The Tor

It was dull, dirty pain that we took part in manufacturing as we made our fingers hold the body’s weight. The deep, two-finger pockets we grabbed were man made too. The men: local climbers Phil Requist and Steve Edwards; they drilled and chiseled away some years ago, hung a series of fixed draws and opened up a hidden nook amongst the foothills off the 166 to climbers willing to test themselves and meet back up with fear and failure. Requist’s and Edward’s mark on the otherwise chossy, unclimbable wall has brought up ethical questions stemming from a climber’s conventional drive to keep the crags they pull on nature-bearing puzzles. I wondered when I was climbing why I felt the artificial aura of the place so strongly. (This act of wondering, while dangling on the strenuous climb, was probably the reason I didn’t send my project). I saw my fear of falling creep in more; I felt nature creeping up behind me; I knew she was not on my side, for I was climbing her wall, but not on her formations.

*

We are sitting in a patch of afternoon sun, bundled in goose-feather down jackets, swathed in chalk. My hands grip my notebook, his flip through pages of Annapurna by Maurice Herzog. Both of ours are black from belaying with his old, dirty rope, fingers chaffed from the sharp, ragged edges we so willingly pulled onto the entire morning at Owl Tor. The crag is only a short minute from the roadside pullout we parked hours before and rest at now, but a long minute into the cold shade. His car is beside us on the right, an occasional gang of dirt bikers buzz past us on the road to our left. We’re sprawled on a yellow z-pad; Ben is resting his head on his bag at the top of it, my back is resting upon his legs that are bunched to his butt to support my tired body. It’s silent save for the winds vying for attention. We are silent, and together. Climbing earlier, we were loud then quiet, upset and fearful, and together. I’ve sometimes asked my mother in a different fashion each time why I feel so strongly, so wrapped up in it all with him and also so free. Her answer in the same fashion everytime: “Darling, that’s love.”