“I hate cunt-crack climbing,” Jean-Claude mutters.
I’m shocked. To date I haven’t heard either of my new climbing friends use real obscenity or such a vulgar comment as this. I put it down to Jean-Claude not fully understanding what an unacceptable word this is in English.
But I look up again and understand Jean-Claude’s intense dislike of such a climb. For more than 200 feet our ascent will depend upon jamming our wedged hands, raw forearms, bloodied fingers, and the tips of our boots or shoes into an ever-narrowing and zigzagging crack. I doubt if there will be half a dozen decent belay points anywhere up this miserable little crack—and I still can’t see any decent handholds or footholds on either side of the fissure.
“You will lead, Jake,” says Jean-Claude without making it a question. Superb on snow and ice, brilliant on high mountain ridges and faces, the gifted young mountain guide simply doesn’t enjoy this sort of rock climbing.
He says, “Shall we even bother roping up?”
I look again at the face and crack—the 50-foot separation from the grassy “pipe ledge” to the highest points we must traverse from the crack, if it’s even possible to do so—and ponder the question. In truth, we’d probably be safer—especially I would—if we each climbed solo. With so few belay points, there’s little to no chance that if one of us falls, the other can hold him.
But some chance is better than no chance.
“Yes,” I say. “Ten meters of rope between us should do it.”
Jean-Claude groans. Such a short tether slightly increases the chance of holding a fallen fellow climber—since if the lead climber, me, falls, it’ll be 60 feet of falling inertia that the man on belay (Jean-Claude) will have to hold against, as well as far less weight-energy against the lead climber (should I have a solid hold) if the second man, Jean-Claude, falls. But the short rope will mean a slow ascent, with many stops for each man going on belay for the other. A sloppy, slow, dangerous climb, the antithesis of quality speed work on rock.
“But we should haul up a hell of a lot of rope,” I add. “For the rappel down from the pipe ledge. I don’t want to down-climb the damned crack.”
Jean-Claude stares angrily at the almost invisible “pipe ledge” nearly 250 feet above us, glares at the Deacon, and says, “That’s a lot of rope for a full rappel.”
“We’ll do it in two stages, J.C.,” I say with far more enthusiasm and confidence than I feel. “There has to be at least one decent belay point in that crack about halfway down or more, and we’ll swing the lead man on rappel to it and he’ll set up the second rappel from there. Easy as pie.”
Jean-Claude only grunts.
I turn to the Deacon and find that my voice is as angry in tone as was J.C.’s gaze at our “leader.” I say, “I presume that you’re going to explain to us why this miserable and dangerous save-the-pipe climb has something to do with Mallory or our attempt on Everest.”
“I shall explain after you deliver my pipe to me, old man,” says the Deacon in that smug British tone that makes Americans want to punch Brits.
Jean-Claude and I sit down, our backs against the crag, and start coiling the extra rope—we’re going to have to carry a lot of it looped over our backs and bellies—and emptying out our rucksacks to carry even more rope. I’m using the rucksack mostly as a way to hold my ice axe, which I can imagine a use for even though Jean-Claude thinks I’m crazy to haul it up this iceless, snowless mass of rock.
And he stares in shock—now truly convinced of my insanity—as I take off my mountain boots and put on an old pair of sneakers that I’d hauled in with me in my rucksack, holes worn in them from my years of tennis at prep school and college and on summer clay courts. I understand my French friend’s incredulity. Crack climbing demands the heaviest and most rigid climbing boots you can find; wedge a toe of that mountain boot in on the slightest spur or foothold, and the stiff sole of the boot gives you a stable platform on which to stand as you go for your next hold. My tennis shoes all but guarantee that my feet are going to be as bruised and bloody as my bare hands after this climb.
But all I can think about is that 50-foot traverse to the pipe ledge across that smooth and seemingly hold-free sow’s-belly curve of rock 250 feet up. On that sort of rock, I’ve always used the softest shoes I can find—my American equivalent to the grippy-soled soft shoes that the new generation of German rock climbers call Kletterschuhe. So today it’s my old tennis shoes with the holes in them.
Jean-Claude and I rope up and begin the climb. We’re soon using the crack, and it’s even nastier than I’d thought. My hands—already toughened and well calloused for such rock work—are bleeding profusely before the end of the first pitch. My tennis shoes soon have more holes in them, and I feel as if my bruised and torn feet do as well.
But we’ve found our rhythm, and very soon we’re climbing as quickly as the frequent stops for belays in the crack allow. Jean-Claude watches for the improbable places where I jam my hands or set my toes for a hold, follows my lead well, and our climbing soon flows smoothly upward. Only our occasional curses—in American English and more expressive French—echo down to where the Deacon lounges against a tree, only occasionally watching us.
When we’re three pitches and about 100 feet up the crag, something that had been in the back of my mind comes to the forefront of my thoughts: most rock climbers prefer crags and rock challenges close to a road. Falls from vertical rock faces can be terrible for the victim, and if the man survives the fall but is immobilized with broken bones and an injured back, it’s important to get him to medical help quickly—if he can be moved at all—or to get medical help to him quickly if he can’t be moved without killing him or snapping his back or neck. The two-hour rough hike in to this crag, no way to get a car or even a horse-drawn buckboard in here across the boulders, showed me that Mallory, the Deacon, Harold Porter, Siegfried Herford, and the others had been displaying impressive confidence and courage climbing here before the War. Or perhaps a certain arrogant stupidity.
I should talk about other people’s arrogant stupidity, I think as I clench my aching and bloody left hand, turn it into a wedge blade again, and jam it into the crack as far as I can reach above my head. Then, feet secure on nothing, I begin pulling myself up yet again.
When I find spurs in the crack where I can get at least one of my torn tennis shoes set, and find a real hold for at least one hand, something better than a mere friction wedge, I call “On belay!” and wait while Jean-Claude closes the ten meters or so until his head is just below my free, dangling sneaker.
At about 200 feet up the crag, we pause to catch our breath—hanging too long in such temporary holds will just tire us out more, but we have to stop for a few seconds—and Jean-Claude says, “Mon ami, this climb is merde.”
“Oui,” I say, using up half of my collection of conversational French. It’s possible that the little finger on my left hand is now broken—it feels broken—and this does not bode well for a Mount Everest attempt, even though such an attempt would have to be at least eight months away.
“Jean-Claude,” I call down, “we’re going to have to go all the way to the top of this damned crack to have any chance of a traverse. All the way to the overhang.”
“I know, Jake. You’ll have to half-free-climb swing, half-down-slide your way to the pipe ledge. But it has to be almost twenty meters across that bad patch of smooth, almost vertical rock. We’ll tie on an extra rope between us—if we can find a belay point for me up there—but if you want my opinion, I do not believe it can be done. When you slide off the dome, you’ll pluck me out of my belay point in the crack like a cork out of a wine bottle.”