Six or seven years ago I returned from a work trip, severely sleep deprived, and crashed out in our Exeter bedsit. A few hours later my wife came into the room to find me awake, and talking nonsense. In hindsight, my unconscious brain was clearly concerned with the inner workings of astronomical cameras, but as I ranted about rows and columns not being properly aligned I became increasingly angry at my wife's refusal to understand me, whilst she became increasingly concerned at my unhinged state of mind. Just before she decided to take me to hospital, something more like conscious thought returned and I slowly began to realise that my mutterings were somewhat deranged.
A few similar attacks occurred over the years, always following heavy work trips in which long series of consecutive night shifts left me floundering when I returned to the UK. Thankfully they are now much less common than they were. The most recent was last year, when on holiday in France I found myself in the bizarre position of completely freaking out at the crag. The sloping ledges beneath Castillon are not a comfortable place to have a picnic, but for experienced rock-cats like myself, they are a pretty tame environment to hang out in. And yet, roping up I felt a growing unease. Alarming thoughts would swim up, unbidden, and I'd shudder as a vision of the knot untying fizzled across my brain. Ten minutes later things came to a head with me hanging on the fifth bolt of my warm-up, sobbing uncontrollably and begging to come down. Thankfully, this has never repeated itself, although this weekend I got a little reminder of this unpleasant occurrence.
Having come home from back-to-back work trips to Hawaii (poor me) and La Palma (I know!) I was feeling pretty drained and jet-lagged. Rather than bang on with the hard limestone we thought a change was in order and this saturday we drove over to N Wales for a day on the slate. To be honest, I thought we'd just pootle about on mid-grade sport routes, and that's what we started out doing, but the great grey bulk of the rainbow slab was like a siren call and we headed down and launched up Pull My Daisy. I had such a great time that it makes me wonder what I've been doing on sport routes all these years! The route is famous for a monster run out in the upper reaches and, to be honest, I only just about held it together. Still, I gave myself a good talking to halfway up and climbed well, even though my head was raging. After that we did another few routes and I drove home feeling really content and relaxed. On Sunday we drive up to Malham - the first time we've been back since the mega-day when Jules ticked Predator and I fluked my way up Bat Route.
Walking into the cove I felt a familiar feeling creeping up on me, along with a growing feeling of unease. It is really upsetting to find yourself in a totally familiar situation having to try really hard to keep your head screwed on. It's a bit like how I imagine the tourists, gingerly stepping their way around the catwalk, must feel. Warming up on the catwalk almost everything would make me flinch - heart-stopping jabs of adrenalin from ropes pulling through the chains, or the sound of laughter. In a bid not to be beaten by this mood we head 'upstairs' and I tie onto the most exposed route at Malham. At 7c, "Free and Easy" takes a slabby line perched in the middle of the cove. Gained by an exposed traverse to the belay of the groove, the route is perched high above the beck, with it's gaggle of neck-craning tourists. Out here I pretty much freaked out totally. Muscles locked taught, only a constant internal litany of swearwords allowed me to bolt-to-bolt the route. Back on the half-height ledge I lay down with my eyes closed and tried and find some equilibrium. It worked enough to allow me to have another go, but I fell off anyway! The unsettling feeling never quite went away, and after Jules had crushed her route (Obsession), we went back down to the Catwalk. By comparison the situation felt quite relaxed, so I was able to climb again, and feel the pressure release with every lap of the familiar routes.
Today I feel back to normal - a long lie in, and a relaxed day of reading, eating and doing chores has let my head settle. Still - a nasty warning of how fragile the mind can be, and a reminder to make sure I rest properly the next time I return from a trip abroad!
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