agentblack

Im looking at a map of the Matterhorn. Its serious. The Matterhorn kills people.

My brother brought back the map from his road trip around Europe with his girlfriend. Every al fresco meal, drunken evening, and hotel fuck put good mileage behind him and the desert.

Technically the map is a souvenir, a little piece of memorabilia, neatly folded and printed in german.

The Matterhorn was in his video footage as well. It was in a shot from a hotel room balcony. Its a triangular curving tooth, catching the morning light. Pale grey rock, pushed impossibly high into the pale blue morning sky.

Essex is flatland. Gradients are gentle. To see the ground so defiantly high above you is unsettling.

Behind the camera, full of malignant glee, my brothers voice speaks. Look. The view zooms to the top of the peak. Its the fucking Matterhorn. The view swings abruptly round, to a girl still half asleep in the bed, hiding under hotel white sheets. His hand reaches out and nudges her, still with its Iraqi brand tan. Look, The Matterhorn.

The Girl hides under the sheets. The view spins back to the mountain.
Look at it. Brilliant.

He came back from Europe. I watched the Matterhorn clip from his camera. We talked mountain ranges. The Pyrenees are the most scenic, but the Alps are huge He showed me the map.

We were going to climb a mountain.

I booked a Friday off work, that next week. Rowan found out. He wanted in. We had a party. We were set. We had momentum.

We lacked mountains though. I wanted Alpine. I wanted Ice axes and Glaciers. But I knew I lacked experience. We lacked funds, time and serious equipment. What we had instead was Snowdon. One Thousand and Eighty Five Metres. It only just makes the grade.

There are a variety of paths, all clearly signposted. A toy sized railway for the day trippers too elderly and unfit to traipse up the routes filled with school trips and ramblers who fancy something a bit more challenging.

Snowdon doesnt have a peak. It has a tourist attraction, a photo opportunity. There is no glory there, no respect to be won. But its all we have.

We dont take it seriously. The night before, my brother goes out for a friends birthday. I go to the gym. I attack all the muscles Ill be using the next day. I do dips, chins, squats. I go beyond. I lift until my hands shake and I cant grip properly, secure in the knowledge that I wont need all those ravaged muscle fibres. Its not a proper mountain.
Snowdon to me is cardio, a nice change from pounding the road. Instead Ill be pushing up a slope instead. Its a warm up.

In the morning, we get up bleary, check weve definitely got our waterproof gear, grab our boots and go bright and early. We mainline the big roads, conversation muted, perking up once we hit the motorway service station, and pick up bottled water and snack food. We loosen up, start the banter. We tell Rowan were going to him out to the truckers for petrol money.

Deep Wales and we start taking the piss out of the locals from within the safety of the car. We start to dig the geography, pointing out the features, the gradients. In Essex, serious topography has novelty value.

We stop in Betsy Cowed for a toilet break and a last minute supply drop. Like the desperate junky that he is, my brother loads up with Kendal mint cake. I get nostalgic, recognising the place from a school trip, and recalling the girl nicknamed Derek that I kissed under the railway sign, whilst her boyfriend was back in Essex.

We consult the map before we set off. We find the mountain. Theres a car park, conveniently placed at the focus of several routes and paths that we could take. We reject is almost immediately. We go there and were locked into those paths. We become just another bunch of day trippers, tracking up the sanctioned routes, nodding helloes and weak jokes about the weather to people we pass.

Thats not what were here for. Were young, were fit, we do our own stunts. My brother points to a pass between Snowdon and a neighbouring peak. Well park there and make our own way up.

And thats how it starts. With three delinquent alpha males steaming up the side of Snowdon.

Rowan is a renaissance man. He spent the summer on an archaeological dig, and tomorrow hell teach a karate class. He talks about the Peloponnesian war like other people talk about football.

My brother came back from Iraq with a deep tan and a shitty attitude towards americans.
He is big on harsh realities. He has elevated disdain to an art form.

