viktoria
07-14-2012, 01:18 AM
This is a first person experience from my blog (http://blog.humantheme.com). Feel free to criticize and comment!
When you first climb a mountain you fall in love. There is something about the scale of things that somehow humbles you, everything is as you know it and yet nothing is. It is an extreme world. There is great beauty yet it has a harshly unforgiving nature. Everything you do, every move you make must be calculated correctly, each step must be the perfect step, one wrong move, one poorly judged decision and everything comes tumbling down.
I have been climbing since I was six years old, even then it thrilled me, the challenge and the fear and the sense of exultation when you reach the top. Of course my challenges are different now, much harder, more dangerous than they were when I first started out but the feelings that you have about the mountains… they never change.
When I was 35 years old I decided that I wanted to climb in the Alps. There was an 11.000ft glacier that had been beckoning to me for some time and it had become for me, a now or never thing. It would be the hardest thing I ever did too, normally undertaken by a four man team I wanted to do it in tandem with my climbing partner and friend Andrew. When I put it to him he jumped at the chance, it was a huge adrenaline kick for us both.
Making the decision was the easy part, now we had to train. Training means discipline, early mornings, doing regular 4km runs, fitting in 2km sprints, eating for muscle strength and stamina, no alcohol. But we stick to it and by the time we are ready to go we are like gods, fit and strong and full of a strange nervous excitement.
Sighting the Alps is truly breathtaking. You stand there and drink it in, they are unbelievable, you almost feel like rubbing your eyes, but you don’t because you know they are no mirage, too many have gone before you and left real time accounts of their epic journeys in this vast and incredible land. You have been dreaming of this for years now. So your heart beats double time, your senses go on high alert and the adventure of a lifetime stands before you, waiting with a timeless patience for you to come and test yourself against their might and splendour.
That first morning I look at Andrew, we nod at each other, do our last minute equipment checks and then by mutual consent take our first steps upwards towards the glacier. Straight away the intense cold of the mountains clears the mind, frees it from shadows so that your vision is sharpened, your body transmits and receives like a finely tuned radio. It is not long before I become aware that Andrew is, not exactly unhappy, but uncomfortable about something. I watch him from the corner of my eye. We continue to walk. He will know that I know, that I have picked up on his mood, if he wants to share, then he will do. Sometimes it is like this and I don’t pry.
The snow is thick and this makes the going good for us. Our spirits lift. Andrew is brighter now and I put his mood down to nothing more than him feeling his age – we are both after all, quite a bit older now, and each trip, well it takes a little more courage… but I still smile and soon we are deep into the silence, where only the elements rule and we are at the mercy of all they may have in store.
Six hours later and we are making camp. Andrew pitches the tent, while I get a fire going. The meal that night is plain, high in calorific value and the best I ever tasted. We climb into our sleeping bags. Hey buddy, take care will you… says Andrew before closing his eyes. Not his usual way of saying goodnight but I nod and say I will. And day 1 of our projected 6 day trip is over. When I wake again, my eyes are still clouded by dreams. It is dark and I feel the sky weighing gently down upon the world, like a dark velvet cloth thrown over the earth, cloaking it in an eerie blue light. And suddenly, without thyme or reason, I want to see that sky, to lift myself up to the stars, let the inky light envelop me. Quietly, softly, I lift the outer flap of the tent and go outside.
Looking back I have no explanation for this, it was a madness, no climber ever goes outside alone like that, it breaks just about every rule in the book. But at the time it was like an irresistible urge, as though I were being called by something greater than the mountain even. All thoughts of my safety, compromising Andrew’s safety, none of it counted, I just had to get out there and become part of everything. I thought briefly of Andrew, those words he said before we slept… had he had a premonition… was this why his mood had been strange… I pushed it away. There were no worries now.
So I walked. And walked… and for a while I was oblivious to the cold, the danger, the stupidity of my actions. I was a man in a dream, in an alternative reality and yet one that seemed more real to me than the world I had come from and what’s more believed in… I was a mathematician, a physicist, I had been taught to believe that the world could be explained quite logically given enough time. I did believe it. So what was this all about?
