Climbing the Bard - An Arapalesian tale by Christine Egger

Climbing the Bard
An Arapilesian tale by Christine Egger

What makes a person ascend mountains? Waking up to wild birds calling, and peering out of one’s tent, blinking away sleep, to watch the Arapiles mountains glow amber as they reflect the sunrise… after seeing this day after day, observing timeless, weathered sand-granite cliffs transform luminously in the morning sun, there is no choice but to get the rock all over oneself, to delight in its crunchy lichen grip under the soles of stealth Fiveten rubber, to rejoice in the microscopic tears cut into one’s palms while clinging to the rock face.

The Newcastle Mountaineering Club was spending the Easter Break here at the Araps, a sixteen hour drive from the Uni in Travis’s turquoise-ish 1976 Mazda hatchback. The ten day trip was four days old when Christine and Dan stumbled upon… The Bard. Steve, Linda, and Adam were leading the trip, and had spent the best part of the week turning Christine and Dan into a well-oiled lead-climbing machine team.

By Day Four, they were trained enough to go out on their own and set up anchors and climbs without supervision. This day, they had knocked off two double pitch climbs in merely half the day. They decided to scope out some new crags, hiking around the base of the Araps around dusk.

As they rounded the trail, they saw The Bard, looming ahead like the very embodiment of omniscience. It was a towering block of red and gold rock, protruding from the mountainside like an obscene tower of Babel. “Wow! What climb is that!?” exclaimed Dan. Christine flipped through the guidebook. “The Bard. A three-star classic, grade 12.” Australian climbs are classed on a scale of 1-32, one being easiest. “Lets climb that one tomorrow. I think we’re ready for it.”

It was the logical next step in their training. Christine looked up to the top of the buttress, as low level clouds kissed it with the coming of nightfall. “Yeah, we’ll have to start out early so we can be the first ones on it.”

At camp that night, a hundred climbers from all over Oz feasted on stories of the day’s activities. Like children in a candy store, they flipped through the guidebook, making hit lists and exclaiming with disbelief how excellent the rock was.

A great place to learn to lead on trad, Arapiles with its hundreds of classic routes was almost gluttonous for the sport. There was no lack of experienced climbers willing to give beta on how to go about ascending The Bard. Under the spell of campfire light, The Bard’s legends came alive. The first pitch would be run out and slabby. The second pitch was a tricky, gut-wrenching traverse. The other pitches were not too difficult though, as the weathered rock cracked into a plethora of handholds near the top.

Christine did not sleep well that night. The Bard stained her dreams with spectares of thunderstorms, and a crisis where she was stranded on the first pitch. She watched the ceiling of her tent lighten with the breaking of day, and heard the first birds beginning to sing. Her watch read 6:09 am. Time to make a move. “Please Lord, keep us safe climbing today, if it is your will. May this climb glorify you today…” among other prayers as she dressed and packed the bumbag for the climb.

By 6:45 they were at the base of The Bard. The sun broke the horizon and lit the thick stratus clouds gold and orange. The rock glowed red. “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight… red sky at morning…” The world was quiet, the pregnant silence before a storm.

Dan flaked out the ropes while Christine organized the rack. They sat at the base of the rock, eating their hearty breakfast of scones, knowing it was better to carry the food in their stomachs than in a bumbag up five pitches of rock. Dan started the first pitch. The rock was slick, his first gear placement a tiny RP the size of a pine-nut seed. As Christine belayed, she was aware of a shift in the wind. The air was turning cooler.

Clouds were fast rolling in from the west, purpling the sky, just as they had in Christine’s nightmare the night before. Dan set up an anchor. “Safe!” he called out. “Off Belay,” Christine replied, and then, “Dan, do you see those clouds rolling in? Lets wait five minutes and see what they do before I climb up.”

Thirty seconds later, Steve the club’s President was standing next to Christine, panting from running. “You need to come down. The forecast is for a big storm heading this way.” As he spoke, the first raindrops fell. Dan pulled apart the anchor, and downclimbed the slick rock. “It’s allright,” he said as he slid down the final two meters, unprotected. “We’ll give it another go tomorrow, and this time you can lead that pitch.”