I haul weights and get hard acting out samurai archetypes in lonely opposition to a sea of homogenised metrosexuality decked out in pre fatigued jeans and artfully distressed hair.

We start out hard. We make distance. We work out. We climb six hundred metres fast. When we hit a level expanse we pause to take in the view, check out the height, and marvel at the toy cars on the thin black thread of road below. We take pictures, pull mock heroic poses.

We notice the low cloud thats moved over the top of us, obscuring the route we want to take, but we dont really mind. Were young. Weve got the warm glowing aura of our own dumb luck and confidence to wrap around us.

We head up again. We start climbing a scree slope, made up of shattered scraps of slate, broken down by some geological progress, frost expanding between fault lines. We cruise straight into the cloud, hit heavy weather. Wind batters us. The cloud surrounds us, diffuses the light.
Weve left Wales behind. Were on some lunar landscape now, as we fight to haul on waterproof gear and warm kit.

We press on, until we reach the top of this particular outcrop, and start to take stock. The cloud at this point is still wispy, gives us brief glimpses of out surroundings. Whilst my brother takes a bearing with compass and map, I look around and glimpse a warm patch of sunlight on the opposite end of the valley. It seems very far away. Were a long way up. If I jump forward from were Im sitting, lunge six feet straight out, Ill drop down a good sixty feet before I hit solid ground again, and my speed would make me tumble and bounce, rebound me back out into the air.

We press on, until were deep into the weather, and the wind screams at us, feeling like a heavy weak hand trying to flatten us against the ground or shove us over the edge of the razor thin ridge were picking our way along. My brother calls a stop. Were about to head higher, the ridge growing ever more precarious.

He doesnt like it. None of us do. Weve stopped cracking jokes now. Earlier, this was just a workout. Now its become something less carefree, less foregone. Instead of a quick jaunt up and down a slope and ticking off a box, weve got doubts. The weather is fierce. Visibility is bad and getting worse. But failure is impossible, and none of us mention it, now or ever. This is Snowdon. Grannies walk it. To back down is beyond shame. We cant turn back.

We look to my brother, for a dose of military magic. He shrugs. We cant turn back. The cloud clears long enough for us to improvise a rough route down the scree into the bowl of a valley were on top of. Instead of heading up the increasingly treacherous ridge, well carry forward but head down a little till we hit firm ground, and then take a better route up the other side of the bowl.

We make our move. We start off standing, and then as the footing deteriorates, we start to lean into the slope. Pretty soon, were starting to back down the slope on all fours, descending a rock face. My Brother pauses, tells us we should be okay, but for fucks sake, lets not end up needing the mountain rescue. The shame would be too much to bear. This is Snowdon. Grannies walk it.

We climb down. Its Precarious. There are few dependable handholds. At one point, my brother puts his foot on a seemingly well rooted rock that slides out from under him and bounces unstoppable down the steep-steep slope. It shatters as it bounces, filling the air with the hot smell of burnt flint. Pebble shrapnel bounces after it, and I watch myself wheel down the slope with that miniature avalanche. Broken and spinning, Mouth smashed in, arms splintered, nose shattered across my face, spine cracked and twisted, fingers snapped and bent like green twigs, pelvis crushed, my legs pinwheeling uselessly.

As we climbed and inched our way down on our toes and finger tips, we made weak jokes, so that we wouldnt acknowledge how dodgy our situation really was.
We slither and crawl down. Following behind the other two, I benefit from them calling up about loose rocks, slippery patches, or good foot positions. I have an ambivalent attitude towards the rock. My grip on it stops me pitching away into the fog to find a broken screaming end far below me. But its unreliable surface make me hate it, makes me sweat and curse under my breath.

I grip hard onto one outcrop; hang my weight from it as I struggle to find a toehold to descend onto. The rock, once so solid, comes away like a rotten tooth, starting to tear out of the ledge with a nasty sucking sound. For a second, I dangle in space, waiting for my feet to slip out from underneath me. I wait to fall. My other hand scrabbles spastic and frantic and finally secures me fast, grabbing limpet tight to the rock face.

