Feeding the Rat

We are enjoying a rest day in Peterhead. The winds look more favourable tomorrow. Our gentle northward progress provides a suitable build up of anticipation for crossing the Pentland Firth and rounding Cape Wrath. Fishermen in Arbroath and Stonehaven, asking where we are heading, have shared their stories of incredible currents and intimidating waves. And they were going round in big steel boats with ten times the horsepower of our little engine. I have started to read the pilot carefully and fuss over the charts. I feel increasingly nervous. The fierce reputation of the Pentland Firth is undermining my confidence. Every now and then you might choose an adventure that is a bit more of a challenge, that is not just a fun weekend but actually might push you towards your limits or beyond. Mo Anthoine, an infamous British climber, referred to this as ‘feeding the rat’ which is defined in his biography of that name by Al Alvarez: ‘every year you need to flush out your system and do a bit of suffering, because there’s always a question of how you would perform’. For this mountaineer and would-be sailor, sailing round Cape Wrath via the Orkneys is feeding the rat. Lets just hope it does not turn out to be an epic.

In a lifetime of adventure, you might end up having an ‘epic’ which could stretch from a bit of suffering to a near death experience. Thirty years ago, when visiting the Alps on a motorbike, Toni and I stopped off to climb a route on the impressive 400 metre high Rocher D’Archiane in the Vercors of southern France. We seriously underestimated the route and ended up having an epic having set off late and carrying just a couple of crackers and a bottle of water tied on a string round Toni’s waist. After just three or four pitches we had to complete a pendulum. This is where you swing on a length of rope, in this case it had been left in place by a previous party, to gradually work sideways across a blank section of cliff to desperately clip a bolt on the far side. Once you have crossed this pendulum pitch then the only way is up, because below you is overhanging cliff, which in this case was not set up for an abseil retreat. It was a long and boiling hot day on a south facing cliff and we dropped the water bottle about halfway up. Despite, or perhaps because of, our youthful arrogance we at least managed to climb the route competently. Racing across the summit plateau we only just found the abseil chain before darkness fell. Without head torches and after a couple of abseils into a rocky chasm we slid down a pain-filled scree gully in our t-shorts and shorts to reach the foot of the crag. I followed the base of the crag in the dark to reach our small rucksack, which only contained two ‘Marks and Sparks’ lambs wool jumpers and a first aid kit. Once we descended into the forest everything became pitch black and we soon lost the footpath. Clambering down steep slopes we could hear the river flowing down the rocky gorge below us, but it was all getting out of control so Toni called a halt. We sat on the sloping forest floor leaning back against two trees to wait for the dawn. It was a long night but after a couple of hours I remembered that the first aid kit had some matches and so in the coldest part of the night we managed to distract ourselves for an hour or two by having a small twig fire on a rock between us. We drifted off to sleep occasionally but our dreams were full of the water fountain in the tiny village somewhere just a couple of kilometres away. At first light we staggered down to find that fountain and quench our thirst. So Toni and I had a minor overnight epic, which certainly was memorable. With hindsight we could easily have carried the backpack with us, which would have avoided the dropped water bottle and kept our backup gear, admittedly just the woolly jumpers, with us. It was daft really not to carry a head torch and another bottle of water in that backpack. Since that misadventure I have always carried a lightweight emergency shelter. I have carried it on many adventures and never used it in anger. To read about a proper ‘near-death’ climbing epic I would recommend ‘Fiva’ by Gordon Stainforth, which tells of two brothers spending three days on a huge gnarly wall in Norway. After a three-day nightmare on an overhanging cliff the moment that they arrive back at a road below offers a moment of sweetness: ‘My feet drop down a short grassy bank onto horizontal tarmac. It has all the satisfaction of scoring a bull’s eye at darts or winning the football pools. What strange stuff this tarmac seems – but oh, oh, so lovely’.

I should be careful to touch wood writing this but, I do seem to have avoided serious epics despite enjoying a lifetime of mountaineering adventures. Perhaps I am simply cautious, maybe I choose objectives that are well within my limits, possibly it is because I am willing to turn back. My lack of epics is certainly not due to over-zealous advance planning. However, I can assure you, I am doing some planning for this trip round the top. Its all very well feeding the rat, but it seems important to live to tell the tail.

 

Al Alvarez (1988) Feeding the Rat. London: Bloomsbury.

Gordon Stainforth (2012) Fiva: an adventure that went wrong. Golden Arrow: Brassington.