Fun is a close companion of fear. It is surprising how sometimes, in one movement of hands and feet, the fear transfigures into the exhilaration of topping out.

It is as if your spirit passes between two different worlds. Within one there is simply the pure absorption of each square metre of rock, metre by metre up the face of the crag or mountain. Within the second, the spirit suddenly flies free as you make yourself safe at the top of the crag and take in the wide panorama of the landscape beneath and around you. That’s when the exhilaration floods your being.

Then your climbing partner arrives over the lip and in their grin you know that they have passed through the same worlds as you. So that, after the exhilaration has ebbed, there is the return to the mundane - the craic with your partner, a cigarette rolled and enjoyed, the dismantling of the belay, coiling of the rope, the descent and the

“God that was fun, which one shall we climb next”.

That’s when you know - facing the fear is part of the fun.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 14th, 2007 at 7:50 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.