VDiff Autumn 2015

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36 Front Cover: Sunny Southern Californian climbing. Tom Slater Photography Š VDiff Autumn 2015 - 3

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Many years ago, I was lured into the vertical world by the adventurous spirit of friends, by the unique way of experiencing something entirely private, fun and free. But as the years passed, I developed a strange infatuation with competition, with climbing up the grading system. Climbing became less exploratory, more routine. It became less adventurous, more about short, physical bursts. It became like sex with my wife.

In an effort to rekindle this lost love, I teamed up with my best buddy, Jeff Kirkham, to venture into the prehistoric depths of Wyoming's Wind River Range, with aspirations of climbing a new route on a remote peak.

We trekked through a wild land littered with towering 13,000-foot summits. Great bounding waterfalls

plunged between them into deep, aquamarine pools. The sweet sap of twisted pine added a pleasant tang to the crisp mountain air. A rugged, soaring spire stood proudly before us. A swivelling line weaved up through the main part of the south-facing wall, threading between huge pillars of smooth, golden granite embedded with glinting flecks of mica.

Undocumented, unclimbed, and with a humbling lesson to teach us.

For five pitches, we boogied and waltzed up the face, crimping along rippling slabs and jamming up unbroken chains of cracks, driven by the transcendent hit of firstascent euphoria. The cracks were mostly mud-filled, but occasionally, we stumbled upon mysterious clean sections, just big enough for cams, as if created just for us by a generous genius of the mountain.

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The angle began to ease, the climb was almost over. I slinked up a mottled face, following the only obvious line.

"How about The Golden Virgin?"

Jeff hollered from the belay below.

A white smear of dusty lichen captured my attention. It sheltered beneath an undercling, almost as if it was a chalk print.

"What?"

"A name for the route."

I stroked my fingers along the golden granite, carefully caressing and cupping contours. Virgin rock, touched for the first time.

The Golden Virgin. I imagined it printed alongside our names in the next guidebook.

"Dude, that sounds..." I began. But something a few meters above seized my gaze, halted my speech.

It twinkled in the sun, it stole my pride with a sparkle, and replaced it with humility. I stepped up and came eye-to-eye with the evidence of an untold tale; a tale which dwarfed mine and Jeff's ascent into insignificance.

"That sounds what?" Jeff asked.

A nut, fairly new but well used, was stuck in a shallow fissure. The only logical way to that precise point was via the route we'd climbed.

The white smear, the clean sections for cams, it all made sense. I tugged the nut upwards,

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then hesitated, caught between greed and honesty.

I could hide the evidence from Jeff.

We could claim the first ascent. We could get sponsorship and be famous.

I tugged again. It popped out.

Why would someone climb this incredible route and not tell the story?

"Man, this is so awesome, just being here. I could totally spend my life doing this, every day." Jeff's words floated up, unknowingly answering my question.

It was awesome. The clear sky was saturated with sapphire, azure and cobalt hues. An ancient Precambrian thrust fault extended to the south like the bony spines of giant dinosaurs. To the east, miles of Paleozoic spikes were exposed above patches of weathered glaciers in a series of hogbacks

and slopes; the chilling aftermath of a Stegosaurus war that was frozen mid-battle, and then transformed into stone. From those towering monoliths, an astute understanding emerged: Whether we were the first, or the thousandth, to climb that particular route, the real achievement is to have shared the journey with a great friend, for having wisely spent this precious thing we call 'time' on something fun and memorable.

Maybe the real first-ascentionists' climbed for the fun of it, for the adventure. Or it could be that they sought a harder challenge than the climb; to keep it secret.

I slotted the nut back in place, giving it a hard tap with my nut tool.

Perhaps the most impressive tales are those which remain untold.

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A red tent pitched on arctic ice became our only shelter on the lost fjord. A bear-hunting gun lay in the corner. Outside, there stood four haul bags with enough food and gear to last two people for thirty days. We switched off the rumbling stove and amidst the sudden silence, started slurping tea and munching candy. Wherever steam accumulated, ice appeared immediately; a drop of spilt water stiffened into an abstract, white, polar bear shape. We pulled up our hoods and curled inside our sleeping bags. The beginning of April on Baffin Island seemed like the coldest hell on earth to us. But before sleep closed our eyes, we congratulated each other: our dream had just been realised – we had made it to the base of Polar Sun Spire.

