“I am leading Astrodog next week. (posting here in the hope that peer pressure keeps me honest) 😬“

I knew what I really meant. I am falling on gear next week.

On Thursday I seconded Astrodog in the quarry and for the first time it felt good. Almost easy. Good rests, no desperate moves, and when I reached the top, instead of being unable to speak and fighting the urge to vomit, I was all smiles and chatting. I think I could lead this, I thought. That night and all the next morning I was confident – running through the moves, the rests, the gear. Then I started to doubt myself. So I posted in our WhatsApp group.

Nearly every bit of climbing progress I’ve ever made has happened quietly, almost by accident, when nobody – usually including me – knew what I was attempting. But quiet has a failure mode too: the head that talks you out of quiet things. This time I decided to get ahead of myself before I could talk myself down.

On Sunday I seconded Spillikin Ridge in Glendalough. I followed a better climber than me, going for his onsight, and to my surprise I got up it clean. I found it tough in parts, and the step out onto the arete scared me even on top rope. But I’d managed it. And I was pretty chuffed. I had looked at the pitch many times and thought it was very far out of reach, but now it seemed a little closer.

He fell once, trying hard. Afterwards he told me he hadn’t climbed it. I argued he absolutely had. He said he hadn’t – not clean, not climbed. We left it there.

Later that day my belayer-to-be joked “Next, the lead 🤔“. I’d replied: “You know… like not now, or soon but maybe not never either 😬“. Followed, in the same minute, by: “Maybe.”

Safe. For Now.

A busy weekend of climbing and unseasonably hot weather meant Tuesday’s quarry session was planned as a chill one – swim, cold drink, some handy climbing. As we were enjoying said cold drinks, my friend and belayer-to-be helpfully reminded everyone present that I’d said I was leading Astrodog today. Another swim.

We finished our drinks and walked into the quarry. As we approached Tower Ridge, Astrodog came into view – instant relief. Someone was on it. Not only were they on it, they appeared to be working it. I was safe. For now.

We headed in and met up with others. I hear you’re leading Astrodog today, they said. Word gets around. I’d posted to a small WhatsApp group, and by the end of the evening, one way or another, they’d all turned up. So much for quietly.

We lay in the sun deciding what we wanted to do. If Astrodog freed up I’d try and lead it, otherwise we’d pick something else. I checked the route once more – still being worked. Findings likely related to my checking method, which involved lying in the sun with my eyes closed.

We had just decided to head down towards Fang when we looked back one last time, and my heart dropped. The rope was being pulled. It was about to be free.

My soon-to-be belayer quietly said I didn’t have to do it today. Zero pressure. She was right, and I felt no outside pressure at all. Internally – well. Let’s just say that’s a space that can be far less quiet and kind than the one my belayer had just made for me.

If I was going to lead it, I needed a few extra cams. So I asked that same climber I’d followed up Spillikin Ridge two days before. Are you going for it? came the reply. Deadly – go rack up and I’ll bring them up to you.

So off we went, I racked up, and waited. The more I waited, the more terrified I became. We talked through the places I’d be likely to fall, which was mostly reassuring, so I talked through them again, and probably just kept on talking. And then he arrived at the base of the route. The man – who, it is well documented, borrows things – laid out his rack and told me to take what I needed. Those ninety minutes – the waiting and the climbing – seemed, and still seem, like an eternity.

I have seconded Astrodog seven times. The first time was almost exactly two years ago, dogging my way up it behind the same guy who’d just lent me his gear.

Three Falls

I tie in and pull on. The first piece is a red Dragonfly. It goes in from a good stance, under very little pressure. It’s the settler I’d been placing in my head since Thursday. And I cannot get it to fit. This is the red Dragonfly, right? It is.

I also cannot find the rest before the first crux. Nor do I even attempt to place the last cam.

I fall. Do you want to be lowered to try again? “I don’t care about getting it clean.”

I fall again. And again. But completely pumped and properly terrified, I get there, and top out. Done.

Two years of build-up. Three falls, on three different pieces of gear. All of them held. My belayer caught me. And I got up.

It should have been great. And for the hour or so we were packing up, it even was.

The Day After the Night Before

I didn’t sleep well. I replayed the evening over and over, and instead of the positive learning experience and excitement this has been on other occasions, I was critical, annoyed, disappointed and embarrassed. I woke up groggy and grumpy. By the afternoon I was, to use the technical term, an emotional mess.

I can get anxious, and I ruminate. Part of me wants to put a rope on it, work the moves, and get ready for another go. Another part never wants to climb again. Another part just never wants to climb with other people again.

Part of me is really happy I led it, albeit ugly.

Part of me is really happy I fell on gear, and kept going, and fell on more gear.

