Out of Mind E-Book

Joe French

• Herausgeber: Sandstone Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 312

Beschreibung

In 2015, climber and documentary maker Joe French was about to fulfil a dream of a lifetime – to climb Everest and film it. Then tragedy struck and Joe found himself at the epicentre of an earthquake which killed nearly 9,000 people. Only a few years previously, his team of Sherpa had been killed in another avalanche, and soon after that, Julie, his wife, was diagnosed with cancer.The accumulation of trauma took its toll: suffering from post-traumatic stress, Joe was haunted by the horrors he'd witnessed. In an attempt to find a resolution, he turned to his love of the outdoors. Running barefoot through the forests and glens around his house in Scotland, Joe discovered the means to find a return to health and peace of mind.

Leseprobe

OUT of MIND

OUT of MIND

Everest Avalancheand a Barefoot Running Recovery

Joe French

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by

Sandstone Press Ltd

PO Box 41

Muir of Ord

IV6 7YX

Scotland

www.sandstonepress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

Copyright © Joe French 2023

Editor: Moira Forsyth

The moral right of Joe French to be recognised as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

ISBNe: 978-1-914518-33-1

Sandstone Press is committed to a sustainable future.

Cover design by Nathan Ryder

Typeset by Biblichor Ltd, Scotland

For Julie, Imogen and Jemima. . . and Ziggy

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

Prologue: Everest Base Camp, 25th April 2015

1.   Running Man 1: Barefoot Beginnings, 2020

2.   Don’t Die of Ignorance

3.   Space Crab

4.   Turbulent Times

5.   Running Man 2: Learning to Breathe, 2020

6.   The Wingman & The Eiger

7.   Everest Jump Live, 2014

8.   Deadliest Day

9.   Strength

10.   Running Man 3: Super Nature, 2020

11.   City in the Sky, 2015

12.   Return of The Imposter

13.   The Boulder of Life

14.   Three Two One

15.   Henry & The Cook Boy

16.   Earthquake Avalanche

17.   A Question of Ethics

18.   Long Journey Home

19.   Post-Traumatic Stress

20.   Running Man 4: Going Barefoot, 2015

21.   Everest Rescue, 2016

22.   Himalayan Crumble

23.   Taxi for One

24.   Valley of Silence

25.   Gods & Ghosts at The Roof of The World

26.   Running Man 5: A Mouthful of Sorrel, 2020

Acknowledgements

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

All photographs author’s own unless otherwise stated:

