Saturday 12 February 2011

Slight Epic at Mael 12/02/11


Last night we made plans to have a big day doing some of the multipitch routes at Mael, unfortunately plans don’t always pan out! After a later than expected start we braved the -18 cold outside and headed to the crag, with a 45 minute walk in we thought this would be quieter than the single pitch roadside crags. After nearly three hours we were finally in the gorge and psyche had rapidly diminished in a direct ratio to the amount of post-holing through knee deep snow we had done! Unfortunately three of the four routes in the gorge were nowhere near in condition and with avery slow party on Isroser and Nick and Lewis just jumping on the route too, Pete and I were deliberating the incredible looking Haugsfossen. Pete convinced me we should go and have a look anyway so I set off up the easier first pitch and after about 50m of somewhat insecure climbing arrived at a suitable ledge to belay on out of the way of the party ahead of us. Pete then came up as I proceeded to look for the easiest line through the imposing pillar above. Pete arrived as psyched as before and after swapping over the gear he went to have a look, after a short while he was established on the bottom of the pillar and looking good. I was looking across the gorge at Nick and Pete and admiring the view when there was a sudden fast whipping noise. I thought I’d dropped something but the realisation hit when I was jerked onto the belay; Pete had fallen and was hanging upside down about three metres below a screw. I asked if he was alright and he replied no and then I knew it was going to be a long day! After getting back the right way up Pete tried to put some weight on his left ankle but there was no way he could climb a pitch of WI6 on it.
I lowered him back to the belay and we assessed our options; as we had abseiled in there was no getting back to the approach path we had made earlier, we couldn’t go up without rescue from above which could take a long time and so we decided to ab off and follow the river running out of the bottom of the gorge back to the road. I went up and slowly retrieved the gear, seriously worried about the deep booming noises occassionally coming from deep inside the pillar, and we made a long ab back to the floor where it was obvious that Pete was hurt quite badly. I started to pack up all the gear and Pete began crawling, Joe Simpson-esque through the snow down towards the river. The next hour and a half were filled with sliding, abseiling, and walking (or crawling in Pete’s case) over partly frozen river in the dark until we finally hit the road. I went to get the car and as I re-parked to get Pete down the last bit of river a guy came to help us; Bjorne turned out to be an ex-climber and was a genuine legend and very kind helping us out of the river gorge and into his house where he provided much needed tea, warmth and even crutches. After a while I went out to find Nick and Lewis at the car after they had had a similairly long but less epic day than us. We headed to the supermarket and splashed out on some Fishenbossen which was a surprise dish as it had no indication of its contents on the packaging, without a tin opener Nick craftily opened it with his axes and after Lewis rustled up dinner we were still none the wiser as to what it was! I think the word to describe today was epic, and definitely not in a good way. Hopefully less of that and more of the fun single pitch, short walk in routes for the rest of the week!

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