I’ve always wanted to walk along this wall, my husband says. It’s a bright afternoon in the west, blue skies, contrails pointing to the US, and we’re at the furthest point of a beach walk we do often. I’ve seen waves hurl rocks and seaweed over the wall in question, but today the tide’s out, the water placid, and there are ravens and curlews busy among the seaweed and stones below.
The wall is a good foot wide (I date myself – call it 30 centimetres, kids) and the drop on the land side no more than that. I bike everywhere and do a lot of yoga, working for good balance as I approach later life. I follow my husband, suppress the urge to remark that it’s not a tightrope and we could move faster.
And then I glance down and the world tilts and the rocks beckon and nausea rises. I jump on to the sunny turf, an unnecessarily high jump to show myself that I can, and walk glumly up to the tarmac lane, where things are still pretty delightful, all in all, new daffodils and the sharp shadows of still-bare hawthorn, birdsong and a moderate wind not yet but soon to carry the smell of gorse.
The first time this happened was seven years ago, the last family holiday before lockdown. We were hiking in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, the first summer it was obvious that our teenage sons had become faster and stronger and more adventurous than us. We had crossed over, parents and children: when we reached about 2,000m (6,561ft) of altitude, which was the level of high pasture above the tree line and pleasantly cool even in July, they wanted to keep going up the technically demanding routes to the peaks above and we were happy to have a picnic and go back to the apartment to read.
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You do not let teenagers accustomed to British mountains make ascents like that without an experienced adult, so after a few days we agreed that my older son and I would do one “real” climb. I planned a route that would feel more dangerous than it was, nothing technical until the last few hundred metres, where there were steel ladders and chains to make it easier, and then a circular ridge that was precipitous and high but on a clear path.
The weather was good, we were both fit and well and properly equipped and everything was fine until we came out on to the ridge. I’ve always loved ridge-walking, spinning out the rewards of the climb, being on top of everything, the clear drop on both sides. Exhilarating, delightful. I was looking forward to sharing it with my son.
But exhilaration and delight lasted seconds. The path under my feet tipped. The rocks tilted and the sky slid sideways. I sat down, and then crawled – hands and knees – to sit with the nearest rock against my back. After a few minutes, counted breaths, eyes closed, I tried to stand up and it happened again. A drink of water didn’t help and even chocolate wouldn’t keep the mountains and sky in place.
I’m sorry, I said, I can’t do this, we have to go down now.
[ I was raised to be independent, but find it hard letting others take chargeOpens in new window ]
My son never murmured about the lost adventure, the missed mountain, the missed promise. I was fine as soon as we were back to the altitude where things grow, and we had a perfectly nice walk there, finishing with coffee and cake in a mountain hut.
I’ve done lots of hiking since then, much of it with my sons, but I haven’t tried anything technical or high-altitude. I was never a good rock-climber, just competent enough to get where I wanted to go, which was high up, where the sky is a deeper blue and the air a little thin, where the risks are manageable but you don’t forget them, where you learn to read the curves of the mountain against the contours on the map, to trust your own muscle and bone and that of your companions in relation to the muscle and bone of the Warth.
I grew up, or outgrew. Some time around when my kids’ fear diminished, when they started to trust their own muscle and bone, my fear rose up and my trust faltered. I still miss the summits, but it’s not a bad lesson at any age, to know how to take our pleasures at a lower altitude.