1.   Dave MacLeod on the first free ascent of Don’t Die of Ignorance X11, 11. Ben Nevis,

2.   Andrew Greig sings Wild Mountain Thyme at Julie and Joe’s wedding, 2008

3.   Julie French on honeymoon in Tiree.

4.   Filming from the Mittellegi Ridge, Eiger summit in background, 2013. Photo credit: Brian Hall

5.   Everest Geography from Pumori Base Camp, 2014

6.   Heavily laden porter heads to BC, 2014

7.   Andy Tyson’s Solar Power System and the NBC Rig, 2014

8.   My friend and guide Andy Tyson, Everest Base Camp, 2014. Photo credit: Ed Wardle

9.   Ed Wardle and Jonathon Fierro report live from Base Camp after the avalanche, 2014

10.   Avalanche path. Photo credit: Rob Smith

11.   Drinks at Adventure Consultants Puja ceremony, 2015

12.   Adventure Consultants’ camp before avalanche – dining tent, media tent and kitchen tent behind (yellow roof), 2015

13.   Ground Zero. Dining tent (left frame), kitchen tent table (middle frame), media tent destroyed, 2015

14.   Chhongba badly injured, 2015

15.   My tent, 2015

16.   Heathrow – this is what PTSD looks like, 2015. Photo credit: Sam Maynard

17.   Home with Imogen and Jemima, 2015. Photo credit: Julie French

18.   Barefoot running in the forest with Ziggy. Still taken from Andrew Muggleton’s film footage

19.   In the lochan. Photo credit: Julie French

20.   Reunited with Chhongba in Kathmandu 2016. Photo credit: Pete Campion

21.   Returning to Base Camp with John Griber, 2016. Photo credit: Jaco Ottink

22.   Author filming helicopter rescues at Base Camp, 2016. Photo credit: Jaco Ottink

23.   A fine morning’s work on the summit of Lobuche East, 2016. Photo credit: John Griber

24.   Author filming Greg Paul emerging from Icefall, 2016. Photo credit: Richie Hunter

25.   Ngawang Tenjing Sherpa and Greg Paul brace against the summit storm, 2016. Photo credit: Namgel Sherpa

26.   Light Gene in the Valley of Silence, 2016

PROLOGUE

EVEREST BASE CAMP

25th April 2015

A wave of animal prickles swept across my skin. My senses knew something that my mind did not. The ice beneath my feet juddered, then cracked and hissed. I swayed as if I was at sea. Then it stopped.

I looked up to see a figure running from the Icefall towards Base Camp and grabbed for my camera. A deep, thunderous roar began to echo all around. It was impossible to locate, but it was growing louder, as if the mountains were collapsing above me. As I found my frame, I noticed the same figure turning 180˚ and running back the way he came. I hit record and panned round.

The low grey cloud hanging above Base Camp began to expand violently. What the hell was I filming? Explosions of snow, ice, rock and debris, all churning together into one enormous blast right over our camp. I was so mesmerised by my shot, for a moment it didn’t seem real. Then it burst out of my frame into reality. Instinctively I started to run, though it was pointless. The glacier was bare. There was nowhere to hide.

My camera was still rolling as I looked back over my shoulder. I heard myself cry out, unable to believe what I saw. Base Camp was disappearing under a dark shroud, expanding ever upwards and outwards. Within seconds the fierce shock wave had hit me and I was blown off my feet. As I crouched over my camera, something screamed past my head, and I braced myself for impact. This was it. Breathe, focus, breathe. I cut the camera, gasping and choking among howling waves of snow, ice and grit.

I was swallowing the mountain and it was expanding into my lungs, throat and nose. Beginning to suffocate, I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed. All I could see were white fuzzy dots, grey fuzzy dots, everywhere and in everything. My mind was ablaze with a million thoughts all at once. I wasn’t ready to die. But I had to be brave, I had to die well. But my girls, my girls. How could this be happening?

1

RUNNING MAN 1:BAREFOOT BEGINNINGS

2020

I still feel self-conscious as I hobble across the gravel to the forest and the start of my run, despite this being the fifth year of my daily practice. The need to wear shoes outside is so ingrained that I can’t help but feel like a weirdo by not doing so. This is amplified when sometimes, if the weather is particularly wild, I choose to leave the house in nothing more than a pair of swimming shorts. I hope no one is driving past on the single-track road that I must cross before I’m hidden among the trees. It would be a perfectly normal scene to witness in Colorado, but here in the wet wild west of Scotland, I have seen looks of horror and disbelief from the windows of cars happening to pass by just as I emerge.

The initial shock of stepping outside half naked into a raging storm brings out a gasp and the internal question: is this really necessary? Our sheep dog, Ziggy, who tends to hide under the trampoline in such conditions, doesn’t seem to think so. Usually keen for a run, he’s keeping his head down, pretending to ignore me.

I see the hairs on my chest rise and curl, trying to trap in any heat they can, and feel an explosion of goose-pimples race across my skin. Inhaling deeply through my nose, I focus on this breath. Pushing my diaphragm firmly down, I turn the bad postural hunch of my climber’s shoulders up and out and try to stand tall, despite the urge to cower. ‘Come on boy.’ I exhale and with a huff, Ziggy stretches and ventures out. The woodland portal is waiting and soon we will disappear through it.

The change of atmosphere inside is dramatic. The lash of the rain is banished by the spiralling spruce above and the blustery air is muted and made sweet with fresh citrus and pine. I fill my lungs and curl my toes down into the soft mulch to ready them for what’s ahead. They’re in for a treat, for inside these damp depths a remarkable transformation has taken place. Undisturbed for decades by pollution or people, this once sterile spruce plantation has become home to a rich kingdom of moss and lichen. Free to creep and bloom and swell and weave a pristine mosaic of patchwork quilts over trees and ground and roads and ruins, this psychedelic playground truly is a barefoot runner’s paradise. Shin-deep hummocks of pink sphagnum lie waiting to tempt my toes while wizards’ beards of sage green whisper from branches as I prepare myself for launch.

