The Very Long Climb. 1985

We took some stick for getting benighted on what is, essentially, a roadside crag!

The Very Long Climb..

“Well, I’m not going down there,” said George despondently.

“Neither am I” Seconded PT equally miserably.

“If we left now we could catch a bus home,” I added hopefully.

The source of this unhappiness was our first sight of the Verdon Gorge from one of the belvederes or viewing points. We saw too much, the size and steepness of the place overwhelmed us and the thought of abseiling a thousand feet into the unknown was immediately scrubbed from the agenda. It looked as if we’d wasted our time in coming. It had seemed such a good idea when George had suggested it at the end of a bitterly cold March day spent at Shepherds Crag.

At that time it was a place pretty much unknown to British climbers but George had somehow stumbled across the one and only British guidebook. After reading it, my first and immediate thought was to wonder why on earth he wanted to go there of all places because even the easiest climbs were at the very limit of our ability. There was also another drawback, the approaches to the routes.

Now the gorge is undoubtedly a great place to climb, but this is only true if you like abseiling, bolts and big routes on limestone. Now George did admittedly have an unhealthy liking for bolts but he had absolutely no liking for big routes and abseiling. As for me, well I wasn’t that keen on the idea and there were several pretty good reasons for this. I liked big routes but I didn't like limestone, abseiling or bolted climbs I'd also only recently come out of hospital following a motor accident and hadn’t climbed for over six months and probably wasn’t quite at my modest best.

Fortunately or unfortunately as it turned out the place had another feature and a hugely positive one at that, warm sunshine. And this was what clinched it because the weather that spring in Britain had been awful. The thought of escaping, if only for a few days, from this misery became just too much to resist and so the die was cast and our doom ordained. At the last moment we were joined by Paul, a newcomer to our group about whom all we knew was that he'd been a butcher, a sweet maker and a soldier. A varied CV indeed.

The trip did not get off to a smooth start. Just outside of Newcastle on the bus to London, George realised he’d forgotten his passport. A frenzied discussion followed, the upshot of which was, “Look if you get off at Durham, catch a train home then catch a train to London you should er… probably, just miss the Verdon bus”

“But it’s worth a try” said Paul. So off George went. Our journey continued uneventfully until about twenty miles from London when the bus stopped. There had been a crash and the road was blocked. We had a two our margin of error for catching the next bus and it was two hours later that we started moving again. We reached Victoria with ten minutes to spare and were pleased and rather surprised to meet a by now rather worried George. He explained he’d got his parents to drive down to Durham with his passport and had managed to catch an earlier train.

The bus from London took us to our destination, Castellane, by a rather indirect route, which bizarrely included a trip through a bus washing machine! At a service station on the way, we decided to get some croissants. We were about to order in our abysmal French when Paul butted in, "Leave this to me men" he said. Oh well we thought, he was stationed in Europe during his army days; he must have picked up some of the language. We waited expectantly as he strode up to the counter and listened in disbelief as in perfect Geordie he said; "Ah'll hev three of them things pet". It worked perfectly.

Late on the following day we reached Castellane the nearest sizable town to the gorge from where we hitched a lift to the campsite at the village of La Palud which turned out to be a lovely little place that amazingly had a climbing equipment shop run by an Englishwoman! We went straight to the bar, a great place. The next morning, despite the excellent forecast it was drizzling so we decided to walk to the gorge where we had the morale shattering experience already alluded to.

We retired to the bar to reconsider our plans and gradually as the beer was drunk our moral began to improve. What we needed was some practice and an easy route. Hadn’t the woman in the shop told us about a 50 foot crag just up the road which more to the point could be reached by the more traditional terra firma based approach that we were used to? So the next day we went to the shop, bought the topos and had an excellent time doing half a dozen or so routes on what proved to be a great little crag.

That night after a furious scrutiny of the guidebook we managed to find an easy graded climb, “La Recherche” an 800-foot difficile at the other end of the gorge on the Falaise D’Imbut. Apparently you could reach the start without having to abseil. We brightened up; this looked like the climb for us!

