The Pursuit of Abject Fear.
Why do I do it? Climbing scares me. Not just a little bit, but in a horribly unpleasant way. Yet, I always do it again. I forget what it’s like to be scared, and I scare myself again.
Looking back at them, almost all of my blog posts are about fear. Almost all my memories immediately after a climb involve fear. Yet that is never the most memorable bit and I never feel like I’m writing a blog about being scared. I don’t climb mountains because I like getting scared; I forget that I get scared and remember all the other bits. That is the same with most climber’s narratives. It’s not just me, but the whole way climbing is talked about that sweeps abject fear under the carpet.
Climbers often seek out the most exposed, pointiest, recognisable bits of rock to climb. Pinnacles become ‘classic’ routes; from Napes Needle on Great Gable, Wasdale, or the Clocher du PlanPraz in Chamonix. It’s as if its fear and exposure that we are looking for.
Yet, exposure is a terrifying thing. You can learn to deal with it. I’m much happier climbing Crib Goch on Snowdon that I was four years ago when I first went up. It’s famous for its ‘knife edge’, but I couldn’t get my head around what that really meant and what it actually felt like to be up there. Since then I’ve climbed it with less panic because the point where ‘I’m not sure if I can make that move’ has moved exponentially and I’m better at persuading myself that actually, I can do it, even when I’m on the sharp end of the rope.
It’s still scary though. Very often, I’m very scared.
Getting to a move where the thought ‘I’m not sure if I can do that’ crosses through my head is horrible. That’s still, I think, where the fear starts for me. Almost always, I’m terrified before I start a climb. This premeditation allows me to rationalise the fear away. When I’m on the pitch, I have the answers ready because I’ve been through all of the elements of self-doubt in last few hours. I can remind myself, consciously, of the reasons why I’m there. Climbing the Aiguillette de Argentiere had been preying on my mind for the whole morning and even Fraser looks utterly terrified in the photos at the bottom (even if he told me he felt fine). Once I was actually climbing, it felt better though. It felt easier than I had expected. I almost enjoyed it.
I can’t say the same for the Clocher de Planpraz. I’d decided it was fine, within my climbing grade and no more difficult than things I’ve done before. It’s fully bolted, so takes away a lot of the risk and faff of trad climbing. I wasn’t expecting to be scared because I can’t really remember the fear I’d felt on all the climbs I’d done before that. I remember climbing them and I remember the adrenaline and the dopamine rush.
I remember that I was scared, but I don’t remember how the fear actually felt.
Up on the Clocher, I was surprised by how difficult it felt. I was not climbing at my best, still tired from the day before. I hadn’t done a climb in the mountains anywhere near that grade, only at the valley crags, even if they were multi-pitches. These are all excuses, but they are also reasons and explanations. On that climb, all I felt was the fear that I couldn’t do it and I hadn’t mentally prepared these excuses for when I was alone on the rock. Climbing is a very lonely sport, for most of it, you are there alone, within shouting distance (just about) to your climbing partner. Even if you go in groups bigger than two; when you climb, you climb alone. There is no one there to help or to explain to you how to do a move. To remind you that, not only can you do that move, but that you can do harder moves than that. Up there, it’s just you, your head and an unfamiliar, unrelenting rock face.
I broke. I was shaking with genuine, abject fear. I very rarely don’t finish something, but I lowered off from two separate pitches on that climb. Hitting the crux threw me, but I didn’t really try it; it was well bolted and would have been a safe fall, but my head stopped me from even trying the moves. I gave up. I climbed it okay as a second, so probably I could have climbed it on lead. But I was scared.
After that came the exposed pitch; a near vertical arete with only featureless slab for my feet. I was cold. My confidence was shaken from my earlier failure and I had decided I didn’t want to be there. I had decided I would not, maybe even could not, fall. I lowered off again. Even climbing those three moves with a top-rope, in the wind, putting trust in the stickiness of the rubber on my climbing shoes, I said aloud “I can’t do this. I cannot get up this.” I was asking myself why I was there. It was horrible and I didn’t to want to have to do it.
There was no other option though. On second, nothing was going to happen, I wasn’t even going to fall. That didn’t make it any less terrifying. The only way down was over the top, though. So I pulled myself up, painfully, shaking. I got to the top. But I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to have done any of that pitch. I wanted to be sitting on the sofa at home with no pointy rocks and no big drops.
We abseiled off the top and I started to forget. I forgot that side of it completely. By the next morning, I was considering trying it again. I want to get the leads I failed to climb the first time. The emotional response has gone. Instead, I can picture myself on the crux of the last pitch, I can picture myself understanding the move and moving my weight to the right place. I can feel the rock and I can remember where the best handholds were. But I don’t remember hating it. I don’t remember why I was crying and swearing. From what I remember, I want to be up there again.
That’s the thing about climbing. It’s addictive. It’s rubbish quite a lot of the time. If I rationally think about it, I spend more time hating it than having fun. But I’ll be back. I’ll climb something harder; swear again, cry again, and then put myself through it all over again.
I’m addicted to climbing.
