Psychovertical. Andy Kirkpatrick

      El Cap is one of the biggest ticks for climbers. There were always half a dozen on the wall, and already I could see the odd headtorch springing to life, as climbers woke on portaledges and began preparing to climb as soon as the sun appeared; those at the top were keener to get going than those lower down who still had days to go.

      Here and there the base of the wall smelt of toilets, the sign that a ‘shit bag’ lay nearby, tossed by a team in the last week or so and still not collected or desiccated by the sun. In the past, climbers would collect paper grocery bags from the valley store, crap in them and throw them off the wall. The idea was that, once down, the team would return to collect their shit bags, but many were less than diligent. In order to stop this, it was now the law that climbers must bag up their crap and carry it up and then down the wall, generally in a home-made plastic ‘shit-tube’ constructed from a drain pipe. Unfortunately, many climbers found this too grim a job, and so still preferred to toss their bags. However, most felt guilty enough to come back and pick them up. I often wondered if the rangers could dust for prints in order to discover who didn’t.

      There had also been a fad a few years ago to set fire to one’s shit bag, creating a ‘flaming shit ball’ and adding a pyrotechnic edge to the throwing experience.

      Of course, the downside of neatly packed excreta was being struck by them while climbing or lying in your sleeping bag. Dawn and dusk were always times to keep your eye out for falling feces. Luckily I’d only had one close call, when a bag had struck my belay and covered my radio in shit. Fortunately, I had a roll of gaffer tape, which I used to cover the offending areas.

      My feet stabbed into the talus as I grew close to the start of the Reticent, sweat already running down my face and back, the burden made worse because I knew I had two more loads to carry up before I would have all my gear in place. I seemed to have spent a great deal of my time carrying haul bags up and down this path, and I passed a few minutes trying to work out just how many that had been, and a rough estimate of the total weight. I wondered if carrying Ella on my shoulders was good training, and tried to imagine the straps that dug into my shoulders were her bouncing legs.

       Can you remember being on your dad’s shoulders?

      I also kept an eye on the ground for wall booty, gear dropped by climbers above. I once met a climber who braved the rain of shit bags by living at the base of the wall, claiming that everything a man could ever want fell there: food, climbing gear, water, even the odd wallet, sleeping bag and fully packed haul bag. He said all you needed was to pray for it, and the next day it would appear. This high-risk but lonely life seemed to work for him, and he lived there for years, until a female base jumper smashed into the ground from half a mile up after her parachute failed to open. After that he moved on. I suppose you have to be careful what you wish for.

      I smeared up the final slab to the base of the wall just as the first rays of the sun struck the summit overhangs three thousand feet above me, giving this area of El Cap its name: the Dawn Wall. It would soon be roasting down here, but I rested my bag on an old dead tree and marvelled as the wall lit up.

      You’ll be up there soon enough.

      All big routes are primarily about logistics, carrying heavy gear around, and waiting; but soon all that would be over and the climb would begin. The beauty for me of big-wall climbing is that the moment you step from the ground, your life is suspended—in every sense of the word—with days or weeks of honest hard work, the bizarre joy of struggle, the escapism. Up high, there would be no bills to pay, no emotional demands, no distractions, only climbing, dawn till dusk, and the reward of seeing the sun set at the end of the day.