The Next Day

We should have taken a hint from the problems we had on the descent to the bottom of the gorge. It was supposed to be an easy scramble but I suspect we went wrong pretty early on because it soon became a desperate scramble down steep soil and loose rock which ended up with a couple of abseils off trees.

Standing at the bottom of the gorge we were not impressed by what we saw. We’d seen better quality limestone for a start. There was also one other problem; nothing seemed to fit the sparse route description we had. It took a while before we convinced ourselves we were in the right place and made the crag fit the description, a remarkable talent that I’ve also observed in several climbers over the years. I once saw a team on Aonach Dubh convince themselves that the right facing corner they were looking at really faced left just because the guide said that was where their route started. Mind you, I once convinced everyone including myself that we were on the right route when we were actually on the wrong route, on the wrong crag, in the wrong valley.

I volunteered to lead the first pitch because it looked easy and for once looks weren’t deceptive. The second was George,’s which also turned out to be OK, despite a layback up a flake crack which looked as friable as a Smiths crisp. Pitch number three was a gently rising traverse, after which Paul took over and climbed up a crack that finished just below a small roof where he found a new looking peg to clip into. Seeing this peg was a good sign. At least it proved someone else had been up here and it convinced us that somewhere up above there’d be a line of shiny new bolts once the climbing got harder.

Then it went ominously quiet and after a while Paul asked for slack and climbed down a bit saying,

“I know why there’s a sodding peg up here”

“Why is that then?”

“You’ll see, give me a bit more slack”

"I'm going to try and reach that ledge on the left,” he announced.

We looked left and it looked impossible. To each side of the crack were two smooth steep rock walls that for the likes of us had un-climbable written all over them. The ledge was about twenty feet to the left and perversely it seemed to hold the promise of some easier climbing, if only we could reach it. We kept quiet, wondering what was going to happen next. Surely he wasn’t going to try and traverse across the wall? He wasn’t, but what happened was worse, much worse. He told me to lock him off and then he set himself swinging back and forwards across the face. The swings increased until he managed to reach the ledge and grab some handholds. We were suitably impressed.

"Did they teach you that in the army then"

"No" he replied. "That's the first time I've ever tried it"

We were very impressed.

We were less impressed when just as we joined him on the ledge it began to drizzle and we realised that there was no way back. Even abseiling down was out because now there was a large overhang below us and we couldn't be sure if we'd reach solid ground before the rope ran out. So onwards and hopefully upwards it had to be.

Thankfully the drizzle soon stopped and although it was apparent that we were hopelessly off route the climbing wasn't too bad for the next couple of pitches until we reached an overhanging corner of very poor rock. George tried to climb it and failed. Paul had a go but fell off and hurt his ankle. I also tried and failed before deciding that the only way to get up was by aiding the bastard. And so by pulling on runners and attaching slings for my feet I precariously edged upwards to a point about 10 feet below a promising looking ledge. But there were no more runners to be had so I had to try rock climbing again. After a couple of moves I managed at full stretch to get first one hand and then the other onto the ledge. I immediately wished I hadn't bothered.

Unfortunately, the top was smooth and sloping the wrong way and I couldn't see any way of pulling up on to it. I never could mantleshelf in any case. I also knew that gravity strictly limited my time in this position. My allotted time had almost run out when one desperately searching hand found a loose bit of rock. I managed to prise it loose and miracle of miracles unearthed a hold good enough pull up on. I floundered up onto the ledge and secured myself to a tree. I took in the rope but from below came a cry of "We're not coming up there now" "Why on earth not?" I thought, before noticing that it was almost pitch dark. This was all the climbing we were going to do that day.

And now, just to be cruelly perverse the clouds decided to clear and it became a bitterly cold night. Well it was if like us you were just wearing a T- shirt and shorts. Expecting a day climbing in warm sunshine, an overnight stay hadn't figured in our plans at all. It was almost impossible to get any sleep because whenever I did drop off I'd be awoken by indignant cries from below as I knocked lumps of soil off the ledge. At least they could cuddle together to try and keep warm, apparently they took turns sitting on each others knees and were most upset at one point when I had to have a wee. On second thoughts perhaps I was better off where I was.