My journey through the forest starts along a bowling alley of high banked moss. It encourages a side-to-side bounce rather than a run and is the perfect way to get going. Like a poorly bowled ball bouncing off the guards in the gutter, I am slow and steady, getting my feet and mind adjusted to the environment. I’m feeling the texture and temperature of the forest floor and loosening myself to its tone, before I become fully tuned in and can tentatively increase my pace. Once I can feel my movements come together into a steady, unified rhythm, I start my forest flow.

The spruce trees have been planted in regimented raised lines, crisscrossed with drainage ditches that need hopping and jumping over. My toes turn into claws that rip hungrily into crusts of moss as I leap, revealing roots underneath. Sometimes, I must duck immediately into a low stoop as I land to avoid any branches at eye level that the deer may have missed as they foraged this track. This is no normal way to run. At times all four of my limbs are in contact with the forest floor, combining all sorts of muscle groups to allow my contortions through the trees to continue unimpeded.

Running like this requires a high level of focus and concentration. An overindulgence in thought can have painful consequences, but this is precisely why I love it so much. It is when one thought consumes me, and I become more involved with my internal dialogue than my external world, that I will make a mistake and slam my heel into an awkward tree root or cut my sole on a random stick. Whether they are thoughts of elation or despair, the result is the same, and I’m reminded of my lack of focus with a sharp bite from a fang of the forest.

So, I need to be in a different space. A space somewhere between those two extremes where mindful meditation can merge with instinctive intuition to guide me silently and safely through the trees. When I get it right, it feels majestic. Deliberate and precise as I can be, aiming for perfection in each step, completely flowing in body and by consequence, out of mind.

It is this need to get out of mind that brings me here. I’ve not always run in this forest. My first exploratory trips were ones of hunched introspection. Consumed so fully with traumatic thoughts rewinding and replaying again and again in my mind’s eye, I barely noticed anything outside of me.

It was early summer 2015 and I had just returned home from a filming trip to Everest Base Camp for Raw TV. For the second year in a row, I had found myself in the midst of complete disaster. Nepal had been torn apart by a 7.8Mw earthquake. Around nine thousand people had died, with hundreds of thousands left injured or homeless. Countless ancient temples had crumbled to dust and whole villages had been swept away or buried by landslides. A huge avalanche was triggered above Everest Base Camp, killing twenty-two people, some within a few feet of me. It was the biggest single disaster ever to unfold on Everest.

The horror of the event was still pumping hard though my system weeks after my return to Scotland. I desperately needed grounding. The joy of returning home to the loving arms of my family was beyond measure. They were my buffer as I crashed back down to earth and the reality of my day to day. Despite their unlimited love and support, I still found myself feeling somewhat alone, just as I was alone when I struggled to gasp what I thought might be my last breath at Everest Base Camp. Only I knew what was going around in my head, and it wasn’t pretty. I didn’t know whether to talk about it or not, and almost felt under pressure to have the breakdown I sensed those around me were expecting. I found myself retreating to this same forest but having a completely different experience. I was wearing my shoes and a frown, more detached from the outside world than I’d ever been.

At first I had tried to numb myself with alcohol, but that didn’t work. It took the edge off things, but in the middle of the night my demons would sober up and plague me as I slept, leaving me feeling even worse by the morning. Weed didn’t help either. It just made me think more. I needed something else. Something that could bring me back down to earth. Something that could create a space between me and the constant torment of my thoughts.

I would find myself standing in the supermarket, locked in a silent battle, unable to decide what snacks to buy for my girls. It would appear to anyone passing that I was taking my time choosing between Oreos or Hobnobs. But in my mind, I was seeing blood and biscuits mashed together in an icy pulp. If I recognised anyone, I would stuff the packets back on the shelf and leave the aisle empty handed. I couldn’t cope with small talk. I didn’t want anyone to ask me how I was. I didn’t want anyone to see me.

