RUPTURE & BURST
a common scenario:
you are working a new route high in his favorite spot in the winds when you clip in directly to your high bolt with a quickdraw attached to your belay loop. resting on the draw, you suss and brush the holds, then rest some more until you feel virile and strong again. with fresh blood pumping through your forearms, and nary a word to your belayer, you pull back onto the rock, crank a move, then fall.
CRRRRAAACK!
you see jack looking down at you when your eyes open, hear your name being shouted.
the jolt back onto the bolt, into which you are still quickdraw-tethered, stuns you. you only fell two feet, but your neck is getting stiff and your guts feel like they’ve been kicked by a bull. “lower me,” you say. “i don’t feel so hot. i think my guts exploded.”
after jack lets you down to a nearby ledge, you rest for a moment, afraid to even at the horizon and take it all in. the wind river range is a crescent of granite thrust up, and you're thousands of feet above the the valley floor. you look closely, see your pale blue truck parked next to his black one, right where you left them. the air is ice and rock as you breathe in deeply and cough, you thank god for surviving the fall and untangle a rope by kicking a leg up. it takes all your energy to pull this off. it could have been worse. you float upside down until you crawl back spider-like and upright, hugging the south face without looking down.
"you all right?" he yells out when your feet are solid on the steep slab. you feel alive, his voice the only thing you hear now. its trill is music to your ears and you smile. you lift a gloved hand in the air but you can't tilt your head back.
"yeah, gimme a minute" you shout, but even this causes pain. you then notice a golden eagle with spread wings, but he's flying down below with the sun is on his back. you realize that jack has taken you, once again, to a place not imagined in even your wildest dreams. this is the highest you've been, and you squint your eyes to whisper thank you, and the pain seems gone.
another common scenario:
you are leading the pitch on a big wall today, in a different peak in the cirque of the towers. the one they call pingora. the weather is gorgeous, not quite as breezy as last year's climb. the winter melt is hiding inside the deeper shadowy crevices of the granite, and the only warmth you feel is radiating from the sun. you punch a fist into some crunchy snow and grab a handful from within, rub it across your teeth and lips. looking down, you see lonesome lake, and across the way is mount mitchelle. you swallow; there's a chill in the air. it’s dicey, so for extra security you keep one daisy chain clipped to a lower piece. as you ease onto a high placement, a piton, placed by a previous climber, pops and dings you in the forehead, drawing blood. that smarts, but it’s nothing compared to the rude awakening you receive when you drop onto your daisy chain. that impact feels as if it will tear you in two.
but just as that begins to happen -- SNAP!! your daisy chain breaks and you cartwheel 20 feet down the wall until the rope catches you on a lower bomber cam. jack appears as you fly by, out of the corner of your eye in a flash of black and blue parka. your hands are pushing back from the unforgiving rock as you fall. you see the horror in his face.
dangling in mid air you spin like a spider, unable to do anything but lay there and recover. you keep your eyes closed to avoid the vertigo. the spinning stops once you push a rubber toed boot against the mountain. your back is getting stiff and your guts feel like they’ve been spurred out. there’s also an acorn-sized knot and drip of blood on your forehead.
“okay, lower me,” you tell him, then you mumble, “shit.”
you ask yourself, "what in hell happened?"
but you know what happened. jack had warned about this in earlier sessions. he shouts down, from either scenario, that you'd just been whomped. that both falls were factor 2's--the severest possible. fall 50 feet on 100 feet of rope, for example, and the fall factor is 0.5 -- not bad. fall 100 feet on 50 feet, however, and the fall factor is 2 -- heinous. you knew that going up the first time, when you took his hand and he taught you to climb. it started months ago, on low rock walls at the canyon parks with sand at their bases to soften the fall. you learned to love the blisters and the callouses that grew on your fingers. so you smile now, happy to be alive; you rub your head, taste the blood that catches on your knuckles.
jack taught you about jamming, laybacking, stemming between two walls, stemming between straight cracks. he said the falls were something you'd have to experience for yourself, and now you could say you've done it. you exhale, catch your breath, inhale and shudder, hear him rappelling down to join you. your mind and your body are crystal clear and tingling. your heart and your soul, mingling with jack, is a faint pink vapor unseen by most eyes.