The stupid thing is, I never wanted an event. I wanted to just do it, and do it quietly. The person who has spent four years learning that all his best climbing happens when nobody knows what he’s attempting decided, this one time, to sell tickets.

Then, a video of one of the falls landed in our chat.

“I have to say – Im an emotional wreck today 😀”

My belayer: “Oh no, why!”

“Ah – Ive built that day up in my head for a long time!! its almost exactly 2 years since I first dogged my way up it”

Two Metres

The fall is about two metres. Maybe not even. On screen it looks almost tidy – I go for the move, I come off, the rope comes tight, and that’s that. It’s over in half a second.

The route didn’t get harder between Thursday and Tuesday. The falls weren’t that big. The size was added afterwards, in post-production, by the same head that had been directing the whole thing since I posted that first message. There isn’t a single grade in this post and there doesn’t need to be. This time it’s not the numbers.

On Sunday, I stood on top of Spillikin Ridge arguing with a better climber that falling on a route doesn’t erase having climbed it. He fell once, trying hard, on an onsight attempt – of course he climbed it. I believed that completely. I believe it still.

On Tuesday night, lying awake, I prosecuted myself under his rules.

He borrows things. It turns out I do too. I’d borrowed his definition of climbed and applied it to the one climber it was never going to fit.

The one that would have fit was already sitting in my messages. The night before – talking about whether I’d ever attempt to lead Spillikin Ridge – my belayer had told me her method: take some falls, rest, do it in sections the first time. I had climbed it exactly her way. But I judged it by his.

Practically Perfect

A previous post I wrote ended on the advice: find a safe route, find a good belayer, and start falling.

I found the route. I found the belayer – who made more space for me at the bottom of that climb than I managed to make for myself. I fell. Three times, trying hard, on three different pieces of gear, and every single thing held.

The only thing that didn’t hold was the feeling. Nobody warns you about the day after – that you can do your scary thing, a thing you announced, a thing two years in the making, and wake up the next day an emotional wreck with a 😀 stuck on the end of the sentence. So I’m mentioning it. Adrenaline debt can catch up with you. And the crash can be pretty brutal. If that’s ever you, that’s not something wrong with you – or perhaps it is, but then it’s wrong with me too. Feelings come up the rope. And sometimes they dog it. But they arrive all the same.

I recently signed off a post about a weekend of leading with:
“Not for the first time, I am realising I can build occasions up far bigger than they deserve.

If only I’d fallen, it could have been perfect.

Next time.”

Three falls.

Practically perfect.

A friend once said I was good at those finisher paragraphs. Always tied up neatly somehow. A closed loop.

About that…

The above was finished late on Wednesday night. I had my answer, I knew my issue, and all was right with the world again.

Except I’d written Tuesday night and Wednesday as if they were one thing. They were two.

Tuesday night was the replay. Critical, annoyed, disappointed, embarrassed – feelings with plenty of content, none of it real. Fuel, as it turned out.

Wednesday morning was something else. I woke into dread with no content at all. The certainty that I’d done some wrong I couldn’t remember. The worry that nobody liked me, that I had no friends. It made no sense, I knew it made no sense, and I felt it anyway. I had the fear.

And I know the fear. It’s the morning-after dread a former me knows only too well – a feeling I thought I’d left behind.

That afternoon – “an emotional wreck”, by my own account – I started writing, and I finished late that night. The borrowed-rules thing is true, and it stands. So does the adrenaline debt. They were also convenient truths: a box I closed in the hope the feeling would leave with it.

Thursday

Another fitful sleep, and Thursday morning told me it had at most taken the edge off. No clarity, no closure. Just the dread, and no idea what I was supposed to have done to earn it.

Somewhere in all the churning, one thing had settled out. I’d never needed to get that route clean – it was better that I didn’t. I fell on gear and I was fine. I didn’t get a fright. That wasn’t what scared me.

Not being in control had scared me.

Four years in, I’ve made loads of friends climbing, some of them close now. Week in week out, I mostly climb with the same handful of them. I’d always assumed our goals were the same – get better, try harder, climb harder. Writing it down, I realise I’m not sure we’ve ever actually talked about goals. Routes to tick in a season, yes. Goals, maybe not. I’d certainly never thought about my own. I just knew that this route was a milestone for me, to somewhere.

So if trying hard and falling my way up routes like that isn’t actually my goal – if I don’t want the thing I assumed we all wanted – where does that leave me with the people I climb with every week? Do I still fit in?

Was that it? Was that why I woke up with a dread I couldn’t name, why part of me didn’t want to climb with anyone at all?

I didn’t know.

