Expanding our world, together

I was pretty excited…I’d been telling Barbara for months about the glories of alpine climbing. She would ask me: “Isn’t it dangerous? Why would you do it?”

Rather unhelpfully, I’d squint into the middle distance. “It’s not about adrenaline at all…and yet the danger is an important part. It’s about self-sufficiency.” Then I’d realize I sound like an infomercial for buying a fast food franchise. “Striking-out-on-your-own.” That whole concept bores the hell out of me! So it’s not really that either.

How do you explain alpine climbing? I think you can’t. It’s dirtier and less sexy than sport climbing, where sleek, tanned models clip bolts on Italian sea-cliffs. The rocks might be loose or covered in snow. No one is there to see what you do, that’s for sure.

Barbara has been living in the world of long walks around her town with her dog, but as I got to know her, I saw an alpinist in hiding. She simply loves whatever is hard, what leaves her exhausted. Her energy responds to it by growing ever deeper and wider. And she has that somewhat childlike joy you get from the sound of jangling equipment. From the feeling of being an Expert with that equipment, of knowing what all the ropes and slings do.

It’s like a light has turned on, and she eagerly consumes everything I tell her about climbing. I have to be careful, because she’ll follow whatever I say with fierce attention, sometimes running into problems because she’ll follow some advice about belaying or unclipping a carabiner too rigidly. I love it…it comes from the passion she brings to it. And no one ever listened to me so closely, so I’m flattered by her way. :)

Over the last months we’ve done long, very long hikes in rain and snow…we’ve done multi-pitch sport climbing, and lots of practice in the gym. If we could have spent every day doing that over the last two months, I’m sure we’d be on the Eiger by now. It’s just the way she works!

We had some time constraints for the day, so I chose something that should get us home before nine: the Predigtstuhl Westwand (“Dülfer”), rated IV+, or about 5.6 in the Yosemite Decimal System. It was only 6 pitches, and I thought we’d be able to rappel from the summit into the Predigtstuhlscharte and then enjoy a climb of the North Ridge of the Hintere Goinger Halt, which is about III+ (or 5.4–5.5 in the YDS). From there, we could switch back to hiking shoes and walk down. I’d done that part before, but the Westwand would be new.

The day was predicted to be very hot, but our early start meant we were in shade for most of the way up — this was good because it’s a long south-facing approach with 1000 meters of elevation gain.

One thing for sure…if you plan to enjoy alpine climbing, you’d better first enjoy hiking. Because alpine climbing is about 60% hiking! It’s like, you do a hard full-day hike and THEN the climbing starts!

I always get to practice my German on these long approaches. I was droning on about the necessity for the human organism to have new emotional terrain to explore, and that “success” could become a trap because it limits the opportunities for new emotional challenge. Then I looked back and saw Barbara looking at the rock walls all around. I realized she was gathering “space” in this great cathedral of stone…in spite of my cramped musings.

Obviously, this is why I love her. :)

But soon we were scrambling up to the base of the Westwand. We had to be very alert and even paranoid about keeping the right way. When you are up in the cliffs, it’s easy to get tricked and end up climbing the wrong thing. After all, there is no line of bolts to make route finding easy.

You can see by the picture that this is not “clean” terrain. It’s full of loose rock, and strange, twisting chimneys. You end up wondering why are you here. Indeed, at the start of the climb, I could feel Barbara wondering that in her mind (perhaps “screaming” is the right term!).

Above all, an alpine climb is a journey into…loneliness. It surprised us both to discover that this is the right word. But it really is. Because unlike a sport climb, you have almost no evidence that any other human being thought this was a good way to spend time. Your social programming kicks in, and like a radio in your head, blares out that this is unsafe, unadvisable, unwarranted, irresponsible and foolhardy! Here you are, in an empty cirque of stone, with bits of rotten pebbles falling down…you might wonder at the bizarre inner life of your partner…why does he insist on bringing you here? He looks uncertain — can he even do this? Should I say something? WHY AM I HERE?

