Recovery

by Nick Bullock

A moving-modern-art painting passes in front of my face, green-black-grey-white but most of all red. Slipping. Swirling. Blending. Like shimmering greasy-oil on the surface of a muddy pool at the side of a busy road. I slide the length of the abseil rope. Inspecting, dissecting, attempting to fathom lines amongst the mayhem of runnels and cracks. Bands of soft white clay cut through the red-rock with Stanley-knife precision. Pink fibrous scar tissue, a reminder for life, a lesson for life, running the length of an inmates face was the last time I had seen a line this true.

Seagull shit runs in festering-infecting-fish-stinking-sticky streaks. It pours from insect ridden nest sites like icicles pouring from an overflowing gutter in winter. Nests fill the ledges, blocking the clay bands with their mud-thatch construction, sprouting from between congealed lumps of soft rock that weep faeces like matter from a freshly burst boil. The fledgling seagulls have long departed, living on their own now-making their way in an unforgiving-bad-mad world. The sickly stench of shit and fish and sea, mingle together making a heady aroma. The smell burrows like cigarette smoke into the fibres of my clothes.

The climbing restrictions have been lifted; remnants of family life are strewn all over the face. Stu McAleese and I settle on the grass ramp at the foot of Left-Hand Red Wall. The sea crashes into the gaping void at the base of the face. Gulls swoop and soar on thermals, screaming, crying, liberated. I envy their skill and their view, but not their ability to fly.

Insects burrow and squirm in the dirt and slime. Speckled-fat-spiders spin a yarn between thick-crinkled and leathery dock leaves. Vibrant-green bunches burst from the ramp that we carefully sort our gear for the first time this season. For me it’s the first time ever on Red Wall at Gogarth in North Wales and the excitement I feel is threatening to burst from my fingertips.

“Go for it, but take your time and lace it.”

Stu, who has teamed up with me for the time I’m here in North-Wales calls, he in-stills confidence in me. His energy and easy-going nature are just two of a long list of credentials that make climbing with him a joy.

Stepping from the green and sloping and into the red and grey-vertical world of the crumbling first pitch of the climb, Stu adds encouragement

“Twid says to climb here you have to spread your weight,” I move back and forth several times too scared to pull on a single hold.

“Yes, well that doesn’t give me loads of confidence as Twid’s a Jedi on this stuff and I’m more like Jabba the Hut!”

I recall a conversation with Louise, Twid’s partner the previous day,

“He says the rock on Red Wall isn’t loose, it’s soft.” She follows this with a look that tells me more than words.

This gives me no confidence at all as I ease five points of contact into a rising clay chimney. Pushing. Pressing. Palming. Careful transference of weight in an attempt to become an Astronaut in a solar system of red and smelly, I wished gravity didn’t rule on planet Gogarth. Really though I’m glad it does. Life would be staid, unexciting, passé without gravity.

I have carried more gear and placed more gear than ever before in the previous weeks of cragging.

“Place as much as you can, whenever you can,” Stu calls.

He really doesn’t need to convince me. Placing cams into clay, wires into moving flakes and slinging spikes whenever possible I tell myself something will hold should the unthinkable happen.

Sitting belayed on the pedestal in the middle of the wall the first pitch is in the bag. 5c but feeling more serious than many of the E6s I’ve led. I Peer down to the glittering sea crashing into the zawn a hundred feet below and reflect on the reason I’m now in Wales cragging, and not mountaineering in Peru.

My climbing partner on many adventures over the previous ten years, Cartwright, had fallen with his client while guiding in the Alps. I thought I was ok until I started cragging on my early return from the mountains. It was then I discovered that my usual carefree attitude while climbing had taken a serious knock with the death of my friend. Jules was indestructible, strong and confident. If he can die what hope for the rest of us? The last occasion we had climbed together was here at Gogarth, the sea sparkled much as today…much as his eyes. The first few weeks were difficult and I was still carrying a rack of gear more suited to the walls of Yosemite, a heavy heart and a head of emotion, but my confidence was returning along with the strength in my arms.

The Blond God passed by looking honed, sure, and in control. Breezing the more solid, but technically more difficult second pitch, we met on top of the crag to ask what next?

“Cannibal sounds interesting don’t you think?” The blond confident one of the partnership states while reading the guide.