"hey," he says, nimbly sidestepping in front of you, lifting both arms to hold the tether. he is there to test both lines. his full weight you bear when a gust buffets the icy rock ledge -- feet like gears mesh and your knees share the same space, ear to ear, then, his nose to your cheek and you sigh deeply and turn your head. his tongue darts out to wet his lips and he kisses you. you let him -- flattening to accept him, smiling as your noses touch, feeling his eyelashes flutter on your cold cheek.
but you wince, and this does not go unnoticed by jack. "i told you it would hurt, but you survived. you're okay? how's your head? you focusing all right?"
jack holds a finger out and you follow its path, back and forth, until he's satisfied. he's holding your hand, your wrists. he's checking your pulse now, counting in silence, moving his lips.
you feel a rush of blood and there's a warmth in your chest as you gaze past jack's head and he grasps you by the waist. he comforts you, says a few lines about what went wrong and how to avoid it. "happens to the best, bud, we all fall one day. it's better you did it now than wait. now you know what to expect."
you rest your chin on his shoulder to look out past the mountain peaks at the horizon never ending and so wide you turn your head to take it all in. it is bright because the clouds are down below, laying a velvet blanket between you and the land. you nod and whisper yes.
jack squeezes a final time, leans back, pulls out a wet-nap from his vest and inspects. the blood that trickled down your head has dried from the mountain atmosphere and he rubs it cleans and applies an ointment. he holds the tube's cap between his white teeth and you smell the freshness of his warm breath. you manage to laugh even though your head is throbbing.
"what?" he asks, his blue eyes darker than the deepest oceans.
your own eyes are light in the bright mountain sunshine when you tell jack that you love him.
jack says he knows, nods. it's not the first time you've said this up on the side of a mountain. he checks your wrists for rope burns, nods again. "ennis, i told you that you wouldn't boing. when you shock-load on the daisy chain, there's no stretch." he tells you to remember that, and you say that you will. now you know what it feels like.
"yeah, i looked up and saw it blow apart, and the next thing i knew i was dust."
"the next thing i knew you were flyin' through the air. then you froze. i've done it before. never had a piton hit me that hard, though. damn." he says he cringed when the carabiners locked and you were instantly stopped.
you tell jack how you're glad the rope wasn't around your neck. still, the falling apart shook you up and your wind was knocked flat from the impact.
jack now kisses your forehead and the big bump. you feel his lips warm the knot and ask him to do it again. you swear that it helps. he is laughing and obliges you, making every kiss count as you open up for him.
"i'm ready," you say, when the kisses are finally broken. the wind has picked up but you're almost at the top. you make your hardness pulse and jack presses back and grins. he adjusts your cap, pulls down the brim, touches both of your ears to warm them and says he loves you more than you let him.
soon, you spread a small tarp and have lunch, and at noon the sun will be hot. you'll lay out on the smooth rock, on top of the world, and do what you did when the last climb was finished. there will be two birds flying above, higher than you'll ever get without the aid of wings. they'll both look down at the curiousness of two pink humans writhing in a bright blue nylon nest. you'll get dressed again, fully aware that the descent is dangerous, but it goes quickly. you rest on the same ledge, the now sun behind the mountain. jack will say he wants to be with you forever, and you'll think there's no place in the world where you can do that. when you say goodbye, you'll each load your trucks, and he'll remind you that he's ready to divorce and move out of texas. anytime, he'll tell you, and when you feign he'll say you're just dodging the arrows of a cupid. he'll say, like he always does, that it's time to change your ways, and this time you'll tell him you're ready.
climbing... i don't know how i got onto this subject.
photos and technical stuff stolen from the web,
i've never been mountain climbing before.
the last pic is the wind river range,
the mountain called pingora.
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