OFF THE WALL

Feed from OFF THE WALL

Down-climbing

We should have stuck to scrambles. Two days in the Lake District with a co-novice and teenager with no experience of climbing never mind mountains- scrambles seemed like a good idea when we planned the trip. But us novices were itching to get up those crags.
What we learnt: first, route finding is the hardest part of climbing, and second, don’t be too ambitious.
In Jane’s scrambling book we liked the look of ‘Eagles Nest Ordinary’ in the Napes on Great Gable; described as a mixture of V Diff and scramble. It was so tempting – and we so wanted to do it for ourselves: find the crag and do the route.

On day one we found our way to the Climbers Traverse with only one back track. We passed the Sphinx, but could we see the needle? No. Strange, as it’s a distinctive piece of rock if the photos are anything to go by. ‘It must be higher’, we said. Determinedly we scrambled up and up – until confronted by a wet slab over an exposed drop. Like the true mountaineers we think we are, we kitted up (teenager was softly groaning to himself by this point), Jane set up a belay and I, being the braver of the two novices, climbed ahead; over the slimy rock and an arête to find a grassy gully with no visible means of protection and no obvious easy route ahead…oh, the joys of down-climbing.
As we started on the retreat down to where we’d left the path, Jane pointed over my head and exclaimed ’ Bloody Hell, there it is’ - about 100m away as the crow flies, but a mile away for those of us who were tired and cold. So I have to admit we decided to go back to the camp site - an adventure in itself, involving rides on scree slopes (‘better than anything at the fair’ declared the teenager) and wading through leg-entangling head-high bracken.
First find your crag, never mind your route.

The next day we set off for Scafell Pike. Fellow climbers were going that way and, with their help, we shouldn’t miss the crag. We didn’t…but we missed the route.
It’s a long drag up there with 12kg of gear on your back, but we got there and stood with the experienced ones at a distance in front of the crag with the book and there was a lot of positive pointing at shadows and lines that matched the crag: ‘Grooved Arête’ (we weren’t to be put off. V Diff at most, is what the book said). It’s remarkable how one person can be looking at one thing and another person at something entirely different, and both think they’re looking at the same thing: truly remarkable.
So the three of us got to the bottom of the crag. ‘There’s a cairn. That’s got to be the route’, said Jane. I declared her wrong and managed to convince her (and me) that the route in front of us was exactly the one described in the book.
We got all the gear out, ignoring the pale face of the teenager. I confidently started, even though handicapped by rucksack on my back and walking boots on my feet. About 10 minutes later my thought was: ‘This is definitely not a V Diff’.
At this point our two male advisors appeared, having been beaten to the start of their own ambition. ‘What route are you doing? Are you making it up? That’s not Grooved Arête.’ Shit.
I was getting quite good at down-climbing by now.
We were directed firmly to the bottom of the correct route. It was 2.30 in the afternoon. There was a 7-pitch climb ahead of us. I got halfway up the first and looked at the wet gully, the slab and the exposure and thought of the teenager, the time and our inability to find routes - and confidence ebbed away with the water down the seeping gully. What chance did we have of finding our way up all these pitches? The book estimates 2- 3 hours of climbing. Realistically with us it would be double that.
I got Jane up with me (after discovering I’d left my belay device behind – we improvised with a rolling hitch in an experienced way that surprised both of us), and we took the difficult decision to give up again.

Never mind finely honing my down-climbing ability, the trip taught me that climbing in the mountains isn’t to be taken lightly by the novice. The walk-ins are long and tiring carrying climbing gear; it can get cold very quickly; the routes are invariably going to be multi-pitch. But realistically the only way route-finding skills are learnt is by going out again and again and making the mistakes we did (but maybe with shorter routes).

Posted by fishinwater