“You reckon? It sounds pretty bloody scary to me.” From the old, knackered, unconfident one, knowing it was my lead. Feeling the need to push myself a little more I soon found myself on the downward journey once again ready to do a slow-cautious and calculated dance amongst the soft.

E4 5c is not a popular grade for some climbers. It suggests scary run-outs and sustained unprotected sequences. Normally this is the type of ground I love when I’m going well and feeling confident. Unfortunately I was neither, although the voice had returned, the voice of castigation, a sure sign my drive was returning.

Intense, unprotected, loose and intimidating. Dust covered fins of suspect potato-crisp quality had to be pulled to gain another clay band with which to sit and recover and mentally prepare before launching once again into the mad-moon-like-meringue structure jutting from above. Time ticked by, gear when it presented was greedily gobbled in a hope of fulfilment should the need to taste and test ever occur.

Pulling the lip of Red Wall for the second time that day my thirst for adventure was sated and with the blond one wilting in the heat,

(‘Ha, not looking so good now’ I thought), we ran away for a car-park ice cream hit.

A couple of days later I returned with the original Catalogue Man John Bracey. Steel jaw and chiselled features, sophisticated and young, I vowed to look for climbing partners that were preferably on a par with my plain looks, or even better-bald fat and ugly!

Once again stood on the grassy ramp at the base of Left-Hand Red Wall, the dirt and smell shocked me with the intensity. Catalogue Man slid beside me and looked with disgust at the first pitch of Pagan, the three star Pat Littlejohn route. His lip curled as if the barman had served his gin and tonic stirred and not shaken.

“Wow, that looks disgusting…your lead I reckon.”

“Ok, but it really isn’t so bad once you start.” I said with more confidence than I felt, hoping to sandbag Bracey into leading the pitch.

“No that’s ok Nick, go for it, I know how much you like this sort of thing.”

This sort of thing was a 5b traverse along a green and slimy, wet and festering ledge. A nest filled the ledge at one point. Lush grass bushed from beneath and above, dripping clear, clean water that sparkled in the sun then mixed with green slime to become tainted and infected-lost innocence, welcome to the world!

Cleaning my shoes for the fifth time, knocking the lumps of ash from the rubber, I wondered why I was bothering, this would be no technical-soft shoe shuffle across clean solid rock. The thought of chalk was laughable.

Launching once more into the vertical, or rather, gently and cautiously stepping, moving slowly, carefully, into the world of the unknown it surprised me how quick I focused on the climbing, the movement and commitment required for this type of stuff. Easing along the brake avoiding the old dried smears of bird shit, tapping the rock, assessing, gently weighting, creeping, inching, pulling, pushing, all consuming, all committing, I was in the zone and fully focused.

Escaping from the normal and climbing into the dark intense place in my head I save for these special occasions is definitely one of the best reasons for climbing, forgetting the mundane, ignoring the insane, questioning mortality….Escape? My immediate future depends on dirt-encrusted-cracks, sand-coated with ball bearing like friction, cams in clay, pockets overflowing with grime like an ash-tray on a busy Saturday night bar and good luck. This is adventure. Life is never better, life is sweet and well worth the risk.

Bracey ambles along the first pitch with the confidence of a top-rope and begins to take on the second. The rock here in the middle of the wall is cleaner, steeper and more solid. The moves are beautiful exercises in technical footwork, planning and route-finding.

I climb the final pitch that traverses right following flakes and cracks then back left with less gear and more exposure. Bracey reads the guidebook and gives me running commentary on the direction I should be climbing. This is no place to take a wrong move and launch into a sequence that once committed to could prove irreversible. It would be to easy to find ones self high and dry, marooned in the middle of a blank section of the red with no way out other than allowing gravity to take its course.

Topping out with the route in the bag the old desires return, I long to be back on the wall pushing myself, living on the edge, close to the edge….

How fate twists and turns our way in life. One day everything is fine-the next day you find life is kicking you hard. Curled in the gutter, arms and legs pulled in tight for protection, the blows keep coming. Hopefully, inner strength is enough for recovery.

I stare into the Gogarth guidebook and look at the pictures. One stands out more than the rest.