I was offered counselling by Raw TV but wasn’t brave enough to take it. I was afraid to admit my struggles to myself, let alone anyone else. I didn’t think anyone else could possibly understand how I was feeling. I’d heard about post-traumatic stress and post-traumatic stress disorder. But that was for soldiers, not producers. At first, I didn’t understand what the difference was between them. I was scared of finding out, fearful of the label it could give me. I wasn’t sure what was worse, not knowing what was wrong or being stigmatised by a label if I did? Disorder is such a negative word and implies so much. I didn’t want that to be me. I still don’t. I was a father and a husband and a successful TV producer/director. I had to get on with it. I had to be strong. Even now, I feel vulnerable admitting this. But my GP explained it was likely that I was experiencing post-traumatic stress. It could be expected in the short term, as the mind processed the trauma. If symptoms persisted and began to interfere with everyday life, post-traumatic stress would become post-traumatic stress disorder. Was that what was happening to me? Had my stress crossed a line and become a disorder? If so, why wasn’t it affecting me all the time?

I don’t know. I still haven’t had any professional counselling. Instead, in between work and parenting, I have remained mostly among the trees and the moss, tuning into nature, trying to make sense of it all. Writing this book is a result of that. Getting my thoughts in order on these pages rather than jumbled up in my head, has been a helpful process. There has been a lot to ponder. Was my mental state simply due to the cumulative effects of the previous two years? Or did it have something to do with mountaineering, the highs and lows we all experience doing this most dangerous of sports? Or at the end of the day was it just me?

2

DON’T DIE OF IGNORANCE

I had already had an experience of extreme mental turbulence, long before I went to Everest. It had been triggered by another traumatic event in the mountains. Then, it resulted in a strange case of post-traumatic joy rather than stress and was also a little closer to home.

In February 2008 I was dating a local girl by the name of Julie Carver and things had been going well between us. She was working as an assistant producer for Hand Pict Productions in Edinburgh, while I was figuring out what do next with my life in Fort William. A petite and powerful nature girl, with freckled skin that glowed golden at the first hint of sunshine, she was most at home among trees or surfing the seas. Her blue-green eyes sparkled with fun every time we met and, even though I felt I was fighting above my weight, I really hoped this could be the start of something special.

Julie had enjoyed my first climbing film – a documentary about the history of rock climbing in Glen Nevis – which she had seen at a climbing festival in Edinburgh. I had teamed up with my friends John Sutherland, Ali Berardelli and Ed Grindley to produce it. We called ourselves Heather Hat after the obvious overhanging boulder in Glen Nevis, and set up a make shift edit suite in the upstairs of the old nursery in Roy Bridge. The fact that we didn’t have a clue what we were doing didn’t matter: it felt exciting and fresh. Even if we had to wait patiently for the toddler groups to finish and pack away each evening before we could start work.

Through making this film, I met the legend that was Dave MacLeod and we hit it off well. He was living in Dumbarton at the time and had just finished climbing his Rhapsody project, the first climb with the whopping grade E11 in the country, or anywhere in the world for that matter. Dave needed new challenges and it wasn’t long before he and his wife Claire moved up to Lochaber. To facilitate his expanding adventures, the two of them somehow squeezed themselves into a studio apartment next to the Spar shop in Claggan. Not the most exotic place for one of the world’s leading climbers, but Dave and Claire were keeping it real. It was the perfect place for Dave to launch his assault on Glen Nevis and he wasted little time in doing so, creating some classic climbs in the process. It was great to witness such an explosion of climbing in the Glen. Although, lost in the grand solitude of the place, you would have never even have known he was there.

One project in particular was a big one: Don’t Die of Ignorance. The name referred to the notorious public health campaign at the time, warning of the dangers of AIDS. It was a climb Dave had been attempting on the North Face of Ben Nevis for four consecutive years and had fallen at the same spot each time. The route had already been climbed in winter by Andy Cave and Simon Yates in 1987, but they had used several points of aid* to get through the outrageously hard traverse on the first pitch, which was the crux of the whole climb. Dave’s plan was to climb this route free. His only protection would be the gear that he placed as he climbed. If he somehow managed to achieve this, it would be the hardest technical climbing ever achieved on Ben Nevis and Britain’s hardest mixed route to date.

Dave is one of the world’s most gifted all-round climbers, excelling at the top level whether it be on a boulder, sport route or mountain cliff. I, on the other hand, am not. After enthusiastically accepting the opportunity to join him with my camera, my limitations became apparent to me in the most serious of ways.