The Last day

Thanks to the ledge’s rather basic sleeping amenities, I woke up with a splitting headache and a very stiff neck, well at least it was company. Down below, Paul was in a rather worse state, his ankle was badly swollen so it looked like it was up to George to do any difficult stuff we might come across today.

From the first glimmerings of daylight it seemed an eternity before it became light enough to climb. Eventually the sun appeared and warmed up our chilled bodies. Surely we couldn't be far from the top? We reckoned a couple of hours would see us up but the day passed in a seemingly endless treadmill of climbing. At times we seemed to be going sideways more often than up as we tried to pick the easiest way and then, whilst I was last on the rope and belayed in a small cave, everything came to a standstill. I shouted to George and Paul but they were out of earshot. All I could do was wait until they had sorted out the problem, whatever it was.

I'd actually nodded off by the time the signal to climb came through. The reason for the delay turned out to be an overhanging forty-foot wall. Later George told me what happened. He had tried to lead and failed He’d managed to get a runner in just before what looked like the crux but he was convinced that it wouldn’t hold a fall. Paul was convinced it would but how could he convince George of this? There was only one way. Despite his ankle and knowing that he wouldn't be able to reach the top, he climbed up as far as he could. Sure enough, he fell off but the runner held. This gave George the confidence he needed and he had another go, climbed past the runner got to the top. The final little drama happened when my turn came to climb. Half way up I pulled up on a good hold with both hands, Surprisingly the hold found myself unexpectedly dangling in space with a large lump of rock in my hands. This situation couldn't last and seconds later we parted company and the rock plummeted earthwards.

We weren't sure, not having watches, what time it was although we knew that it must have been getting on a bit, but at least the climbing was getting easier. George asked me to if I was up to leading for a bit, I think he had a feeling this might be the last pitch but didn’t want to do it himself in case it wasn’t! Alternatively he might have felt that it was time for Johnson to pull his finger out and do some work for a change.

So I took the gear and began to climb and soon I noticed that the daylight seemed to be getting brighter. This could only mean one of two things, either the sun had gone nova or we were close to escaping from the gloomy confinement of the gorge. Spurred on I hurried on up a rock face that that grew rapidly less steep until finally the climbing was over. I was on level ground but it wasn't until I spotted our rucsacks that I really believed it was all over and we had reached the top and safety. I yelled down the good news to the others. They soon joined me and there was a tremendous sense of relief and elation as we all shook hands. We made a beeline for the rucsacks. I doubt if a half melted Mars bar and a can of lukewarm Coke had ever tasted so good, George summed it all up when he said “Well I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy”.

By now Paul’s swollen ankle looked very impressive but he still insisted on carrying his own kit back to the campsite, not that we argued the point that much. "Don't be daft Paul, we'll carry your rucsac" "No, I'm all right". "OK then." Typically, not a single car passed us on the two-hour walk to the campsite, which we finally reached at 5pm only just in time to stop some lads from organising a search party. We'd been on the go for thirty-three hours and may well have set a record for the longest time taken to climb out of the Gorge!

There was only one thing left to do. We went straight to the bar to celebrate but ran into an even bigger celebration. Some German climbers were getting very, very drunk. Apparently two of them were simultaneously abseiling down the same rope when one reached the stance before the other and without thinking let the rope go. His friend “the luckiest man alive” plummeted earthwards but amazingly fell into a tree after falling just a few feet! Several "biere formidables" later we staggered back to our tents and slept for fourteen hours.

The next day Paul’s ankle was even bigger and Cherie from the shop ordered us a taxi to take us to Castellane. The bus wasn’t due until the next day so we decided to spend our money on a night in a good hotel and getting well and truly drunk all over again.

A day later we were back home or at least George and I were, Paul was in hospital with a broken ankle.