Fugue E9 6c - page 3

But this all meant nothing. I knew it all came down to how I felt at the instant I stood up into the undercut and faced the crux move. Arch left and squeeze the undercut. I tense my whole body as I drag my feet up, letting out an audible ‘heave’ as my breath is frozen in the squeeze. I glance at the crucial edge up and right as my body falls away. My right hand whips up and extends… Bang! I was still there and my body was still making moves with my mind still locked in the previous moment.

When I woke up I had arrived at a jug on the lip of the steep part of the wall. It felt like I was standing on that ledge just a split second ago. I turned off my concentration for ten seconds before focusing once more and leaving this sinking island. With a huge release after realising this was finally ‘it’, I powered through a bulge to arrive at the pockets. My fingers felt securely locked in place as I pulled up higher than usual, peered into the left hand pocket and stuffed a small wire into it. I could feel numbness in my fingertips and cold pump building in my forearms.

Aggressively I powered on past small crimps to the lip of the finishing slab. My feet scuffed blindly under the bulge in search of the final footholds. But I know where they were by now and I pushed my body up and into range of the pudding shaped final jug. After the ungraceful pull past a patch of heather, I was amazed to find myself standing in the wet grass on the small plateau on top. The rope disappeared from my harness over the edge, but the crag underneath my feet was out of sight and it felt strange standing on my own on the heathery hillside trying to come to terms with what just happened.

I waded down the deep wet grass of the descent and back to the base of the crag where I found Claire lying contentedly snoozing on my bouldering mat in the sunshine. Surprised at her seemingly inappropriate body language, I asked “were you scared?” She simply said as soon as I started climbing, it was obvious I wasn’t going to fall off.

It suddenly hit me that what I had done existed purely in the moment of its execution. I was still Dave, Claire was still Claire, the route was still just a lump of steep rock and the world was still turning. What I had done was already just a memory and the experience was only real while I was in process of making it. I sat down beside Claire, ate a bar of chocolate, and began to think about another project.

The Fugue E9 6c*** 20m Glen Croe, Arrochar Dave MacLeod 16th October 2002
A very serious and hard climb with sparse protection, taking the very steep wall left of Short Sharp Shock. Start just left of this and climb a short groove to good holds. Place an assortment of dubious gear behind the soft jug on the right. Step left and launch up the overhanging wall with increasing difficulty to a desperate crux move from a small undercut. Move left to a jug at the lip and in a serious position,  reach rightwards through the bulge to twin finger pockets (wires in the left hand pocket). Climb the steep wall above direct on crimps to a good finishing jug. Very powerful climbing (F8a+) with groundfall potential. Toprope practice used on the first ascent.

First published in Climber Magazine, Feb 2003

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