it is
applied; anger or passion, fussing or caring, moody or contemplative.
All
that is up there is what you take with you, fed by what is for us, and what is
against. This is my experience of the quarries.
There you go. I'm not sure I'm that person any more, but I can just about trace the journey.