I let go of the loose rock like something filthy or dead. We eventually make it off the rock face. Towards the end, I was concentrating on not freezing up. I was haunted by an idea of catching The Fear, of clenching tight to the rock and being unable to move, paralysed. Moaning and crying into the rock, forcing the others to call mountain rescue, whilst my legs cramped up, and my shoulders set solid, pining me to the side.

The shame of such a thing happening kept me moving, got me angry and fierce enough to propel me down, shutting down the ideas of risk and possible injury. The idea of being walked down by a team of orange jacketed rescuers, grim faced and resentful of my stupidity, well aware that they could be doing something more useful. Grannies walk Snowdon.

That idea of failure kept is moving. The threat of shame kept me walking through cramp, and set me up and over rock and dodgy footing. When we reached the end of our climb, we made our way down the shallow section of scree slope, slipping and sliding as we went. We were constantly on the look out for a greater shift of rocks and stone that would signal that wed started a landslide, but it never happened. We found grass, solid ground.

We consulted the map. We were still deep within cloud. We could see no landmarks to take a bearing off of. My brother figured out as best he could our approximate location. Our visibility was around twenty metres at best, and wouldnt ever really improve. We decide on our direction. The only way were really sure of is Up. We head off.

We find a rough sort of path eventually, and start to follow that. We pass a quiet couple heading back down, and are heartened by their presence, because it means that we are on a route that can be trusted. But shortly afterwards, it turn out the path we are on is nothing more than a sheep trail, and we are left with no other choice than to pick our way across the rock face again, deep misty emptiness below us again. Rock shards nick our fingers. Loose rocks threaten to twist our ankles, or trip us, send us sprawling out into the dead empty sky.

That quiet couple become the subject of intense debate between us as we pick our way along the rock face. Where were they going? Where did they come from? What path did they use? Why arent we on it? Why are we making our way about with our fingertips and toes instead of trudging along a path?

On a ledge, we stop and my brother consults the map, which has badly deteriorated in my pocket and the wet. We start stowing it in my bothers waterproof bag, whilst he curses not bringing his waterproof map, which he had left back at base.

No land marks are visible in the mist, but we can hear the sound of a waterfall, way out in the emptiness opposite us. Its inaccurate; the mist diffusing everything, sound as well as light, but its all we have to go on. My brother thinks he knows our general direction; we should be between two pathways, one below, one above. We head up. I dont fancy the idea of another treacherous climb down.

I think about how I feel. Im damp. Im verging on hungry. Im filled with dread, the idea of fucking up and failing bothering me more than injury. Im bored as well as worried. The Mist leeches colour out of everything, the wind fills my ears with howling static. The mist kills any chance of a view, so most of what I see is rock, my hands, or Rowans feet, as he climbs ahead of me. We dont talk much. I want my woman. I am faintly miserable, but at the same time, I recognise the adversity, welcome it.

My head was filled with Nietzchean trash, slogans that I shout out as a call to arms, a battle cry against the mountain.
My Brother and Rowan join in. I imagine some innocent walker on the path we should be climbing towards hearing our voices floating up to them.

Pain Is Weakness Leaving The Body!

Danger Is The Pathway To Glory!

What Does Not Kill Us Makes Us Stronger!

We make the top. Im ready to be disappointed. So many times earlier, on the path that gave out, we had turn a corner or crested a rise expecting to find level ground and a path, but instead finding an empty ridge with cloud streaming over its lip like steam from a kettle. Wed stare into the emptiness for a while before taking another route.

But its good, my brothers hunch paid off. Weve found a path. We gain momentum again. Our humour lifts, we shout and yell. We get triumphant. Were on the map now. Our position is definite.
Its a straight slog to the summit. We spot the rough outline of the top fading out of the mist as we shadow the railway lines. We sprint for it. I fight cramp, cursing my stupidity in upping my weight on the Olympic bar when I was lifting the night before. The heavy deep muscles in the front of my legs tighten and knot up, properly cramping up as I try to make a burst for the summit.

