Ted Striker couldn't get over Macho Grande, well after 4 days I'm starting to get over Helvellyn

It doesn't have to be night time for me to have a dark night of the soul.  I can just as easily have one in the daytime, as was evidenced by climbing Helvellyn on Saturday.

Being up that mountain exposed every physical frailty, every mental vulnerability, every emotional weakness I've got.

Up on the top of that ledge with a drop on either side, and people trying to squeeze past me there was no hiding place.  From the physical demands of the situation, but also from myself.

I felt weak and scared and vulnerable, and I just wanted to run away.  But I couldn't run, so when I got to the top I had to limp away and that took me another 4 hours.  4 hours of limping.  Even a scary fairground ride that you get on by mistake usually only lasts about 5 minutes.  5 minutes of terror maybe, but still only 5 minutes.  Oblivion at Alton Towers is over in seconds.

Being up on the top of that mountain I had the same feeling as I had sitting in a rickshaw in Old Delhi In January, and it was the same one I had sitting in a Youth Hostel in Arnside with wet socks on in June.

It's that feeling that comes after you've stripped away every pretence and illusion about how great and powerful and important you are, it's that feeling that comes from knowing that whatever ego you've got is sitting there in the corner examining its bruises after getting a thorough pasting.

First I was afraid on Saturday, then I was thoroughly frustrated at my limitations, and then after that I was embarrassed.  I was embarrassed because I was not only having a devastating loss of form, but I was having it in front of Ruth and Helen and in front of lots of other people too.

I think I'd have found the whole experience easier if I thought any of the people up there had been half as scared as I was, but they all looked confident and like they were taking it in their stride, while I was clinging on for dear life, and wanting to get down.

Ruth and Helen seemed so elated.  And so did most of the people up there (and their dogs).  Everyone was having a mountain top experience, but in their case they were on top of a mountain, whereas in my case the mountain was on top of me.

And since I got back I've been regaled with tales from everyone and their dog about how they've climbed it with a child on their back, or with a dog in a rucksack, or how their child did it as a rite of passage when they were 7, and how great it all is.

And it may well be great, but for me aged 44 and with who I am and with what I've got, it wasn't great at the time.  At the time I was falling apart.

But now I'm coming back together again.  The fear and the frustration and the embarrassment is wearing off.  And before long I might realise that I've achieved something.  Just like in Delhi, and in Arnside.  Like that famous bloke said who then went on to kill himself.  The world breaks everyone, but some are strong in the broken places.

And even with every frailty, and every weakness, and every limitation I've got, there's still no-one I'd rather be than me.  Because without the broken places, and the places where the breaks have knitted back together again, I wouldn't be me at all.

Climbing Helvellyn by accident

I climbed Helvellyn yesterday, but I didn't do it on purpose.  I just wanted to spend some time with Ruth.  It seems every weekend she's either at work or away having adventures, and that 'Yippee It's Friday' feeling is often muted by the thought that she won't be around.

I didn't get in till midnight on Friday night.  I was out with the young people from work again.  They put me on the last train home before they went off to get their armbands (these are to get into nightclubs apparently, I don't know).

By this time Ruth was already camping in the Lakes with Helen, and Saturday morning they were going up Helvellyn.  In the name of spending some time with my wife, I decided to get up at 6 am on Saturday and drive across to join them.  I had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

It turns out that climbing Helvellyn is something of a challenge, and if you're going to take on a challenge it probably helps to know in advance that it is a challenge.  I just approached it like a fun day out.  That was my first mistake.  It also contains another challenge within it which is this thing called Striding Edge.  I'd heard of it because it's sometimes on the news that people have fallen off it and killed themselves.

Well, now I've climbed it myself.  And it's completely nuts.  And so not Health and Safety.  You can't climb a ladder these days without going on a course for a week and yet Striding Edge is full of Looney Tunes and their dogs crawling around on their hands and knees on a piece of rock about as narrow as my dining table with a thousand foot drop on either side. Where's their risk assessments? Even the mountain rescue guy we met wasn't very reassuring. Oh yeah people fall off it all the time he said. Cheers I said you've really put my mind at rest...I didn't really...

Doing things that are nuts is fine if the people you're doing it with also know it's nuts, but they don't.  They all look like they're having a perfectly reasonable time, whereas I felt at times absolutely terrified.  And there's more footfall up there than there is at Piccadilly Circus or the Metro Centre, but it's on the side of a cliff.  

Amongst the crowds were a group of posh people in pink tops raising money for charity who all sounded like they'd just bought a copy of '1001 places to go before you die' and they were only up to number 9.  I imagined they were trying to get Helvellyn in in the morning before doing the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon.  They reminded me of the group of tourists that Dean and I overheard in the Ajanta Hotel in Delhi, who were going to do Delhi in the morning and Bangalore in the afternoon, or something like that.  It'll take you all day to buy a bus ticket you idiots we wanted to say to them, but we didn't.  

There were times yesterday when I looked down at the drops on either side of me, and I knew that if I didn't keep moving there was a real chance of me just getting frozen there and unable to move, so I made myself keep going.  I haven't been that scared since the top of St Paul's Cathedral and that only went on for a very short while until I could get to the downward staircase.  Even then once I got back to ground level I sat around with legs like jelly for about half an hour before I could walk properly again.  This just seemed to go on for hours.  

I sometimes stuggle to empty boiling water out of a pan, or to bend down to pick up a tea towel off the floor, so clambering around on jaggedy rocks trying not to fall to my death made me feel pretty feeble.  Having Ruth point out that someone had got up there in a wheelchair with a couple of broom handles sticking out of it didn't really make me feel any better.  

And even when you get to the top, you've got to get back down again.  Swirrel Edge is only moderately bonkers in comparison but by that time my feet were absolutely mashed and all my joints from the waist down felt like they'd been hit with a hammer.  

It took us 8 hours to get up and down the mountain and by the time I got back to Helen's car I felt absolutely out of it.  The whole thing was 10 times harder than I expected it to be.  I've been out walking in the hills before, but this was not hill walking, this was proper mountain climbing, and it felt like it too.

My body felt so knackered by the end, I just wanted to get home to my own bed, and so Ruth and Helen packed up the tents and Ruth drove me home, and this added to the feebleness I already felt because I felt like I'd put a crimp on their girly weekend.  And they were so joyous on the mountain, whereas I was not.  And I wasn't just disappointed in how I felt physically, I was also disappointed in myself for how fragile and vulnerable I felt mentally.  But a lot of this was probably just because I hadn't expected it to be so tough.  It helps with challenges it you're geared up for them.  I spent six months preparing for the Coast to Coast to Coast bike ride, whereas I spent 20 minutes having a coffee and a bacon sandwich before attempting Helvellyn.  Beyond that I hadn't really got myself prepared.  

I was really glad to wake up in my own bed this morning, but I still feel really achy.  

I think one day I'll be really glad I climbed Helvellyn, but I'm not there yet.  I went there with the best of intentions, ie to spend some quality time with Ruth, but I hadn't considered the part where I had to climb up a mountain and get back down again.  That part was hard.