Might sound a bit wimpy but I hate the rain.
Wasn't always like this a misadventure mountain climbing at 20 had me stuck literally overnight on the side of a cliff face as it rained most of the night. Once the rain stopped falling my partner and I were able to get to the top of the face very quickly. Climbing wet limestone is like climbing wet soap. Winds dry the rock very fast but that was only half the problem. Climbing up is perhaps a tenth as hard as climbing down. Especially in the dark, today battery technology I imagine climbers in similar situations would have headlights that would last till dawn. In 1974 no such luck.
Top of the face, not the top of the mountain our goal had been to climb a face that according to the record books had not been done before. The storm came from behind the mountain. Mountains create mini weather effects on their own. We didn't have fore warning. So we ended doing an unclimbed route about half in the dark. Perhaps 2,000 feet of rock face or 200 stories if you compare it to buildings. That wasn't the worst we were still soaked to the skin and with night though not terribly high maybe 8,000 feet maybe another 500 the mountain was 9,386 total. However night still meant temperature dropping below zero. We moved north as we knew there was a trail to a cirque and if we hit the cirque we could slid down it to the trail. We didn't make it that far. Two miles in the dark would have been a fair feat anyway. On the way we hit a treed area. Our combined survival training mine military his as a Swiss climber let us build a fire and remain awake. I can not recall ever being so tired.
Night that high up is short. With the sunrise our clothing quickly dried. We rappelled down the mountain and hitched a ride back to base. Just in time to take out classes both of us has scheduled to teach that day.
For years after that I did not know why rain made me very uncomfortable. One day about 15 years later I was telling the story of that climb to a friend of my wife's who happened to be Swiss. Suddenly I stopped. Though I had told the story many times this was the first time I made the mental connection. That day had been the start of my mild amaphobia. No need to look it up. It means "fear of rain".
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Well bugger me! Another new word you've taught me Sidney. Theres no wonder you don't like it! Wish you'd start writing your book.....xxx
ReplyDeleteStarted Tracey.
ReplyDeleteRight now I am on the 1st chapter which is on Survival Psych. Not exactly sure what I am calling it. However at the moment I would have to say it is at the a little knowlege is a dangerous thing stage. Explaining about how some people naturally run to trouble instead of away. Not trouble but the kind of folks make good firemen, paramedics soldiers, peacekeepers etc. Then talking about how part of it is training. May sound crazy but soldiers are trained to charge towards enemy fire rather then run away. Reason being it is safer. Book will explain why but for now think about why that would be true. I want the book to change folks who could survive if they were lucky to being folks others would be lucky were there if an emergency. Any emergency came up.
why did you continue climbing when it had started to rain? you can easily cover under the rocks and let the rain pass. that was very dangerous, sid.
ReplyDeletexoxoxo
We were halfway up a cliff face Odette. It is like the side of a building. No rocks we could get under. We had about 1,000 feet straight down and the same straight up. At the down end it was sloping rock covered ground at the up end sloping and snow covered.
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