Rowan makes it first and gives us a Roar, fists in the air. My Brother gets in second, and I limp in far behind, cursing my legs. Now it all pays off, our stupidity and vain glorious attempts at making our own way up. We got up there the hard way. Weve won our own false credibility. In our eyes, weve made the grade.

We hang around on the top for a bit. Take a few pictures. Some one rings my brother. I call my girlfriend and try to leave a message that the blasting wind renders unintelligible. We make our way down, and start to follow the path down. Now weve made the top our own way, we reason, we can take the easy way down. We trudge down. Treading heavy, my wasted legs cant really support my weight, and I begin to feel the strain in my ligaments. Coming down, we spot the view and take more pictures as the weather clears. We spot blue sky. The Mongol part of my mind gets lifted, seeing Eternal Blue Heaven, and I look forward to leaving the mountains and close terrain of Wales, getting back to the plains.

Now we pick the pace up. We start to make our way down sharpish, racing the light. We dont want to try and make our way down in the dark, and we wasted too much time making finger tip progress trying to find the path.

We make out way around a minor peak, an outcrop of rock, occasionally looking back up to the peak, and speculating were it was we were climbing. Where ever it was, it looks sickening, was sickening. And the light is fading fast, failing.
The light actually does fail as well, seeming to deflate, as if someones pulled out its stopper, all of it leaking away off to the west.

We halt at a turn in the path. If we stay on it, well get down, but itll take ages. My brother suggests that we dump the path, find our own way down. The idea is to shave the time, get down before it turns pitch black.

We pause for a few seconds. We all know how it looks on paper. In fading light, we are abandoning a definite path to quest off into the unknown. Its not anything that wed recommend to anyone else, but weve come this far. It seems fitting to ride out luck this last stage. Were young, were fit, and we do our own stunts.

It gets dark quick in valleys. Im used getting sunlight right the way down to the horizon. Before long, were sliding around on our arses in half light and mud, easing our way off ledges and dropping onto marshy ground, and scattering indignant sheep as we half job along in the gloom. Every step I take that doesnt sprain my ankle is a miracle. We make good pace, until we hit a cliff. A sheer drop, small, but big enough.
There is no way down. We look around for alternate routes; wed outflanked previous drops by finding ways down, like small waterfalls, putting our faith in algae slicked rocks, grabbing handfuls of grass to help support our weight.

The only possibility is a small windblasted tree growing out from the side of the cliff. From there, there is a small ledge we can drop onto, and from there we can try and lower ourselves to the ground. My Brother goes first. He leaps, grasping the branches tight. His legs swing, kicking out and catching the ledge edge. Rowan follows. I wait for them to get clear before I go. I drop off the edge, drop onto the branches. My fingers grasp the branches, hard ape fists that grab and hold tight. Nothing is going to make me slip. Eventually I hit the marshy ground.

We continue to slip slid and swear away down in the dark until we hit flat land.

We jog along the ground, vault a dry stone wall and were on the road. Were off the mountain. I take my first deep breath in what feels like a week.

We trek back down the road until we hit the car. My gear is soaked. I tear my boots off, strip the wet clothes, and dump it all in the boot. I dont care anymore. I spend the whole journey back in my calvins. Nothing can touch me now.

On the mountain, my brother talked about how stuff like this is a reset switch for what you will consider comfortable. After the Mountain, comfort is walls and a roof. Civilisation is radiators and pavement. Necessary is dry clothes. After the company of Rowan, my brother and my own poisonous take on masculinity, I want to talk to girls about fashion and haircuts and shoes.

I get back and pass out, wake up the next morning and complain about my legs feeling shattered and broken. My brother plays the video clips from the trip. We check the footage of where wed just climbed, reinforce just how stupid we where. The stupid risks we took. How unbelievable it was that we all got back whole and unharmed, protected and inviolate by the golden force of our youth and dumb luck. Well never learn.

We watch the videos and laugh. Well do the Matterhorn soon.