From the moment we started climbing the wall, we began calling each other Regan and Yeti. Our normal names stayed somewhere at the bottom, on the fjord, or maybe even further away: at home, at work, along with everything we had been doing until then. We had left the shore for the unknown ocean of arctic granite. Blue faces of internet nights, unwritten examinations of conscience, papers full of disasters and tragedies, restless thoughts and unfinished cases had all been left far behind. Behind us was all that

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we wanted to escape, and all that we wanted to return to.

The first couple of hours on the wall were jittery and chaotic. On one hand, we wanted to climb quickly, as if we only had one day on the wall; on the other, our rhythms and commands were not harmonious.

We’d never climbed together before, so we needed time and patience to adapt. The first couple of pitches in relation to the whole wall were like drawing out a handful of water from a boundless ocean.

The first bivouac was like a meditational breath, thanks to which we gained peace and rhythm. The next morning, despite snowfall and light breeze, we were in high spirits. From that point, our

tent, left behind on the fjord, was fast becoming a vanishing point; after every day, after every pitch – smaller and smaller. The specific feeling of being detached, of being off the beaten track, of leaving the shore, had finally arrived. It was like starting a trek into the wilderness. A trek which soothes and calms, with first steps marked by anxiety and disharmony. Afterwards, the joy of discovery outweighed the impatience.

One morning, Yeti sped up a crack towards an enormous curved feature that we named 'The Boomerang'. It had only been a couple of days before that he had led a challenging mixed pitch and now I was looking at how confidently and rapidly he was moving. When he was climbing the crack, his ice axe suddenly fell out and his falling body jerked the line.

Yeti narrowly missed hitting his VDiff Autumn 2015 - 13

head against a ledge. He checked if his nose was bleeding and inhaled deeply. We looked at each other tellingly, but a moment later, Yeti continued up in his same, steady rhythm without malediction.

We switched leads and I squirmed into a rotten corner. Before I set each placement, I had to remove all the loose rocks and clean the cracks. Rubble was falling; first on my brand new jacket, then somewhere into the abyss below. I

think it was then that the stones cut the rope and the portaledge pitched beneath. My mind didn’t dwell while I was removing all the loose rocks one after another, setting cams, hammering beaks and, metre after metre, approaching a ledge for the next stance.

Stones cut our ropes almost every day, but the rotten rock wasn't able to stop us. We finally set up our second camp, which almost VDiff Autumn 2015 - 14

instantly seemed quite depressive to us: it was cold, in deep shadow on the north face, and above our heads protruded the overhanging rocks of the Boomerang. But because nothing is ever merely good or bad, we had our daily delight there. At that time of the year, the polar day practically doesn’t end. During cloudless nights, the almost-setting sun shone on us. For the full twenty minutes, we exposed our faces and rejoiced in the golden midnight light.

Yeti geared up and climbed over a corner edge, entering a small depression. I started counting whilst flexing my toes, trying to fight off the paralyzing cold; the circulation would come back after two hundred. Yeti’s scream interrupted the trance-like countdown of toe movements and

roused me from the mind-numbing cold. Yeti had led us to the East ridge, liberating us from the frozen abyss. From there he could see the headwall cut by two beautiful cracks. One of them was waiting for us. We screamed with joy.

When I got to the belay stance, I stared at his icy face with disbelief; the cold, unlike at any other part of that wall, obstructed breathing and took away the will to climb. Yeti’s chin, nose and eyelashes were covered with ice. He called that place 'The Fridge'.

Fingers of sunlight slipped through a porous sky. I was wearing all the clothes I had, shaking and shielding myself from the wind. At a certain moment I stopped and followed my inner voice, which kept repeating, ‘listen to the wind, listen to the stones'. I remembered Yeti VDiff Autumn 2015 - 15

cracks. I curled up for self-defence and started again.

saying that since we can’t fight the cold, we have to befriend it. It sounded like a quote from Machiavelli, but it was effective.

The following morning, we found ourselves swinging with the wind again as it started snowing densely at the middle part of the headwall.

The snow embedded and froze on our faces. My cheeks were stinging unmercifully, but I tried not to think about it. Every time I attempted to place some pro, snow covered the

"If it’s hard, don’t think, but climb."

