Finland Wilderness Training, Day 4, part 2 - me or the ice wall?

I find if I swear sufficiently profanely somehow it provides me with enough strength to lodge my ice-axe into the ice wall sufficiently far enough to drag myself another few inches towards the top.  I have been on the wall so long that all the blood has drained from my arms and I find myself relying more and more on the belay line.  Below me my buddy calls up in encouragement.  As the going gets harder and my swearing gets worse, the instructor laughs even more.  “You’ll make a real ice-climber yet he says”.  The crampons which I eventually got to clip onto my boots but only after some help are supposed to give me the purchase in the ice to allow me to stride up the wall using the strength in my legs and relying on the ice-axe only as a balancing tool.  It doesn’t quite work that way.  Daylight has gone and the scratches on the plastic safety visor of my helmet refract the artificial light which shines above me and makes it even more difficult.  The ice-wall is about 30 feet high; I am about two thirds of the way up and am exhausted.  My hands have gotten so cold that I can’t grip the ice-axe properly and no matter how hard I kick I can’t get the spikes on the crampons to stay in the ice.  I lose my grip and find myself falling, luckily feeling the belay respond and the rope tighten to stop me.  I signal that I want to come down.  As I slowly walk backwards down the wall I wonder how on earth I will manage the three hundred foot Lhotse face ice wall on Everest.   It’s a sobering thought.  

I belay my buddy for nearly an hour, she too is struggling but I really want her to succeed and get to the top, as much for my own motivation as hers.  She wants to come down but I won’t let her.  I shout at her to keep going, giving her as much support as I can on the line without actually pulling her up physically myself.  I have already decided to have another go and her success will bring out the bloody-minded stubbornness that I know I will need the next time around.  She briefly rests, and then in a final push hits the wooden ridge at the top. When she gets down her face is lit up with triumph and I hope I will get to feel like that too.  Swopping the harness and checking the clips I survey the wall and chose my route up.  “Right, you bastard thing, you’re mine” I think.  Swinging my axe I embed it into the face of the wall so hard once I get up to it I struggle to get it out.  Pulling back my foot I hammer it into the ice in a suitable spot and taking the weight on the spikes lever myself up.  I realize this is all about a state of mind. It’s me or the wall and this time I do not doubt that I am going to win.   Working my way up I pound into the ice which flies in every direction and I move so quickly the belay line keeps going slack.  I get to the top in 20 minutes and wrapping my arm around one of the wooden posts I hang there, catching my breath.  Looking down I get a big thumbs up from the instructor and a broad smile.  I feel crazily happy and hang in the moment trying to commit the feeling to memory and to secure it for a little bit longer.   When I get down the instructor shakes my hand and congratulates me for persevering. I take off my harness and go and quietly sit, in contemplation about the small differences which can mean success or failure.

Later as I walk to the sauna I feel the soreness beginning in my shoulders and legs.  At dinner I, like everyone else who got to the top of the wall, get a commerative t-shirt.  I will take it with me, to Everest.

Find the ice-climbing photos on the gallery.