By Jester - April 2006
My left hand is squeezed in the crack. My right one is holding the edge of it, pressing away from it. My feet are jammed in it so much that I feel I almost can’t pull them out. The first ringbolt is about two metres below my feet, the next one just out of reach above me.
One more move. Oh no-the crack widens a little and it becomes harder to jam. My hands start to slip though my feet still feel solid.
“Josef, watch me!”
Another a few seconds of struggling, a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Look out! Coming off!”
A confused blur. I’m flying-but downwards. I hear the rope whizzing through the air; something whips past me moving upwards and after that - nothing.
I can’t figure out what’s happened. Everything is upside down. My feet are above me; my head on a stone pillow and my chin is pressed on my chest. I begin to feel my tensed muscles.
It is my lucky day: I had fallen, head first, about 8 metres, and I had hit the ground but I don’t seem to have a scratch. Joseph is hanging above me, about 2 metres from the ground – my fall had pulled him up. It was him that I had seen going up as I was coming down.
That had been about a year ago when I had decided to start learning how to climb cracks. I had thought that Prachov’s Whip would be the perfect choice - I guess it wasn’t. Over the next few months I tried to persuade myself to have another go at it but I couldn’t. But now, at the beginning of the new climbing season, I was ready. I knew that the climbing would be painful on the day but when I suggested that we go to ‘crack the Whip’ Joseph agreed, and David enthusiastically joined us.
We are standing at the foot of the crack racking up. With satisfaction I pull out from my rucksack the big ‘child’s head knot’ that I had tied specially for this route. I know exactly where I want to place it – just where I had fallen the last time.
Let’s go! Lay-backing to the first bolt-ring – cool. The beginning of the crack –slightly wet inside but not too bad. I am closing in on the spot where I was spat out last year. Now it is ‘big knot time’. I know it won’t be easy: I have to get it into the crack, and it has to be solid. Things don’t start well. The first couple of goes I can’t even get the knot into the crack: each time the ‘child’s head’ flies out and hits mine. Finally I get it in but even now it’s not solid – it’s not jamming enough. I spend a few seconds trying to set it better but it’s useless, psychological benefit only. I don’t feel good about moving on after what happened to me last time, but I know I have to. After a few moments of hesitation I make my mind up to continue. With my hands scratching in the rock I go for it. And suddenly – the second ring! I grab it thankfully, Czech Sandstone ethical rules forgotten for the moment. Even if I’m not good enough to climb the next section of the crack I don’t care – this far had been a personal triumph. I had done the crux: the crux because of the difficulty of the climbing but also because of my bloody fear.
I’m resting, sitting clipped in the ring. I guess that it took about 10-15 minutes from the first ring to the second one. David is telling me that this part was all right, but that the “best” is still to come. I feel “much better” straight away. My belayer is having a smoke: I am shaking my hands out and scanning the next section, looking at what is to come. And then the cigarette is finished and the show can go on.
A couple of moves higher (there is a beautiful fixed-knot here which David reminds me “has been here since his father’s time”) and I’m into the crack again. I scramble higher but very slowly. It’s awkward. I’m getting stuck. My leg starts shaking. I need a rest. I’m moving my weight from one foot to another one and changing my hands. A moment later and it is gone but I’m not rushing to continue. I’m hanging about. But come on, I want to do it! I move my left hand up the crack, and with my right latch onto a sloper. I’m just under the ring now but I’m not there yet. My hand is slowly slipping out from the crack more and more. I let go of the sloper and grab for the ring. I get it and then I’m clipping in and sitting. What a fight.
The crack veers to the right above. My fear is fading because the rings are closer to each other and though I am having to trust the friction of my feet a lot more there is no longer a danger of ground-fall. However I am so pumped from the earlier part of the route that I have to sit at each ring now. After a couple of minutes I am finally at the fifth ring. In fact this is the end of The Whip. I make a hanging-belay and bring Joseph up first and David after that. We finish our route by climbing through a chimney system.
It is hard to describe our feelings as we sat on the top. Anyone who has been through some similar battle, beaten first but coming back and succeeding, they will know what I mean. We compare our hands: David’s look all right, mine are in the standard post-crack-climbing condition but Joseph’s . . . Joseph’s hands look like he has been in a to-the-death bare-knuckle fight. But we are happy. We relax; chatting and watching the sunset, and then abseil down and go home.
Jester