There are climbs that test your strength, and then there are climbs that strip everything back to something far more fundamental. This was the latter. A route that demanded precision without sight, commitment without hesitation, and a mindset strong enough to hold it all together when the consequences felt very real. What follows is the story of that attempt, messy, intense, and ultimately transformative.
Warning: this blog may contain beta (admittedly not very good beta), purists beware.
“Nooooo”
“F***”
Whoosh
Thud….
“C***”
For once, the profanity wasn’t mine. Someone had just taken a rather inelegant dismount from The File, probably the most famous route at Higgar Tor, just around the corner from where I sat beneath the steeply overhanging face. The commotion shatters my contemplation.
The swearing continued, clearly angry and exasperated, “he must be fine” I thought with a smile. Minutes earlier it had been me sailing through the air, wailing my own, slightly lesser, expletive.
I consciously dragged my focus back to myself.
I was attempting the hardest route of my life. I couldn’t afford distractions. Bat Out of Hell E5 6a had to have my full attention if I was to have a chance.
This had been a very different experience to how I’ve done most of my climbing. Up to now I’ve almost exclusively attempted my climbs “on-sight.” No prior practice or pre-knowledge of the moves. But this time I was attempting to “head-point,” where you practice the route before attempting to lead it. I’d been working on this route for a few sessions now. Starting by rigging up a top rope and figuring out the moves in isolation, then how to link them, before working out exactly what gear would go where and which pieces I’d need when I climbed the route in earnest. It was going to be an interesting process, many of my climbing friends had encouraged me to try head-pointing. The fact that I would practice the moves would mean I’d have a good idea where the holds are, and so the impact of my blindness would be reduced. That was the theory at least.
A few sessions ago, I’d climbed the route clean on a top rope. Then last session I’d made it past the crux on lead but fumbled placing the gear, spent too long faffing, my hands had gone numb, I’d got pumped and blown it. Then today, only about 20 minutes ago, I’d climbed past the crux, placed the gold cam with slightly less faff and slapped for the flat hold, but misjudged it and missed, dropping into the abyss with the aforementioned wailing curse.
As ever with the harder routes, it wasn’t on my radar before Jandy’s suggestion. In some ways, the route was a good choice for me. It is pretty safe, but only if you can get the critical cam placed correctly, hugely more challenging without your eyes. Also, the fact that I’m tall helps to span between the breaks. But in other ways, as I was now discovering, it isn’t a great choice if you’re blind. There are 4 dynamic moves. The very first move off the ground is a slap with your left hand to a ledge, beneath you is a jumble of jagged, unforgiving rocks, which you really don’t want to land on. Which is what will happen if you mess the first move up.
The second is the crux, where I throw my left hand up into a sloping section of a horizontal break that runs across the cliff. Exactly where your hand lands in this break makes a huge difference. When holding the best bit, I can move my right hand up slowly and in control. From the part I can most consistently hit with my left hand, I can’t and need the third dynamic slap to get my right hand up before the left peels off.
The fourth dynamic move comes once you’ve shuffled right along the break and slap your right up to a moderate flat hold. This is where I’d misjudged it last time. The thing is that when you’re blind, dynamic moves become exponentially harder. You’re relying on proprioception, with no target to aim for. Being able to coordinate the complex movements to get your hand exactly on the hold as the rest of your body is moving, all done from memory when you’re tired, stressed, and you’ll be dropping into the void reliant on gear to save you if you get it wrong. It’s hard to overstate the challenge.
Sometimes, as I do on the first move, you can overpower it. Throw your hand higher than needed so that when you miss you drop down onto the hold. But, for the crux, my biggest problem was accuracy. The target I need to hit is in a break, too little power, and you don’t make it, but if I use too much power, my fingers slam into the rock above the break, I bounce off and gravity snatches me down. If I were able to see the target, making the move would be trivial in comparison. Interestingly, I’ve found that even though I can’t see the target, if I point my head and attempt to look in the correct direction, I am more accurate with my hand than if I point my head away while slapping. My eyes are broken but the brain circuitry that runs my movement patterns clearly finds it easier if I point them in the right direction, nonetheless.
The other topic on my mind as I sit there is the conditions. The crux move relies on good friction between your fingertips and the slopy hold in the break. If it is too warm, your fingers slide and you’re off and falling. So, Molly and I have been getting to the crag early to get cold rock.
We started at 07:30 this morning. It’s about 10:30 now and the sun is coming round inexorably. I can feel it on my face as I sit amidst the jumbled rocks that you don’t want to fall on. Molly says the route is still shaded though, but it won’t be for long. As soon as the sun hits the face, it’ll be over for the day. I’ve got one more shot.
My arms still feel pumped from the last attempt. The weight of expectation makes my stomach slightly queasy.
I pull on. Slap the left hand, grab the side-pull, dance my feet around the foothold to get stable and place the first bit of gear. I jam my left hand and swing my heel high and lever onto it. Another cam in and the danger of decking out diminishes. A series of easier moves up the flake. Place the gear on the left, and on the right. Try to relax, “this is the hard bit” I think to myself. Reach high grab the side-pull, match, get the intermediate and build my feet up. Sink down and coil the power in my legs, breathe, focus. Visualise where that hold is, “you need to go further left than you think” my inner monologue chips in. Then explode, swing hips up and left and snatch the left hand onto the slopy break. It sticks, but it doesn’t feel good. I certainly can’t move up in control. Nothing for it, I can’t rearrange my left now. Snatch my right. To my shock, I grab the slightly rounded edge. “Oh my god, I got it, can’t give up now.” Shuffle right along the break. Grab the gold cam off my harness and stretch to my full extent to place it. It goes in quicker than last time.
I reach down to grab my left rope to clip it in, but abort and grab the rock instead. I take my right hand off, shake it, and get some brief recovery. I take a moment for some deep breaths in and calm my mind, I must focus now.
I reach down again and grab my left rope this time, pulling up a load of slack to make the clip. As I try to clip, the carabiner has spun and the gate is facing down and away from me, lying against the rock making it awkward to get the rope in. Adrenalin rising, panic skulking in the wings, waiting for my resolve to waiver, I mentally stamp it down.
I’ve been hanging off 3 fingers on my right hand the whole time that I’ve been dealing with this cam and trying to clip it. Now, my forearm is almost spent, its imaginary battery icon flashing red in my mind, warning of imminent failure.
I get the rope clipped and force myself to relax. I have the presence of mind to shake and chalk again. Move my hands along the small ripple I’m clinging to, get my left on the best bit and set up for the last slap. With trepidation, I take my feet off the good foothold in the lower break and build my feet up. I torque my right foot into the side-pull. I breathe in and yard up. Time stops as I reach the zenith of my lunge. I drop down and my hand catches on the flat hold. I crank down with all I have left. Rock-over left to the insecure feeling jam, take a moment to readjust it. Then dance my feet and reach for the final jug. My heart pounds a staccato rhythm on my ribs as I pull through and place the final gear. Keep it together and I’m up, into the niche and only now can I believe.
No radios today, so I can’t hear Molly, but I know her well enough by now and imagine the happy tears breaking free. My own emotions are uncharacteristically exuberant. I had never thought I’d be capable of something like that. I just climbed far harder than I ever thought possible, even back when I had a little sight. Let alone what I thought would be possible once it was all gone.
Many things, but most salient despite all the adversity, was that I’d found a method to actively enhance my resilience. It was the mindset that had ultimately been the difference between success and failure. It had been the mindset which had allowed me to achieve what seemed impossible with the resources I had.
Jesse's Kit:
