Overdose

Ever had that sudden frosty crackle through your body as the adrenal gland releases a dose? Car pulled out unexpectedly or rocketed past your toes while crossing a street, perhaps you’ve found yourself at the whim of gravity, high above a hard landing hovering on the brink of a fall; unattached to safety, in that cartoon like state of realising the inevitable yet waiting in the painful elongated moment for the acceleration, and unlike cartoons, inevitable pain?

Forty feet above a flat hard summer evening I was trapped, stuck in the air, not falling, yet without grip sufficient to reclaim potential from kinetic energy. Part of the stake we as climbers toy with, even joke about, was being claimed. For a moment gravity leered at my hovering form, biding its time. Prior avoidance of crunching conclusions now appeared to leave me liable!

Felt jammed in a film sequence that viewers had the luxury of avoiding with a wince and blink. Time stretched in that pivotal moment between climber and missile. Throughout my being I knew there was little my fight could do to aid adherence with this escarpment yet giving up was not an option.

Think we all share an uphill calling, hooked: Just like any addict we forget the power it holds to turn around and inflict.

The evening began as an agenda free stop at Staffordshire’s Roaches. Ropes remained bagged as varying climbs were dispatched and confidence grew.  Conscious never shifted to the particular climb but I’d find myself checking it out, climbing next to it, caught myself staring and even weighing up the moves.

Remember the spate of wishy-washy art that forced one to de-focus in order to reveal a hidden three dimensional image? Sometimes you’d stare at the darn pictures for hours without result, sometimes a stroll by entire rows would have all the images popping out! Gritstone can be similar; sometimes blank, steep and impossible looking, yet sometimes, perhaps when in ‘the zone’ it can offer a visible map of features and the necessary movement to connect them! Obsession Fatale, an E8 on the right side of the lower tier was beginning to make sense, its matrix of subtle features revealed more with each study..

I remember evaluating the landing, even owned a vague mental Polaroid taken from an adjacent route. I’ve always carried the knowledge that jumping and falling are completely different, especially to a climber. Distance eventually negates aerial control but if you think about it falling never actually hurt anyone, it’s just that abrupt ending. And what strange stuff gravity can be. You seem to feel fractionally lighter when standing at the foot of a mountain or crag: the rock generates its own minuscule pull, urging you upward, a subconscious song your ears register but don’t hear. We follow an uphill calling, hooked: Just like any addict, it can make you forget and has the power to turn around and inflict, claim a toll.

A vertical step accessed the route’s business portion, a steep hanging slab. I quickly passed the committing rock-up (12b) crux to enter a small scoop with brief mental break, no rope work, no protection. From the scoop, another rock-up and my outstretched right hand palmed the sloping top, left hand pushed against a shallow dish: One final move to balance over the right foot, the most minor of weight shifts and it’s done. My left hand slipped, it didn’t peel from the rock, just a tiny twitch, a fraction of a centimetre was enough to upset equilibrium and slowly, ever so excruciatingly slowly shift balance beyond my control. The stalled moment broke as I slapped the cliff and twisted to face the inevitable and began scrabbling cartoon fashion for traction. Twenty feet of slab with what felt like a semblance of control, at the crucial point, above 20 vertical feet, I shoved off: Launched toward a ‘V’ slot between boulders, the only non crumpling landing zone.

Impact came on my foot, perfectly/luckily placed in the back of that ‘V’ slot? I came to rest sitting between the boulders feeling nothing but the frosty crackle of adrenaline, had to move each limb to assess damage, nothing evident. I may have even chuckled. It took several attempts to stand for the price to sink in: A cracked heal. While upon crutches "You're not going to do it any more, are you?" was a common question. Climbers always asked "How long ‘till you’re okay to climb?"

It takes a junkie to know one and we tend not to give up just because the dose was wrong, but are more careful how future hits are measured?

Gravity is a cruel mistress.

 Only consolation was discovering the shop-mobility program which eased coming to terms with the world as a crutch reliant tripod. UK’s cities and shopping centres offer electric carts for less than fully mobile folk. Felt like a throw back to childhood cruising Manchester city centre in a bumper car. Further enforcing childhood mimic was perspective from the battery chariot, a view of the world at waist level. Lost under the crowd canopy I spent a month touring foot first behind my bare blacked foot propped on the handlebars.