By the time I reached the end of the first pitch, my “demons of uncertainty” were quieted: I knew we were on the correct route, and things were reasonable. But Barbara had been listening to that inner voice for twenty minutes down at the belay. She said she was scared.

Ach!

I guess I know what a good man should do at this point, but what I did was say: “It’s okay. There is no problem, come on up, girl!”

Gulp. She grumbled something about leaving me. Heh. (my left eyelid gets a nervous tick at this point)

So now we are in “fake it til you make it” mode, where I try to project blithe confidence to my girl who seems to watch me closely. The next pitch is easy and fun. Now Barbara is smiling again!

Hmm. Well. Pitch three appears to be…quite hard. Right off the belay, deep in a dark chimney, you have to traverse a wall out and left. The wall overhangs beneath you and has almost nothing for feet. Handholds are scarce, too. I climbed it, offering advice to Barbara, while she belayed and watched uncertainly.

Later, high above, I belayed her as she started up. She tried so hard, but just couldn’t get those moves. Ach! “Ich komme nicht weiter, Mike,” she called up. I was frustrated because I knew it was easy from here. In my “wisdom,” (ha!) I remonstrated with her a few minutes, but finally got into descent mode. I rappelled down, cleaning my gear, and we made space for a man coming up from a party of three behind us.

In hindsight, it was very good to execute an orderly retreat. We need to experience rappelling down a route together, and now we had our chance! The others came up, I went down, and Barbara followed. She loved the friendliness of this trio, they were full of reassurance and told Barbara not to feel bad that she couldn’t climb something (yet). They rock, and we thank them. For one thing, their presence provided a bit of “normal social feeling,” to fight that unique fear in alpine climbs I spoke of earlier.

It’s funny, once back down I was sure Barbara would want to go home or hike. But it was not too late (1 o’clock), and to my surprise, she wanted to keep climbing. She’s always surprising me that way. This is something I love about life nowadays…my “mental model” of what someone is thinking is so often wrong. I was feeling a little down for having put us on a route that turned out to be too hard, and the experience wasn’t easy for Barbara at all. But she is already down-climbing so we can get around a cliff to turn back up to the Predigtstuhlscharte. Well okay, then!

It was really enjoyable scrambling up to the ‘scharte with Barbara. I feel like this is the kind of terrain she needs a lot of. 3rd and 4th class…this is the bread and butter of alpine climbing. It’s quite meditative…as a beginner you are thinking a lot, but in time, you just reach, use, push, test, pull, automatically…and quickly cover vast distances. This is a special joy of alpinism.

We climbed this amazing ridge. One fantastic pitch after another…exactly the grade of difficulty we need and want. Very solid rock, occasional bolts or pitons. Barbara was scandalized to see how many I skipped — I didn’t intend to skip any, I just didn’t see them! No matter…the views were heavenly.

We had a few down-climbing moves that weren’t easy. And I began teaching Barbara about using the rope on easy terrain, which is not so simple as going from one fixed belay point to the next. Instead, you move together, and weave the rope behind strategic rocks. Or you place running protection, like a sling over a small tower on a ridge. She said “take it serious, Mike!” being quite in tune with me, and noticing I was getting tired. I think she hollered that to me right around here, lol:

Or maybe here:

Finally we were on top!

We enjoyed the views, talked about the adventure, shared an apple. We were happy and warm. We needed nothing, because we were rich.

You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again. So why bother in the first place? Just this: What is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. One climbs, one sees. One descends, one sees no longer, but one has seen. There is an art of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw higher up. When one can no longer see, one can at least still know. — René Daumal

That’s the best I can do to explain alpine climbing. We got home at 10 pm. That’s the other thing you should know. The days are HELLA long. :D

An enormous thanks, such gratitude, to my Barbara, my love. In two hours I’ll have known her exactly 6 months. I’m proud. I’m lucky.