Snow is a hard mistress and the cold bit deep. When I finally wake to what I am doing, I panic. Fear floods through me. I panic. I don’t know why I am there, or how I came to what I have done… then Andrew, I remember Andrew and I shout, scream his name. But of course he doesn’t hear me. I am a long way from our camp and a vicious swirling wind has sprung up, which takes my words and scatters them in every direction possible until they become a jumble of incoherent sounds. I sink to my knees and let the bitter ice begin her work.
Im clouded by numbness. Snow has covered me over and my body feels like it’s become a part of that great frozen wasteland. Time has slowed and I lay there eyes open staring into a great whiteout. I feel very calm. I don’t remember thinking anything much at this point, but tears begin to fall down my face. Warm, salty, cleansing tears, it gets difficult to explain here, but the best I can say is that because I can look nowhere else, I begin to look inside myself. And I see quite clearly all this anger and yes, fear. Hate boils up inside me… I hate everything with a shocking intensity, the snow, the mountains, climbing, my life…
Then I take a deep breath, look deeper, and face my fears. Everything else ceases. And I am wrapped in this incredible stillness. And with the stillness comes great peace. It feels extraordinary, it is not a feeling I have ever had before. There is nothing earthly that I can find to compare it with. Bliss perhaps… complete and utter bliss… nothing less, nothing more… But whatever it was I have never felt so happy. And I will never forget that feeling.
For the first time in my life, I understand and acknowledge in all humility the presence of something beyond my ken. And that presence is God. God… that so called deity that has always been a million miles from my belief systems and the way I live. Suddenly, it is all wiped away, like in an avalanche… one brief moment when all is undone. And I just know I have been wrong… and then as if from another, the thought enters my head that I have not been wrong, just journeying without knowing it. And a surge of pure joy rushes through me.
I shake myself from my snowy tomb and stand straight. Then, despite my highly weakened state, I begin the long walk back. I don’t think about direction, I don’t have to, I know that I have found my way. It is not an easy way but I am filled with steely determination.
It is just as dawn is breaking on 26th May 2011 that I see a group of hikers. I have been out alone, without any survival gear, on the mountains now for two days. It is unheard of to do this and survive. But survive I have and I am proud of that.
I run forwards to clasp a hand… to make contact with another human soul and sink thankfully to my knees.
When you first climb a mountain you fall in love. There is something about the scale of things that somehow humbles you, everything is as you know it and yet nothing is. It is an extreme world. There is great beauty yet it has a harshly unforgiving nature. Everything you do, every move you make must be calculated correctly, each step must be the perfect step, one wrong move, one poorly judged decision and everything comes tumbling down.
I have been climbing since I was six years old, even then it thrilled me, the challenge and the fear and the sense of exultation when you reach the top. Of course my challenges are different now, much harder, more dangerous than they were when I first started out but the feelings that you have about the mountains… they never change.
When I was 35 years old I decided that I wanted to climb in the Alps. There was an 11.000ft glacier that had been beckoning to me for some time and it had become for me, a now or never thing. It would be the hardest thing I ever did too, normally undertaken by a four man team I wanted to do it in tandem with my climbing partner and friend Andrew. When I put it to him he jumped at the chance, it was a huge adrenaline kick for us both.
Making the decision was the easy part, now we had to train. Training means discipline, early mornings, doing regular 4km runs, fitting in 2km sprints, eating for muscle strength and stamina, no alcohol. But we stick to it and by the time we are ready to go we are like gods, fit and strong and full of a strange nervous excitement.
Sighting the Alps is truly breathtaking. You stand there and drink it in, they are unbelievable, you almost feel like rubbing your eyes, but you don’t because you know they are no mirage, too many have gone before you and left real time accounts of their epic journeys in this vast and incredible land. You have been dreaming of this for years now. So your heart beats double time, your senses go on high alert and the adventure of a lifetime stands before you, waiting with a timeless patience for you to come and test yourself against their might and splendour.
That first morning I look at Andrew, we nod at each other, do our last minute equipment checks and then by mutual consent take our first steps upwards towards the glacier. Straight away the intense cold of the mountains clears the mind, frees it from shadows so that your vision is sharpened, your body transmits and receives like a finely tuned radio. It is not long before I become aware that Andrew is, not exactly unhappy, but uncomfortable about something. I watch him from the corner of my eye. We continue to walk. He will know that I know, that I have picked up on his mood, if he wants to share, then he will do. Sometimes it is like this and I don’t pry.
