When I first started climbing, I hadn’t expected there would be this much ass-to-face. They don’t tell you these things.” — Something I once overheard.
Having blown six or so clips while climbing at the gym, only a handful of people have provided me the opportunity to experience the craziness from the other perspective. This is a good thing for it’d be lovely to not have blown any clips and to not have had to save someone who had headed down such a life path. These are the events where shit can feel serious, and I’ve heard a fair number of stories that involve a level of tragedy that would leave me shell-shocked in the way that crosses my mind when, for example, a motorcyclist zips between cars and I wonder how it would forever impact me to be the person that clips the vehicle, sending the person into oblivion. Regardless of the specifics of an event, like in terms of its origin and extent, things simply happen, and we then we must deal with them, however we can, to whatever outcome.
Fortunately, every fall of mine while clipping has ended up fine. I know that—to some degree—luck plays a role (in terms of my not getting injured), as does climbing with competent people. Further, two times, I have managed to “hero clip,” thereby culling the danger. That is, to make the clip as the fall begins so as to reduce the distance to be traveled. Of the other blown clips, each has found me dangling far from where I had been, but above both the ground and my belayer. Actually, perhaps once or twice, I had been equal to or below my partner in elevation once the explosive force of physics quieted. Yet, regardless of specifics in terms of where each participant ended up physically, the dominant narrative has involved a scream of ‘fuck’ or some equivalent utterance followed by bliss; it is a beautiful thing to remain intact.
A couple of months back, a friend fell at the third or fourth bolt. He had been reaching out to clip when his foot slipped. Down he plummeted. I had been using belay goggles. Something about those devices can cause me to not understand exactly where I’m standing in relation to the climber. If I put a lot of active thought into what’s happening then I can position myself appropriately, but at that moment I had just gotten back into climbing after a hiatus and I was feeling a little bit out of it that day and, well, I was apparently right under the climber. His ass and my face became intimate. Outside of some transitory pain, and embarrassment, all was fine, fortunately.
He was unscathed. Only I, the fuckwit who had failed to belay properly, had suffered from my error. I recall having cried out, “Jesus,” or, “Good lord,” or “fuck me,” or something equivalent (and, yes, a half-garbled, staccato squawk muted by surprise and fear serves as “something equivalent”) as gravity began to accelerate his behind toward my awareness, the center of me, that being my eyes and head, from which consciousness seems to spring forth. Once the fall abated, and ass and face had been separated, we asked each other if we were alright. “Yes.” “You?” “Yes.” “You sure?” “Yes.” “You’re bleeding.” “It’s ok. My ear feels like a cauliflower, but I’m fine.” I saw horrified looks in the eyes of those nearby. It turns out I exclaim whether falling or catching a blown clip; I had done something more than merely mouth my horror. Surely, they had heard my scream, malformed or not, and reacted to that as well as the sight of the fall and collision.
This failure sucked beyond it being namely that, a failure, but also because it dampened my perception of myself as a capable belayer. I had been clinging to memories that had propped up my ego, that now needed to be reevaluated. Most prominently, I’ve been proud of the one prior time that someone had blown a clip, which had occurred several years ago. The climber had outweighed me by about thirty or forty pounds and the drama had occurred at the third clip. In response, I had sucked up some slack and dived toward the ground. As his weight tugged on the rope, my body lurched upward before it reached the cushioned floor, and all was fine. That sort of reflex—calibrated to the needs of the moment—embodied how I’d like to behave consistently. I felt like a superhero. So, it was a bummer for a slew of reasons when I had become a momentary ass-face, chimera-type bodily mixture during this mishap of a catch.
Flickers of that ass striking me would overtake my thoughts during climbing sessions that followed in a pattern familiar to me. As a kid, I had seen a snippet of a horror film via an Entertainment Tonight review where Freddy Kreuger reached through a wall against which a terrified teenager had pressed. His arms around the person, knife-blade gloves magnified in their deathly totality, you knew all was fucked for that character. I recall leaving the living room to visit my brother, and I felt unease as I had my back to his wall as I relayed whatever it is that had prompted me to enter his bedroom. Those blades would flash through the wall to get me. As I spoke, they attacked me within my imagination, repeatedly. I see this memory as a movie, in that I experience it as both the child that I was from those young eyes as well as from a hovering observer in which my brother and I are actors in a scene. For years this fear plagued me. An image grounded by anxiety turned tactile in the sense of uplifted hairs on the forearms, widened eyes, and quickened pulse becomes concrete and like concrete lasts. Similarly, as I belayed people going forward, I could see their asses smashing into me as I feared myself faltering [again] in my duty.
One difference between the stalwart save and the feckless ass-face fiasco stems from the details. I had anticipated one fall, whereas the other came as a surprise. The heavier climber from years ago looked unsure. He had started to move and aborted his action multiple times. Hesitation and notable lack of faith in himself defined his efforts. That he would fall seemed at least as probable as him succeeding with his attempt. Fully alert, contingencies in mind, I rose to an occasion that seemed definite, etched into the tome that defines all that has come and all that shall; the universe determinate, unwavering. This other fall, well, as I already indicated, it was somewhat of a surprise and, as I relayed above, I was not on my a-game at the time. Also, belay specs, which I do not use often, alter my perception. Their mirrored view transports me into another world. My awareness feels disjointed, in two places simultaneously. It’s something to which I can adapt, but the lesson here is to train with the glasses when my partner is on easier routes, and to forgo them otherwise. Though, it might be beneficial to practice with them when the climber is higher, like at least halfway up the wall.
The other night, I was at the gym and my partner got on this difficult route. He is someone who will almost never chance a fall, even when the rope is clipped in above his head. He looked solid as he approached the third bolt, and rather than hit it from low, he moved up closer to it. There he was, to the right of the carabiner, reaching with the rope to make the clip. The instant his fingers approached the gate, he lost control and went tumbling. I sucked up the rope, pulled my upper body away from him, and fought only slightly against the upward force, enough force to prevent me from colliding into him but enough ease as well so as to not spike him. And it was perfect. He stopped above me, above the ground. I went up, but not so far that I could collide into him.
Everything sparkled with an aura of perfection. Smiles. Laughter. He looked to be halfway in shock. His blown clip prior to this iteration, with a different belayer involved, had resulted in a damaging ground fall. Surely, he had found himself transported back to that moment as he fell, as his brain took in all of the details as it does when it’s terrified and had led him to the thought that this event would be, like the prior one, dismal. There’s an appreciation of life and happenstance that overtakes you when danger has been dodged. That rush took him back to the sharp end, and he managed the clip and later went home with a spring in his step that hadn’t been there when he had arrived at the gym. It’s nice to be reminded that it’s good to be intact, and alive.
This catch provided me a sense of redemption. Going forward, asses began to recede into the distance as I belayed, which is to say they remained attached to their respective climbers, doing the dance that the given climber was navigating rather than crashing down toward me. Sure, at some point some ass will target me like a heat seeking missile tracking a fighter jet. Should that ass attempt to strike, I know that I shall be prepared with chaff flare countermeasures in the form of competent, agile belay skills. Or, perhaps I’ll just practice quick belay escape maneuvers and get the hell out of there! Fight or flight, one way or the other, right?