The Fear is the Worst

It started like every other day in the Canadian Rockies. Dark, cold, the last stars twinkling off snow capped peaks, and the pungent aroma of fresh coffee. 

Excitement was high, this was the biggest climb I'd tackled without my experienced, usual rope gun. 

My partner was another nurse with whom I shared a love of  ice. This climb was something I'd dreamed of for years. At the end of the day it would still be in my dreams, the sound of ice rattling down waking me up with a shuddering jolt. 

Enthusiasm was palpable as I belayed her up behind me, the sunlight spilled over the horizon, bathing the peaks of the Icefields Parkway in warm, soft hues. My soul was bursting. I embraced it all, the cold, the pain, and took deep lung fulls of icy cold, pure mountain air, blowing smoky steam out my mouth like a little kid. 

She took the the next lead. Pumped, breathing hard, she pulled and hacked her way up. 

It was my lead, my steepest, hardest lead yet. I backed down at one point, my heart pounding, calves screaming, and my head calmly telling me to stop. I retreated. I chose another line, a little to the left. 

I took a deep breath, cleared my mind, and sunk my tools and points into the ice once more. Pulling over a small overhang, mind and body in agony, I scrambled to place an anchor. 

"Nice lead," she commented. 

We figured out gear when she reached the belay. 

"Go get it," I told her, "Two easier pitches to the top," I surmised, looking at the couple of tall spruces I could see, jagged edges poking into the blue grey sky above us. 

We were tired, I was sweaty from the last lead in the sunshine that had disappeared, replaced by a cutting wind and grey skies. A shiver ran through my body. It's suffering time. 

"Ice," she called. It rattled down a little gully and passed me easily, "More snow" she shouted as she mantled onto a ledge. 

I smiled, soon we'll be rappelling, mentally, prematurely congratulating myself on the day. 

I never heard it.

No rattle, no crack, no whistle.

No memory of the impact. 

Cold. Yelling. Spinning. Pain, searing, horrific pain. And then nothing. Nothing but darkness.

I gasped, my eyes reopened against dead, frozen, unwelcoming ice. 

Screaming, expletives. Terror ripped through me. 

Fuck. What happened? Where am I? Why am I here? 

He told me I was hurt. 

"Give slack," my brake hand was still tight on the rope. 

I sucked in a sobbing breath. 

"His helmets busted" someone yelled. 

A brief moment of clarity, I screamed to the sky, whatever was beyond "I'm fuuuuuuucked." It caught on my dry throat, vision blurred, hot tears welled up. 

Blackness, back for an encore as minutes turned to an hour. 

"Someone's coming," he told me, “ and we have the same name.”

Thats gotta be fucking confusing for everyone was my single lucid thought.

"He's bleeding" he yelled to the sky, to those above me. 

Bits of ice flew by, I cringed, my body shook, pain racked my head and neck, terror clutched my heart, not more ice, please no more ice I cried deep inside. 

Then, again, merciful blackness. 

He emerged from the fog in my mind, rappelling towards me.  

"Hey buddy, I'm here to get you down. I'm an emerg doc.” 

"I'm a neuro nurse," I told him, “I take care of people like me all the time.”  

Human contact, warmth, voices. 

Then the knife. The rope. I looked at the empty space below me. I was safe, tied to him. Uncomprehending, I fought him as he tried to cut it.

“You’re thinking about “Into the Void”,” he observed. 

My battered mind screamed, surrendered to the abyss of nothing, ready to swallow my broken body. 

It didn't happen. We were rappelling, stopping, v-threads, jolt, rappelling. 

Controlled, slow, someone else thinking. 

A flame of hope moved through my damp, cold body. 

I was standing, wobbling, survival instinct waning, only a couple hundred kilometres to the hospital.

"Here," he said, "take my hand.”

We try our best to avoid it. We are convinced we are safe, we manage the risks. Sometimes it goes wrong. The fear is the worst. That serious injury in a remote place, a hundred metres off the ground. What will it be like?

Now it’s happened, I’m alive, recovering, itching to sink my points into the ice. 

The doctor towered over me, “Ice climbing is very dangerous, so insecure, have you thought of quitting?” 

My eyes and mind were blank, uncomprehending. “I already ordered a new helmet,” I offer.

I’m coming back, humbler yet stronger.

Redemption day on the Weeping Wall.