I’d started soloing a bit recently. It began with Crash Landing. I’d wanted to lead it but was wary of the start, so one evening we brought bouldering mats down – and I was putting my harness on when someone asked me what I was doing. I was confused for a second. Then I realised. The first piece of gear goes in after all the hard moves are done. The climbing is easy from there, and I had mats under the hard bit. I got through the bottom, up to the niche, and had a momentary panic – I was well above the mats now. The climbing was easier; it was just that all my planning had stopped at the hard bit, and I hadn’t thought about the finishing-it part at all. I calmed down, set off, and I was fine. That same evening I did Pilaster, Sham Gully and Bracket Wall – routes I’d “led” before that are mostly solos anyway.

Climbing calms my mind. On lead, there’s only the move in front of me, the next piece, the next rest. It’s automatic. The routes I solo deliver it in spades. Routes I’ve climbed many times, nothing sustained, no way to get pumped, exits everywhere. I can take it slow. I’m never under pressure. There’s no event. I’m in control.

On the Tuesday, when it went wrong, I wasn’t – every time I pulled back on after a fall, I was flailing again within a move or two, the whole way to the top.

I had climbed it exactly her way. I hadn’t. Her method has three parts. Take some falls: I did. Rest: I tried, not enough. Do it in sections: I didn’t. I’d taken the one part that looks like falling and left the parts that make it a method.

The shape of it wasn’t lost on me. I’d fallen on a rope – gear that held, a belayer who caught me – and my answer was to take the rope away. If anyone else told me that, I’d have questions. I didn’t have an answer for myself yet.

That evening I went to the quarry, but I didn’t meet up with the usual group. I wanted to take it handy. Maybe I didn’t want to face them. I soloed a few easy routes and led and seconded a few familiar ones. The climbing was all fine. At the end of the evening I met one of my regular partners and we chatted about how I was feeling. Can you believe I feel this way, I said. He asked, joking, if I’d cried. Been bawling all day, I told him – had to cancel two meetings. We laughed at how stupid it was, how it made no sense. His read on me: there’s no middle ground – I can either do a thing or I can’t. A person of extremes.

Friday to Sunday

That weekend I went camping in Cruit with my seven-year-old daughter. By some bizarre coincidence, there was an IMC meet in Cruit that very same weekend. We’d planned to do a bit of climbing ourselves, so I’d packed what we needed to set up a top rope. How my full rack ended up in the boot is anyone’s guess.

With my daughter in the capable hands of a bunch of belayers and two particular gifts from the gods, I soloed a pile of routes well within my margin on the Albatross Zawn, the Far West Buttress and Jock’s Wall. And here a theory sprang a leak. Some of these routes I’d climbed once, three years ago. Most I’d never seen. They may as well all have been brand new – and the calm came anyway. So it was never really about knowing the routes.

I’ll say it in numbers, this once. On Tuesday I fell off an E3. At the weekend I was soloing VS and under. The gap between those two numbers is the whole story. No middle ground.

We came home on Sunday evening, and my daughter was upset going to bed. She missed the island. She was also tired. She’d had too much junk on the four-and-a-half-hour drive. And she is seven. She had a cry, we had a cuddle, and off she went.

Monday

This morning, she still misses it. We’ll go back, I tell her. But that doesn’t fix the now.

I think the island was the settler I needed, and I think I miss it too.

Last night, some answers finally arrived, nearly a week late.

I never fully appreciated the tax of leading on gear – because I’ve never needed to. Falling was the thing I couldn’t do, so I’ve spent four years living in the do-not-fall space, and everything about how I climb was built in there. I didn’t know what leaving it costs until I tried it.

Because here’s what I remember thinking, over and over, somewhere in the middle of it: god, I hope I have enough left to place the next piece. I never found the rest before the first crux. I never even attempted the last cam. Three falls, three pieces, everything held – the falls were never the danger. But maybe those places in between had been. The finishing-it parts. Maybe the wrong I couldn’t remember on Wednesday was a wrong I hadn’t thought of yet. Maybe my head wasn’t only making noise. Maybe it was never just my head.

Maybe.

That’s the tax. Safety has to be manufactured from the same resource the route is draining. So losing control means watching the thing that keeps you safe run out while you’re still using it.

The soloing makes a different kind of sense. It isn’t taking the rope away – it’s taking the tax away. The tax never falls due. That’s not closed.

And the fitting-in question – I can sort that a little now too. The nobody-likes-me, no-friends stuff was the fear’s, not mine. It was nonsense on Wednesday and it’s nonsense now. But underneath it there’s a real question, and it survives: if I’m not pushing the same routes as the people I climb with – whether that’s by choice or by ability – what’s my place there?

They’ll (hopefully) read this. It was never a can-I-still-climb-with-them question. The question points inward, and nobody put it to me. Nobody ever said a place has to be earned in grades. I made that rule up myself.

So maybe it’s simpler than I want it to be. Perhaps the people I climb with aren’t braver about any of this than I am – they just have the margin for those routes, and know they need it, and I don’t. Yet.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll never have the margin for that route. But at least now I know I need it.