The snow is thick and this makes the going good for us. Our spirits lift. Andrew is brighter now and I put his mood down to nothing more than him feeling his age – we are both after all, quite a bit older now, and each trip, well it takes a little more courage… but I still smile and soon we are deep into the silence, where only the elements rule and we are at the mercy of all they may have in store.
Six hours later and we are making camp. Andrew pitches the tent, while I get a fire going. The meal that night is plain, high in calorific value and the best I ever tasted. We climb into our sleeping bags. Hey buddy, take care will you… says Andrew before closing his eyes. Not his usual way of saying goodnight but I nod and say I will. And day 1 of our projected 6 day trip is over. When I wake again, my eyes are still clouded by dreams. It is dark and I feel the sky weighing gently down upon the world, like a dark velvet cloth thrown over the earth, cloaking it in an eerie blue light. And suddenly, without thyme or reason, I want to see that sky, to lift myself up to the stars, let the inky light envelop me. Quietly, softly, I lift the outer flap of the tent and go outside.
Looking back I have no explanation for this, it was a madness, no climber ever goes outside alone like that, it breaks just about every rule in the book. But at the time it was like an irresistible urge, as though I were being called by something greater than the mountain even. All thoughts of my safety, compromising Andrew’s safety, none of it counted, I just had to get out there and become part of everything. I thought briefly of Andrew, those words he said before we slept… had he had a premonition… was this why his mood had been strange… I pushed it away. There were no worries now.
So I walked. And walked… and for a while I was oblivious to the cold, the danger, the stupidity of my actions. I was a man in a dream, in an alternative reality and yet one that seemed more real to me than the world I had come from and what’s more believed in… I was a mathematician, a physicist, I had been taught to believe that the world could be explained quite logically given enough time. I did believe it. So what was this all about?
Snow is a hard mistress and the cold bit deep. When I finally wake to what I am doing, I panic. Fear floods through me. I panic. I don’t know why I am there, or how I came to what I have done… then Andrew, I remember Andrew and I shout, scream his name. But of course he doesn’t hear me. I am a long way from our camp and a vicious swirling wind has sprung up, which takes my words and scatters them in every direction possible until they become a jumble of incoherent sounds. I sink to my knees and let the bitter ice begin her work.
Im clouded by numbness. Snow has covered me over and my body feels like it’s become a part of that great frozen wasteland. Time has slowed and I lay there eyes open staring into a great whiteout. I feel very calm. I don’t remember thinking anything much at this point, but tears begin to fall down my face. Warm, salty, cleansing tears, it gets difficult to explain here, but the best I can say is that because I can look nowhere else, I begin to look inside myself. And I see quite clearly all this anger and yes, fear. Hate boils up inside me… I hate everything with a shocking intensity, the snow, the mountains, climbing, my life…
Then I take a deep breath, look deeper, and face my fears. Everything else ceases. And I am wrapped in this incredible stillness. And with the stillness comes great peace. It feels extraordinary, it is not a feeling I have ever had before. There is nothing earthly that I can find to compare it with. Bliss perhaps… complete and utter bliss… nothing less, nothing more… But whatever it was I have never felt so happy. And I will never forget that feeling.
For the first time in my life, I understand and acknowledge in all humility the presence of something beyond my ken. And that presence is God. God… that so called deity that has always been a million miles from my belief systems and the way I live. Suddenly, it is all wiped away, like in an avalanche… one brief moment when all is undone. And I just know I have been wrong… and then as if from another, the thought enters my head that I have not been wrong, just journeying without knowing it. And a surge of pure joy rushes through me.
I shake myself from my snowy tomb and stand straight. Then, despite my highly weakened state, I begin the long walk back. I don’t think about direction, I don’t have to, I know that I have found my way. It is not an easy way but I am filled with steely determination.
It is just as dawn is breaking on 26th May 2011 that I see a group of hikers. I have been out alone, without any survival gear, on the mountains now for two days. It is unheard of to do this and survive. But survive I have and I am proud of that.
I run forwards to clasp a hand… to make contact with another human soul and sink thankfully to my knees.