Paul Pritchard’s eyes burn into the rock. He peeps from his duvet jacket focused only on his immediate future. Thin, black striped licra-clad legs poke from the oversized jacket. Socks pulled high, licra leggings tucked in tight. Clinging to life on a cold wind driven day. South Stack lighthouse glows yellow in the background, lighting the way with methodical, mesmerising regularity. The sea is in turmoil below, white and turbulent bordering the black rock. Stare long and hard and be there with him. Listen long and hard-hear the gull’s cry and the crash of the sea…listen to his heartbeat. Feel your heartbeat.

Another day…recovery.

A falling rock or falling from rock, life can be difficult to fathom at times. What’s it all about I wonder as I sketch across the biggest holds on the climb, nearly falling, pumped stupid, feet scrabbling. Reaching the ledge I look back at the gear that I nearly tested. It surely would have ripped. Two wires wedged behind an expanding red flake. Beneath, a number one wire likely to have held my fall was a mile away.

Shittlegruber, E6 6b, climbed in 86 by Pritchard and Harms gives intense, technical climbing with spaced gear and thought provoking sequence. I feel fully satisfied as the steep overhanging groove above the fiery-blank wall of red is climbed. It’s in the bag now. Life is moving on.

Time is short. In two days Stu and myself fly to the Alps for a quick hit. I fear that on my return I will be useless once again. My body wastes and grows weak in the mountains. I fear my head may also weaken on my first visit to the Alps since Jules died. The memories will be strong. The cafes we sat outside together after epic struggles, ogling the school girls-pissed on a pint after hanging on the North Face of the Grandes Jorasse in winter. Celebrating success. Commiserating failure. Heart of Gold Direct is mine for the taking if only I can get on it.

Living in Ynes Ettws, the Climbers Club hut in the Llanberis Pass my mobile informs me I have a text message. Catalogue Man wants to climb and as the rain pours down the window it looks like my chance has arrived for a date with Heart of Gold.

Racing along the A55 across Anglesey, the sun brakes through the cloud. A shaft of sun blazes, spotlighting the way to Red Wall-lighting the way to my recovery. Within no time Bracey is inching into the middle of the wall, carefully pulling and testing with every move.

He reaches the hanging stance and rigs a bomber belay. I move toward him stretching and warming my arms between moves. Crowds of tourists stand on the promontory by the RSPB information centre, no doubt hoping to witness an epic-something to brighten their Daily Mail, daily stale existence.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Begin now…..

I leave Bracey hanging from a cat’s cradle of half sunk wires and cams rammed into clay. I don’t envy him. By the time I’ve led 40 metres of uncertain E66a, his legs will be dead and his head numb.

Time stands still now. The sea is quiet, the gulls are quiet-no more the cacophony like revellers on the dance floor. My forearms burn with lactic acid. Gear is very much of a minimum. Stu’s beta on how best to approach the route runs constantly through my head,

“Its all on good holds, you just have to trust and yard. Don’t stop to think, just keep moving.”

I wonder if life is on good holds?

I screw the inside edge of my right foot onto a sharp flake. It doesn’t brake as I weight it. Leaning from the wall I rock back and stand in one flowing move. Pushing down on the same hold that is now level with my waist, my eyes dart looking for edges, crimps, cracks, and crozzles. Something-anything. Body tension keeps me in place long enough to shake out and compute the following sequence of moves before committing.

Bracey is 25 feet below, leaning from the rope watching me carefully. We have both been in this position before. At least this time there is a rusty old peg between us. Unlike the fall from Omega on the Petit Jorasses last winter where I broke my ankle, should the worst happen now, we will wait for the helicopter knowing there won’t be a charge.

“Trust and yard, keep moving”

The consequences of falling don’t enter my head now. The moves flow without fear and the rock is read in an instant.

Again I feel content with the world and ready to move on.

*

Life can kick you in the teeth.

Life can be a bastard.

We lose close friends along the way, but they are always there. Keep them close and never forget. Lean on their memory in times of trouble.

We fall and flounder, but then hopefully we grow. Live and learn. We make it through rough times and come out stronger and fitter, ready once again to push it out above that shaky piece of gear, ready once again to enjoy life.

The End.

Thanks to Mammut and DMM for continual support.

Most of all thanks to my friends for being there.