I was buzzing as John Sutherland, Claire MacLeod, Dave and I stomped up to the CIC** hut in military style. I was a smoker back then and managed to get a quick roll-up prepared and puffed without breaking stride. However, my casual excitement gradually began to dissipate, and by the time we had reached the hut, it had u-turned into utter terror. Bang in the middle of Corrie Na Ciste was Don’t Die of Ignorance looming at the crest of a fierce tidal wave of granite. It seemed to be screaming its name as a warning to me. Or was that the wind? The line of the route went up the middle of the Comb Buttress and was the most obvious, imposing and direct way up the whole of the North Face. I looked at John for reassurance but didn’t find any. His friendly face looked more serious than usual. I could see he was thinking the same as me. With a raise of his eyebrows and a nervous grin, John looked away and shook his head. Should I bail now? Could I bail now? What was I doing? Could another quick roll-up help?

I looked at Dave, who was beaming. ‘What you reckon, Joe? Still keen?’ I tried to hide the distinct tremble in my hand as I attempted to roll this, the most important of roll-ups. It was as if he could read my mind or at least knew that as soon as I saw the reality of his proposition, I might have second thoughts. This was to be our first climb together after all. ‘Wow,’ I responded, but the wind sucked my little word away before it had left my mouth and it cartwheeled off into the snow.

I glanced back up at our route and wished I hadn’t. The huge tombstone of granite was looking more menacing and impenetrable by the minute. Spindrift curled wildly over the summit cornices like smoke from a dragon’s nose and my mouth was so dry I could have struck a match in it. I eventually allowed my eyes to fix with Dave’s; his were full of intense enquiry. ‘So?’ he asked. I looked down at my failed roll-up and crumpled the soggy Rizla and tobacco in my fist. ‘Britain’s hardest route?’ I heard myself ask. ‘Fucking let’s ‘ave it.’ And that was that.

I became increasingly subdued as we continued up into the corrie to commence our climb. As Dave started getting himself clipped in, psyched up and sorted, I could barely tie into my own rope – or speak, for that matter. The first pitch was the crux to the whole climb. He needed to traverse an awful looking undercut crack that rose and snaked horizontally away from our ledge for about twenty metres towards a blunt prow that jutted out into space. It was just wide enough to wedge your foot in, but other than that I couldn’t see any foot holds or ice that were thick enough to make it worthwhile swinging my axe. This was my first taste of hard mixed climbing and already I felt sick.

‘Climb when ready, Dave!’

Dave set off, stepping straight out into space and tip-toeing his tiny metal toes across non-existent footholds. The odd nub of granite was just big enough to bear some of his weight. Everything sloped the wrong way and there were no holds or features anywhere, other than the icy crack that he followed. Dave had to turn his axes upside down so that their shafts stuck up and out of the crack rather than down and from it and use them as teetering levers to crank down on, in the hope they wouldn’t rip out. This technique is known as ‘tin opening’ and I’d never seen anything like it before in my life. He looked like a giant space crab as he scuttled along the crack with his metal pincers, yellow helmet and red jacket. I stood open mouthed with a mixture of amazement and terror at what I was finding myself witness to.

‘Go on, Dave! Send it!’ I shouted at the twitching ropes as they snaked out of sight, pleased with the positive tone of my voice. I didn’t really think he would do it this time. Pretty soon we could be back home with a nice cup of tea, and we could pretend this never happened. I could see John way below on the corrie floor lying back in the snow, camera pressed to his face. I was cold on a snow ledge and dancing on the spot to warm myself up. Dave was taking some time. I sang Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds to myself in the hope that it would banish the rising terror in my system and bring about a sense of calm. It didn’t. I was worried about everything and seriously doubting whether every little thing would be all right.

My impromptu performance was brought to an abrupt end when I heard Dave screaming. His voice was thin and urgent, but at best muffled, at worst completely inaudible through the buffering wind. He was at the crux move and needed slack. This was it, the point of no return. I needed to be on it here like never before. He was about to commit his life to pushing through the boundaries of what was thought possible, and I was holding his ropes. Oh no. They were iced up and heavy, hard to manage as the fear inside me. If I gave him too much slack he could have a nasty fall, but if I didn’t give him enough, I could pull him off the cliff.

