Saturday, June 20
Blunt + gravity = sharp.
We were going to do a 500m, 15 pitch climb, but because of deteriorating weather we settled on a shorter, less committing route. The toboggans of the Apocalypse is a 700m, 20 pitch route, but we planned to do the first half (up to where it gets difficult).
After starting off-route (there was a new, harder variant, which we didn’t know about!) and getting a bit scared, we had a great time climbing in “reversible” (where one climber leads, sets up the belay, the second comes up and immediately leads the next pitch…) for about 4 hours. It was a beautiful day, clouds on the horizon, a bit of wind and plenty of sun.
There were a few [too many] loose rocks on the wall and we’d occasionally set one flying, which was a bit dangerous, as we were climbing in 2 pairs, one beneath the other. On one said occasion a rock shot off the wall, breaking in two tennis-ball sized ones and hit Caroline in the helmet. No harm but a huge gash in it. An hour later, as I was seconding the last pitch, a silent small rock flew past my head, clipped my hand and kept going. My right hand ring finger had a huge, deep clean gash in it, as if I’d been sliced with a huge carving knife. There was no pain and no blood at first, but it freaked me out and put an end to my will to keep climbing. I made it to the top of the pitch, licking my wound every time I could and put a band aid on it as soon as I was safe (I’d forgotten the tape at home…). We set up the rappel and Sylvette started down as Eric was leading up. He got to my stance and we explained that this is where the “easy” pitches stopped, the weather was moving in and I’d been hurt, so we were heading down.
A minute or so later there was an amazing “twhooshtwhooshwtshooshtwhoos” above us. We looked at each other and immediately realised what it was. I ducked against the wall, making myself as flat as possible while Eric looked up. He just had time to see the TV/fridge sized block hit the wall and bust in a few big pieces. WOOOOSH is what we heard before being showered by small debris or pebbles. Horrified we called out to the girls “are you ok?” and, praise God, they were.
Evidently no one argued with our decision to turn around at that point… We did the 5 rappels necessary to reach the bottom, trying to stay under cover as much as possible (when you’re on a fairly blank, steep face). The ground never felt so good once we got there! Funny how things develop perspective: I thought my sliced finger was a real bummer and a disappointing aspect of a great day, but this faded into insignificance compared to what could have happened to our ropes or ourselves if the big boys had hit…As my friend Tom
