It wasn't an objective, just a landmark... Our work had been done and we're attempting to bag 3 summits today on Hallwylfillet range. The three summits form a 6k horseshoe ridge and our team of four were on our last summit.
Gone was the familiar comfort of my PT's motivating shouts, gone were the small bridges and low mountains I had trained on, memories of those seemed a life time ago and certainly a world away. Instead I'm left to my own voice in my head and my own search for courage and determination.
'Go Flo, you can do it'... Where did that come from?! It was me! I was hallucinating...? I was finally cracking bonkers...? Or somehow somewhere I had drawn on the ability to recreate the comfort I had so strongly depended on back home? I had desperately wished for it and finally on the most challenging task to date on this exped-I had found it...(At least I hope the latter is the reason and not the former two!).
I've hidden my 'fear of my returning vertigo' very well from my team and I'm proud of myself for all the feats we have conquered thus far... Pride, not something I often feel for myself, I made a mental note of doing this more if I made it out of here intact!
The ridge had drops of around 1000m either side and I could see some sections of the ridge were as narrow as 5m wide with massive cornices on either side. We knew they were massive from where the sun was and how the dark culprits of shadow lingered below the edges of the ridge. So the margin of safety ground we can set foot on is small as you can imagine. The potential for fun was incredible, the potential for fuck-up-immense...
We were about to master a technical section - a sheer drop down to the last section of the ridge before the final summit. For ridges if one should fall the normal procedure is for the other person to do a leap of faith THE OPPOSITE way off the ridge from the faller... Errr helllo... Purposely throwing myself off a ridge...? Fun!!
However for this ridge we decided on ice axe arrests...We were all roped together before the ascent and all masters in practising the ice axe arrests should any one fall. Doing it for real I hope we'll never do but
it was constantly at the front of my mind, drop and stab your axe in! Drop and stab your axe...raaawr - can I feel anymore savage and ferral than I already am after being in the white wilderness for the last two weeks?
My PT when coaching me of getting over my vertigo told me to concentrate on something else I enjoy, like photography, my camera was my pillar and safety net, something to look through and hold onto to should my vertigo jump me from behind... It's been with me everywhere here and will continue to be as long as need it.
I looked out at the view...the view... am I beginning to take it for granted now being out here for so many days? No! I don't think I'll ever acclimatise to this magnificent existence (nor would I want to if it was down to choice), I know this now...no photographer can do this place justice... The eyes are simply not enough to absorb the full extent of what it's like out here, you have to feel it, you have to share it with companions and their sun blushed faces, you have to feel deserving for it, it can't just be dropped on your lap(...top) as a photograph... That's only a minute fraction of the experience... It's a shame as the photographer I'm troubled I can't relay all the thoughts and feelings experienced here, for one they are uncontrollable, I can hardly contain them like a jack in the box... If I knew my companions better I'd be bursting out with shouts of amazement and awe, but I refrained from looking completely unhinged (I hope I succeeded...). I can only show you what I see... It's truly *not* enough...sorry to disappoint...
Time to ninja this ridge...
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