Sequence

Published by Like The Wind (Print Only)

I clap my hands and hear the sound ring and rebound off the north face of the Eiger. Some way behind, Andrew and Patrick are hunkered to the ground, feet and hands slipping, cracking elbows and knees into the packed snow.

Cinematic mountain light of afternoon reaches us from beyond the rise of the valley and kisses the nape of my neck and my cheek.

I'm whistling, singing, stooping to crouch below a lone waterfall. We see Grindelwald below and stop a while for slices of cheese and cured sausage. Andrew has a fine knife but no board so Kerouac's Dharma Bums serves as chopping block. By the end there are a few lacerations on the cover where the blade has bitten through the greaseproof paper.

“'I like the real thing meself,' said Japhy, looking seriously at the mountains and in that far-off look in his eyes, that secret self-sigh, I saw he was back home again..." 

I take a bus to Chamonix to run the trails there alone. I begin with eleven miles scampering up to Chemin de la Forêt past comfortable people in comfortable conversation. I interrupt, pouring sweat, arms-swinging, nose running. I take a narrower trail which flattens out along the valley side. Return to town. Plunge my head into a river.

At the hostel I lower myself into a hot tub and stretch my legs out. I sit on the grass in my jacket and the fullness of night falls quickly around me. 

First light breaking, I throw on my vest and pack and run off through the streets which are silent, unruffled by wind. Wood of chalets bleached by the sun. Find an open trail to the right and lean in for eighteen hundred metres ascent up the valley wall. 

I wrestle my body up the side of the mountain past Blaitière and reach the Grand Balcon du Nord. The air is cold and fresh on my bare arms. I pull on gloves.

I struggle past Le Plan de D'Aiguille. I feel dead. My breath rasps in the thin air and little flecks of black and silver glint in my eyes. I turn around. Abandon my search for Lac Bleu. 

I stumble down the trail to the Refuge D'Aiguille where I sink my head into a basin of warm water and sit by the window. I can see the morning sun on the crags and forest of the adjacent valley wall. I eat an omelette, a large slice of tarte au citron, and a cup of coffee. Feel better. 

I canter along the high trail below jagged spires to my right. Alone, in silence, in wonder. 

There is an old Zen expression, “when you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing".
I cross the boulder slabs at Signal Forbes and catch my second wind. 

Grendel's Mother could not have stopped me. I keep running, faster now in the long descent. My arms float shoulder-high for balance. I weave between trees, over roots, across streams, become temporarily lost among boulder fields, find the way back. In sequence.