Dizzy Fingers: Can I Climb Again?

Being paralysed and going rock climbing don’t immediately jump together as the perfect combination, especially when it was climbing (or not climbing well enough) that led me to getting paralysed and a life on wheels in the first place.

My friend and partner Andy suggested that we try a first route together, after 14 years of me leaving climbing behind. He suggested we try it on Kilnsey Crag, because it is overhangingly steep. Kilnsey is an intimidating Yorkshire (UK) limestone wall that I’d have gone nowhere near when I was climbing with legs. I thought hard about his suggestion. It seemed bizarrely inverted that the steeper and scarier the route, the easier it would be for me. He or another climbing partner would be taking all the exposure and risks of leading, and then I would jumar up the rope after them.

Excitement, intimidation, fear, intrigue—a combination of emotions led me to say yes and agree to go back to the rock. Maybe I had some strange need to see if I still had any ‘un-confronted’ skeletons lurking in my cupboard, or maybe I just can’t say no to adventure. I don’t know the difference between challenging and crazy, but I felt comforted by my accomplices who weren’t too shoddy with their skills; Ian Parnell and Andy Kirkpatrick are both reputed for their efforts on big walls and cold mountains (see www.psychovertical.com).

It was tough telling my family that I was going climbing again after all the trauma they had 14 years ago, but it was something I felt I had to try. I’m not a parent, but I have experienced clearly the love and devastation of my parents when I became paralysed, and now their fear that something might happen again. But I decided to try to climb again for reasons so complex I don’t understand myself. I felt a little ashamed that through my actions I was putting them to more angst. 

Kilnsey is close enough to the road that a short piggyback over the stream landed us at the crag. It was a wet day, but the crag has an overhang so deep that even though it poured down, we had the perfect umbrella. I looked up at its overhanging white limestone bulk, and wondered how anyone could physically manage to climb up it. It seemed defiantly steep. The chink of climbing gear and sorting of ropes hit my memory sharply. It had been a very long time since I’d heard those sounds and felt the cold metal and rope in my hands.

Ian led the route, and dropped a rope for me. As I left the safety of my wheelchair, Andy left the ground to clean the route, and smile encouragement at me from alongside. I seemed to take it all in my stride, enjoying the view around me, chatting to Ian and Andy, working hard pulling myself up on the jumars, but generally not finding it too difficult. I had a three to one pulley system set up on the rope at my waist, so I wasn’t pulling my full body weight and it seemed relatively easy, both physically and mentally. However, I was glad to be pulling myself up the route, rather than leading such a scary, hard line up through the limestone.

When I’d reached the ground again, we cracked open a bottle of beer and looked back up the overhang above. I was surprised at my lack of feeling about the whole experience. Only a few vague ugly memories flickered in my mind,  memories of old nightmares about falling off rock faces. So maybe there were still some skeletons lurking inside me, but somehow I had been calm and relaxed about it all.

But this was only the beginning . . .

(a month later)
The reconnaissance photos of the Old Man of Stoer lie at the bottom of the Atlantic, in the tomb of a drowned digital camera. The week before, I’d wobbled on the waves in my kayak, trying to take pictures of the dark tower of rock, feeling intimidated by it and the sound of waves crashing at its base. Now we were about to kayak there again. This time our hatches were stuffed full of ropes and climbing gear and my head was stuffed full of thoughts, dominated by: “Why am I doing this?”

Given that climbing had got me paralysed, it seemed a reasonable question to be asking. My previous short encounter with ropes and rock at Kilnsey Crag the previous month, had left me feeling surprisingly okay about it all (or on reflection, maybe I was just still numb). I find it hard to turn adventure down. I guess that’s why I was there.

The BBC seemed to think it was an adventure worthy of filming too, for the “Adventure Show.” To help their footage collection, we had to paddle in and out of the Atlantic swell surging into the channel that leads from the open sea to the sheltered side of the Old Man. Andy’s been sea kayaking five times, and fallen in five times, so hovering on the sea-swash wasn’t the most comforting prelude to the climb. At least this time we were kitted out in dry suits just in case of that cheeky unexpected wave.

Our plastic kayaks tackled the barnacled seal-launch landing well, and once out of the foam-zone, I dared to look up and consider what I’d let myself in for. The Old Man looked from sea level to be much taller than 60 metres. Andy helped me get rigged up in double-harnesses. A parapent harness was the best concept we’d come up with for good padding and support, with a climbing harness on top for extra security. Tied and trussed, ropes, pulleys and jumar gadgets all rigged in place, I began hauling myself off the ground and away from the encroaching waves.

I swang out into space, the rope finding its drop, swinging me in a stomach-lurching way every time it settled into position. My fingers felt dizzy, adrenaline surging through them, and to keep my head together, I just had to focus on looking at the jumar in front of me. I began to inch my way slowly up the rope. Every time I looked up, down, or around, I felt a lick of terror, and so I didn’t (look). I felt a bit pathetic, that I should feel fear of something I used to do all the time without thinking much of it. But I also felt a thread of pride that I’d managed to overcome my fears and was slowly making progress towards the top of the stack.

When I wasn’t looking at the jumar centimetres from my nose, I was looking at the flash of Andy’s orange thermal, seconding Paul’s route up the stack as he shouted encouragement at me. And otherwise it was the camera man’s backside, bouncing around on a rope above and off to the side, as he nimbly maneuvered himself into good camera angles.

I tried not to think too much about why I was there, or whether we’d get out safely. I just kept going up, up and up, navigating my bum around a couple of chilled-out fulmars nesting on a ledge, happy that they weren’t spitting. The wind and waves seemed to get louder as I got higher, all the sounds reverberating around the rocky chasm beneath me.

The angle of the rock slackened off, and I dragged my hips and legs against the rough sandstone in the final few metres towards Paul’s feet at the summit. With an almighty wrench of an old-injured shoulder, I landed on the top, kissing the grit, and realised that I was gripped. I thought I had ‘no fear’, but as I looked out at the sea, and down the wall below, I thought only of how to get down again and quickly, before the wind got any stronger and the sea kicked up more. This climb had reminded me of fear.

“So how was it?” Paul asked.
“That’s the last time I’ll be climbing then,” I apparently replied.

But the next morning, camped in Ullapool to a midge-free sun, I already felt elated and was thinking about El Capitan. The evening paddle out from the Old Man had us riding a northerly swell, sweeping us south to a dramatic horizon punctuated by some of Scotland’s most spectacular peaks. The relief and satisfaction surged through me with every kick of the sea.

How is it possible to forget fear so quickly? Maybe the high of a challenge accomplished is like a drug, pulling us back for more. But I made a mistake once, and ended up paralysed. I want to make sure from here on that when I go back for more, I’m not stupid, or greedy, or ego-driven. I want to be able to keep pursuing the adventures, but know when to say ‘no.’

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She's a paraplegic rock climber, who tackled El Capitan one pitch at a time.  See Karen Darke's amazing adventure in Climbing with a Disability: El Capitan Part 1 of  2.

Karen Darke never turns down a challenge.  So when the Half-Iron Marathon came up, she, of course, agreed to participate.  See Iron-Bru: A Story About a Scottish Half-Iron Man (Woman) Race for more information.