I don’t know if it was better or worse that he was obscured from my view at this point, but his screams for slack were getting louder, accompanied now by primal sounding grunts. With so much drag and ice on the ropes it was almost impossible to let them run free. This would only get worse once he left the traverse and started climbing vertically. A small group of onlookers had gathered at the corrie floor, seemingly miles beneath our route and were craning their necks to see what I could not.

As Dave reached the crux, the sliver of rock providing the tiny dinks for his feet got smaller and smaller until they disappeared and there were no footholds left at all, just hundreds of feet of space between him and the boulders below. This was the crux to the whole route. With one last scream, Dave entered some elevated state and launched into the unknown. He tried desperately to gain his balance, but because of the lack of holds, it was impossible for him to find any way of doing this. The only option left available to him was to cut loose and hang by his right hand on the upturned shaft of his axe, as it slowly slid out of the icy crack. Miraculously it held long enough to get his left hand on as well, but now he was hanging by both hands off this one precariously positioned axe.

Dave’s centre of gravity shifted as soon as he got his left hand on, so he was able to find a way to use his feet on the tiniest of edges. This gave him enough balance to continue this ground-breaking sequence. With the utmost composure, he took his other axe off his shoulder where it had been balancing and started scratching around with it for the next holds in the icy wall above. He karate kicked his legs round in one last masterly display of control and seated his right foot precisely where it needed to be – on a rib of rock that allowed him to regain his balance and continue his journey upwards and into the unknown.

The crux was in the bag, but it was far from over. He now had to climb a blank ten-metre wall with the rope drag at critical level. Axes were ripping and feet slipping wildly as he continued upwards, screaming, going for broke as if his life depended on it. And it did. With each move up, the rope would do its best to drag him back down and I was doing my best not to whimper at the intensity of the moment. Inch by inch, move by move, he continued his triumphant conquest upwards until finally I heard the words, ‘That’s me safe, Joe,’ echo down from the icy amphitheatre above. For a moment I felt relief, then terror.

_____________

* Aid climbing is a style of climbing in which standing on or pulling oneself up via devices attached to fixed or placed protection is used to make upward progress.

** Charles Inglis Clark – the hut was erected in memory of this climber, killed in WW1.

3

SPACE CRAB

My new reality hit me hard. History was only half made, and the pressure was now on me to follow. I was already shaking. I could not climb the way Dave had; it was much too hard. Usually when climbing second, you can follow the rope directly upwards to the lead climber. They can keep it nice and tight and even help you through the hard parts with an extra hard tug if required. This wasn’t the case here. As this pitch was a traverse, the rope was loosely snaking away from me in a horizontal direction and Dave could give me no assistance from above.

The only option for me was to aid across, placing the picks of my axes through the karabiners attached to the protection he had left behind. This had seemed a perfectly reasonable plan when we had gone through it all during our walk in, but now it was a different proposition altogether. My nerves were in tatters after standing cold and alone on that ledge for I don’t know how long. The whole time my mind had been fluctuating between wanting him to succeed and secretly hoping he wouldn’t so that we could go home.

All that was irrelevant now. My only option was to take a deep breath and launch myself out into space in pursuit of this climbing genius and follow in his non-existent footsteps. There was no easy way to get moving. I paced and muttered and flapped my arms for at least twenty minutes before I felt psyched up enough to dive in. When I eventually did, I was out of my depth within the first move.

To place a crampon onto the tiniest of edges requires a great deal of skill, composure and a confidence that it will hold firm when you move. I had none of this and, as this was my first serious mixed route, it was an appalling place to try and learn. With my brain misfiring and unsure quite what to do, I put my left axe through the closest karabiner to me in the crack while I was still on the belay ledge, which was easy enough. I then lowered my weight onto this axe and allowed my feet to scrape and skid at the wall, eventually finding enough friction to make the next move possible. I pulled myself back up high on this left axe and, at full stretch, managed to find the next karabiner with my right axe out along the crack. For the briefest of moments this felt like progress. I had two solid holds and I was holding them. How hard can this be? All I had to do was ooch along like this and the climb would be in the bag.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. In my hasty and anxious plan to launch out along these loops, I’d neglected to pay enough attention to my feet and think through exactly how I planned to move along the crack once I was in it. Now I was wholly committed with my arms at full stretch, feet scraping wildly at nothing. I desperately looked down for something, but all I could see was the void I was hanging over. Now I was the space crab with my pincers pulled apart. Pump and fatigue started to build in my arms. I became rigid on my axes, as if I was in the clutches of an electric shock. I was unable to move forward or back, unable to find any holds for my feet or any way of making another move. I was also acutely aware that there was no one but myself who could help me get me out of this situation. Time started slowing and stretching around me. I had to do something, but what?

