Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 22
VERTICAL GRAFFITI
Through the summer of 1980, my girlfriend Rose and I would often stay at the
shack in Hayfield, or Sarah and Alex would come to stay with us in Millom. They
first arrived one cool clear weekend not long after he got back from Dhaulagiri. I
was excited to see him and get the inside story of the climb. We met on Saturday
morning and immediately set out to go climbing. I soon realised that he was not
the same Alex. He wasn't different in any immediately obvious way, but there was
a new depth, and his resilience and confidence seemed to have doubled. There was
also a troubled restlessness and a new goal.
'I want to become one of the world's all-time great mountaineers,' he announced
as we were driving up to Coniston to climb on Dow Crag.
I was too stunned to respond at first.
'What, you mean like Messner?'
He scowled at me, then laughed and gave me one of his manic grins which
seemed to say, 'and you are doing what exactly?' I asked about the other things in
life, Sarah, his job.
'I can do all that but I just love climbing. That's what I'm meant to do.'
When I asked about the risks, he responded by overtaking a car on a bend. I
gasped and instinctively grabbed the armrest. The narrow road that winds through
the hills between Broughton and Torver was barely wide enough for one car in
many places. He laughed at my instant panic. We were lucky; nothing was coming
the other way.
'You see? I'm immortal now.' It was a stupid thing to say and do, and Alex knew
it, but his willingness to 'up the stakes' was now clear.
Soon enough we were at Dow Crag and Alex was climbing as well as I could re-
member. Dow is great for sound and steep rock. The Indian summer had extended
into late October and the east-facing buttresses held their warmth until mid-after-
noon. We did a couple of classic Extremes. A cold breeze rising from the dark wa-
ters of the tarn spoke against a third route, so we walked to the top of A Buttress to
watch the sun setting over the Irish Sea, then raced down the descent gully and
headed for the pub to get the craic with the locals.
When Alex and Sarah left that weekend, something of the feeling of change was
still in the air. What was I actually doing working a nine-to-five job and collecting