Yeti's wise words drifted up to me. I shook off all the bad thoughts and took delight in the void. A great corner opened over our heads, leading almost to the top. We called it 'The Arena'.

Yeti started climbing on The Arena.

It was really steep, so the cracks of gray and red rock were visible even when it snowed. It was one of the most beautiful pitches on the wall. I looked at him with admiration, swaying in the wind above me with the rope rolling away from the wall.

Soon after, I was defending myself from spinning around in the air whilst cleaning and pulling out cams passionately. The top was at our fingertips. We fooled around and started exchanging earthly dreams: a warm shower, clean clothes, a bed with fragrant bedding, freshly brewed coffee and walking around town, looking at girls...

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We hadn’t even noticed when, in blind fog, we found ourselves on a flat spot with a stone mound from where you could only descend. Our reflections on the clouds were waving with child-like joy, and beyond the whiteness of clouds, protruded the top, which looked like the tip of an egg laid on a white tablecloth. Nobody in the valley

could see the peak of Polar Sun Spire. We were the only ones who could rejoice in that view.

Yeti says that in the mountains you get rewarded for all the suffering, for all the fear. Maybe that was our reward. We had our wall to ourselves and we took it with us forever.

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My phone beeps. 'So, is this a date?'

"Yes!" I bounce around the kitchen in teenage-like excitement, then wait an appropriate amount of playing-it-cool time before sending a non-committal response. He leaves the crag choice to me, as the Yorkshire local. I give him the option of hard sport, or some tiny grit outcrop, expecting him to want to crush while I pretend to know what I'm doing on the warmup. To my relief, he goes for the grit, with the excuse that he's far too weak for steep limestone. I don't believe him.

I shuffle towards her, hands in pockets. She stands yoga-straight and confident, with her hands settled in the sexy curve of her hips, projecting the aura of an accomplished climber.

'Are we supposed to hug, or shake hands, or maybe kiss on the cheeks?' I wonder.

Years had passed since I'd been on a date. I go for the handshake, but we are standing too far apart and the motion evolves into an awkward half-wave.

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"Hello, good afternoon."

I announce, as if it was a business meeting.

"Good to see you." Her sandstone-blonde hair bounces in gentle waves as she speaks. I hold the gaze of her blue eyes for a moment, then glance at the ground.

"Good to see you too." I mumble.

I could happily just hang out all evening, but think that my lack of climbing psyche might put him off.

“The arete's cool. Super easy!” I lie. I've climbed it before, found it scary.

He racks up from a battered pile of disorganised gear.

No chalk bag, socks under his shoes – maybe less hardcore than I'd thought? No, he dances swiftly up the arete placing a quarter of the gear I would have done.

My stomach sinks as I realise it's my turn. The easy line to the side isn't going to impress him. I know the slab will be too hard, but...

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"How about the slab?" She suggests, flicking through a tattered guidebook.

Abraded skin appears on the back of her hands, as if from miles of jamming and twisting up gritstone hand cracks.

The pads of her forefingers are worn to a soft pink sheen, hinting at clinging to micro edges, of crimping and squeezing for purchase on steep rock above heather-scented moorland. I feel intimidated, yet impressed.

With apprehension, I start smearing up the slab, pretending that my ability has somehow increased by several grades. Too quickly, it is clear that it hasn't; no amount of trying to impress will disperse my fear of the fall. The holds disappear, along with any respect I might have gained, and I whimper back to the ground.

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Seizing the opportunity to be a gentleman, I offer to take the lead. I teeter up the slab, jerky and robot-like, then slot a group of nuts in a neat constriction. The move above looks impossible.

"How's it going?" She asks. The ocean-blue discs of her eyes settle on me.

"It's fine. No problem at all." I hide my fear and lies behind smoothly pronounced words. When she isn't looking, I pull on the nuts to avoid the move.

He confidently smears up the slab, making my attempt look pathetic. The move's nowhere near as hard with a rope above me. Have I blown it, relegated to the lowly realms of the top roping girlfriend?

She quickly follows, gracefully floating up the move I had to cheat on. She's a keeper.

About the authors: Tess and Nick have since climbed together all over the world. They now live in a little cottage in the Lake District and avoid smearing up gritstone slabs.

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