With tremendous effort I managed to get my left foot up and onto a hold, so at least I now had three points of contact. It was progress and I breathed and prayed. But my right foot was still dangling in space. As all my weight was now hanging off my axes, there was no way I could flick them up and out of the karabiners. The ropes between us were slack on my harness. They gave no help at all. I needed to come up with a plan, and quick. The only solution I could see was to pull as hard as I could on my left axe in the hope that with enough force, I could rip out the gear Dave had placed and free one of my arms. This was by no means guaranteed as Dave would have been sure to have placed his gear very well and once it is in, it can be very tricky, if not impossible, to get out.

I had no choice. I pulled and pulled desperately on my axe and pushed down against my left leg as hard as I could. Oh, please God, set me free! Eventually, with one ginormous heave, the gear and my axe ripped out of the crack and flew towards my face, narrowly missing me. My situation had taken a huge turn for the worse.

As I ripped the gear out on my left, all my weight swung violently onto my right axe and all I could do was clutch desperately to this. For a few seconds I managed to hold a one arm lock off, but this didn’t last long and slowly I sank and slipped down the shaft of my axe towards oblivion. My mouth burned dry with acid and my vision became patchy. I knew there was one more inevitable part of this process still to go. How long could I possibly hold onto the axe? The lactic acid in my arm was throbbing with a pump so powerful it was prising my fingers apart. I tried in vain to do a one arm pull up, but no chance. My legs bicycled through empty space, and it all became too much. I let go of the axe and my situation took yet another terrifying turn for the worse.

So as not to drop and lose my axes while climbing, I had leashes on them that attached to my wrist. My full weight was now hanging off this leash while the pick of the axe remained tightly in the karabiner. The leash was biting hard into my wrist. My helpless legs kicked frantically at nothing. I started to lose sensation in my hand. My wrist joint was being simultaneously stretched and crushed by two opposing forces running through it. The harder I pulled, the tighter it got, first pins and needles, then numbness. Then nothing. My dead weight hung over the void, and I now couldn’t feel my hand. My legs continued to pedal through thin air. Curtains started to close on my vision. Primal fear was stretching and playing with time. This moment had become an eternity that was no longer linked to the next moment, just a series of patchy images. Was it even my hand I was looking at?

At this point I felt a profound shift of perspective occur. I became a witness to my situation rather than the person it was happening to. Not from out of my body, but from somewhere else within. Then came an explosion of strength and clarity that surged through my system, as if I had blown through my own seams to a place beyond fear. I was able to see my situation objectively and come up with a plan.

I had a jumar on the back of my harness (a clampy device used to ascend ropes) and managed to reach round to carefully unclip it. I held it in my trembling hand as if it was the most precious object in the world. Next, with this hand and my teeth, I managed to open its spiky jaws and very carefully place it as high up on the rope above me as I could manage. This was it. One shot before God knows what kind of recovery mission would be needed to get my hanging body out of this mess.

I breathed and focused. I heaved down on the jumar and somehow managed a one arm pull up for the first and only time in my life. I held it while battling against the stretch of the rope and the extra weight from my rucksack and somehow stayed locked off on it. Then, with this new wobbly height gain, I was able to flick my right axe free from the karabiner it had been stuck through and bingo, I was free. My weight came crashing back down onto the ropes and I hung in space in a tangle of exhaustion.

There was no time to dwell on my relief. Dave had no clue what had been going on as I had been obscured from his view by the overhang. His shouts had remained unanswered as I had nothing intelligible or encouraging to offer. I could hear only one word in three anyway because of the hassling wind. I was now hanging in space with the ropes and axes tangled together in a dreadful knot around my harness. He was huddled up in a ball at the belay, becoming dangerously cold.