Anna Fleming - Time on Rock: A Climbers Route into the Mountains

First published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2022
by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

Distributed in the USA by Publishers Group West
and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada

canongate.co.uk

This digital edition published in 2021 by Canongate Books

Copyright Anna Fleming, 2022

The right of Anna Fleming to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologises for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 83885 176 7
eISBN 978 1 83885 177 4

CONTENTS

OPENING

T he light is leaving the rock. A great shadow has fallen across the cliff as the sun sinks behind the plateau. The darkness is creeping ever higher up the granite, but at this point on this summer evening, the top of the cliff is burning gold.

If we hurry, we can climb into that light.

Like a pair of ptarmigans, we scuttle down from the plateau, picking our way through loose stones, passing tatty old snow-beds, feet scrabbling through the earth, racing to the foot of the cliff where the rope is swiftly flaked. All forty metres of orange nylon pass through my hands, piling up into a heap on the ground, giving us a clear rope length. I tie into the top end, change shoes and start to work the rock.

The slabs are delicate. My arms and eyes sweep and circle, hunting for holds. Fingers clamp tight around small edges and the grainy crystals bite into my skin. Some edges are friable, crumbling at my touch, releasing a rattle of ancient grit down the rock face. Legs span out for balance and power, toes now pushing down as I step up, the granite demanding the intricate play of tension and release, the opening and closing of mind and muscle.

At a stony bay halfway up the cliff edge, I stop, scanning the weathered features, looking for something secure. A rusty iron peg hangs from the wall hammered in by some long-forgotten climber. I clip in and build a temporary anchor system from metal and rope, then lean back over to shout,

Safe!

The word booms out, echoing off the walls, tumbling down through the vertical space to my partner waiting below. They bound up after me, soon joining me on the ledge, taking the equipment for their part of the climb and then setting off again, swinging out of the stone bay to head up, leaving the shade behind to enter the golden tier overhead.

From my perch, I pay the rope out, watching them shrink into the distance, dwarfed by the rock, the sky and the still evening corrie. Turning on my stance, I look out the other way, and feel that rush of air the opening of immense space all around us.

A bird cuts across the sky silent, streamlined, sunlit the peregrine briefly circles our patch of corrie before moving on to other haunts.

A cry breaks the silence. My partner has reached the top. I dismantle the anchors and step out onto the face again, this time adhering to the edge line where distance soars. My focus is fixed on the immediate stony matter but still my eyes slide, from time to time, off the rock, tumbling out over the edge to take in the monumental scale of mountain space. Beyond my fingertips I glimpse a glacial trough, another vast mountain form and beyond that reams of smaller blue hills melding into the paling sky. I climb on the cusp.

And then I cross the line.

Inside the light, the rock is illuminated, the lichens glowing green and white, the granite softening into warm tones of pink, orange and yellow. I press higher up the sweeping, steepening slab, the sunset mountain opening around me as I move with the rock, toes padding, pressing into the crystalline friction.

When I set out to learn the craft of traditional climbing, I had not anticipated how the practice could set places alight. The raw, visceral immediacy of climbing all the fear, joy, thrills and focus brings the most intense experience of place. On the rock, surprising connections can be forged between mind, body and landscape. Such close physical contact can offer moments of profound intimacy. Sinking into the rock, the self is lost to movement and environment.

Running alongside that intensity of experience, weaving in and out of the sensations and insights, is a seam of rich culture. Stories, names, histories and characters are always part of the climb and so the layers build up, giving those distinctive rocky spots the most mesmerising depth. Climbing can thus provide a direct route into the spellbinding potency of place.

In these pages I offer an insight into my journey onto the rock a sometimes hesitant and fluctuating route that took me from being a terrified novice to a competent leader. I share this story not because I have achieved anything ground-breaking but because the process of learning to climb in the outdoors can be transformative. And the simplest way for me to show the nature of that transformation is through my own experience.

Climbing has changed my relationship to the natural world. Picking up a rope and rack and trying to make your way safely up rock faces exposes you to many new experiences. In the vertical landscape, complacency is displaced. You must be present and attentive. The physicality of the activity demands that you learn to handle both the rock and yourself in relation to that rock. In the process, the self changes, adapting to fit around the geological formations.

Climbing can be frightening and demanding, but there is also a beauty within the movement. It is a question of timing, precision and agility. A form of dance. And within that absorbing outdoor ballet when stretching and balancing, reaching and releasing you come to see things differently. In the climbing moment, the rock demands your absolute attention. You peer in close, hunting out the cues that lie within the stone, searching for the clues that will help you to solve the puzzle. Then the sequence draws to a close, you relax your gaze and look out wider. You have climbed to a natural vantage point and from here you gain another perspective. Sweeping views open over the surrounding area. You watch birds circle or survey insects humming above a canopy of trees. You gaze across a mountain landscape, listening to its many voices, feeling your place within that larger scheme. Climbing can give you a new lens. It has widened my focus and deepened my engagement with the natural environment.

This book follows two intertwined journeys. One is the story of my growing ability as a climber. I show how I took to the ropes, learning the techniques and gaining the skills to handle the rock, while also becoming more absorbed in the history and culture of the pursuit. The other is a journey into the rock. As my craft developed, I found that climbing brought an altered perspective, changing my relationship with the natural world. Climbing opened up something offering a unique way into the landscape and once I happened upon this opening, I sought to explore it further, by moving out into new environments, different rock types and bigger landscapes.