Broken Promises - Hurlyburly F8b free solo - page 1
She always says I don’t listen. Well, those words seemed like a deafening din ringing round my head at that moment. “The time you’ll mess up will be on some E2 or something when you’re not paying attention”. I stopped still, tight against the edge of a little blind groove and tried to pull myself together. The situation? Hundreds of feet above the corrie basin, on an easy solo in the Cuillin of Skye. How could I be so gripped soloing a simple and easy access route ten grades below my leading grade? But an easy slab or not, I couldn’t make myself trust the polished smears below my muddy walking boots and felt constantly pulled out of balance by my heavy sac full of ropes and gear. Something felt wrong. I couldn’t seem to get comfortable with my situation, but wobbling on for another 10 feet to the top seemed more appealing than down-climbing three hundred, so I stuck with it through an awkward step to reach safety. The episode was more than a little damaging for the ego and demanded some urgent analysis before I stepped back onto another E7! Thinking back, I recounted memories of past ‘bumbly’ moments where some mental or physical lapse brought my climbing ability crashing down from the realms of competency firmly into wobbling fool mode. It reminded me how much one’s ability in any skill is a bit of a ‘house of cards’ at times. Despite the consistency borne out of long years of building up to a certain level, a seemingly insignificant distraction or barrier can sometimes sweep away all your confidence at once. Soloing is especially vulnerable to such inconspicuous but potentially deadly workings of the psyche. The mental mechanics of preparation and mind control during solo climbing is fascinating, especially to those with first hand experience on which to muse. Solo ascents, even those which pass flawlessly without ‘going into the red’ as Cubby once put it, carve open the flesh of raw emotions and motivations which normally lie beyond the reach of an introspective thinker. Perhaps therein lies the root of its addictiveness? For me, and many other regular soloists I’ve asked, a gradual build up of mental energy and robustness is essential before embarking on the chosen route. Such preparation may not always be conscious and deliberate. Unconscious preparation sometimes leads to a sudden feeling of readiness to ‘let go’ of the stored up mental energy in a ‘spur of the moment’ ascent. In other words, you don’t always know where your mind is taking you, but you know (and must know) when you get there and feel a sudden spark of being ready to take on the climb. Analysing my worrying breakdown of control on the Cuillin slabs, I decided initially that my lack of recent soloing experience and an expectation for the route to feel very easy were to blame. The consequent re-living of my wife’s warning about having an accident while not concentrating during an easy climb seemed particularly insightful and chilling. Clearly, my ego played a part in judging that the climb would be very easy for me and in the shock at becoming gripped and scared. It would be very easy to say simply that I had an ego problem (i.e. it was too big!) and that I should expect to find any climb hard.
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