Another night of haunted dreams kept Christine in a restless quasi-slumber. The weather was wildly unpredictable, and the wind roared all night long, whipping the sides of her tent in a warning she was sure her soul should heed. How much stock should one put into dreams? Was the rain the day before a sign that this climb was not to be attempted?

Half conscious, she rehearsed her climbing moves in her mind, intermittently waking to mumble a prayer for safety and guidance. She recited verses from Psalm 18 in her head… “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge…”

6:15 AM came once again. Christine stealthily moved from her tent, praying also that the sky would be clouded with rain and the climb would be postponed. She tapped furtively on Dan’s tent.

“What’s it like out there?” Dan asked drowsily. Christine looked eastward towards the rising sun. “Windy, cool, humid. But clear.” “I’ll be up in fifteen” came the reply.

7 AM, the morning was a repeat of the day before. Same hearty breakfast. Same silent stillness at the base of the massive, timeless buttress. The wind cut. Both climbers huddled in layers of polythermal and acrylic. Christine tied in to begin the first pitch. The extensive rack felt heavy clipped into the two gear loops of her harness, weighing her somewhat like the fear in her gut. She dipped her fingertips into the white powder of her chalkbag, reading the rock in front of her like Braille, brows furrowed. “Here we go,” she whispered.

The first placement was a cam, four meters up, runout because there was no place for gear. The second placement was a nut, microscopic and wedged into a manky hairline crack. Christine closed her eyes. Her head reeled, and she could feel 48 hours of restlessness hanging in her bones like a curse.

The wind raged against her skin, plastering her to the rock, biting through the layers she had sheathed herself in. “You are a small creature, challenging a wild force,” it whistled at her. “How dare you.”

Somehow, Christine reached the belay ledge. Carefully, she set up the anchor of three pulling pieces and one bottom stabilizing piece. Her mind was a blur, and she put forth an exhausting effort to remain clairvoyant as she put together the critical protection. She put Dan on belay. There was incredible rope drag, making each pull to take up slack a wrestling match against the ancient cliff. Her arms and legs screamed from being tense for days. The cold wind made her shiver. “God, my Rock!” she called out. “Please give me the strength to do this. Please keep my mind clear so I don’t endanger Dan.”

It was an hour of testing, of feeling refining fire as she carried out actions she was mortally terrified of doing. Relying solely on God’s strength, to make her stronger than the wind, than the fear, than the ancient menacing rock and the nightmares of the nights before.

Dan smiled as he appeared over the ledge. Christine smiled back, determined not to show any doubts or lack of confidence, knowing that fear would be contagious. The next pitch, Dan’s lead, was a tricky traverse. As Christine belayed, she felt her strength returning. She led the third pitch, focusing on one move at a time. “Do this. Don’t think about the drop, or question if the gear is good. Don’t think. Just climb.”

At the end of the pitch, she set up a textbook perfect anchor, shaded from the wind by a stone cleft. Dan cleaned the pitch and arrived at the ledge, huddling by the leeside of the stone. They looked up at the remaining two pitches, and were pleased to note they were jug-hauls. “More than halfway there,” Christine said as she sat consulting the guidebook. “Lets finish this and get off this cold mountain!”

Later that day, Christine hiked to the top of another cliff. She gazed out to the summit of The Bard, having finished it two hours earlier. She sat down on the lichen-covered edge, sheltered from the wind, warm in the sunlight. She was aware of a distinct lack of adrenaline in her gut, to be so close to an edge without the rush of defying gravity to get there. She watched the breeze flatten the savannah grasses and swaying eucalyptus below. There, she read out loud and confidently Psalm 18, proclaiming the faithfulness of her Rock. She was grateful to be alive, and to shout praises from the heights, in a faraway land on a mountainside that most eyes would never touch, and hers may never see again.

Photo: Scott Carson