Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson [171]
Charlie and Drepung exchanged a reassured glance. It was going to be okay. Neither would die as the result of being a bad student, something they both had been a few times in the past.
That being established they became happier, and put on their harnesses cheerfully, indeed prone to sudden bursts of muffled hilarity ostensibly caused by the difficulties of getting their legs in the proper holes. It was pretty lame, and Frank shook his head. Then they were solemnly studying Frank’s knots, and learning the simple but effective suspension belaying systems used by climbers, techniques that held without fail when needed, but also would run freely when desired. Frank was very clear and businesslike in his explanations, and patient with their fumbling and misunderstanding. He had done this before.
When he seemed to feel they had absorbed the necessary minimum, he retied all their knots himself, then ran Charlie’s rope through a carabiner tied to their tree and wrapped it around his waist. Charlie then carefully descended the staircase analog that ran down to a floor just above the river. Standing at the bottom Charlie turned to look up at Frank.
“Okay,” Frank said, pulling the rope between them taut through the carabiner. “On belay.”
“On belay,” Charlie repeated. Then he started climbing, focusing on the wall and seeing it hold by hold. The chalk marks did indeed help. Monkey up, using the knobs and nicks they indicated. He heard Frank’s suggestions as if from a distance. Don’t look down. Don’t try to pull yourself up by the arms. Use the legs as much as possible. Keep three points attached at all times. Move smoothly, never lunge.
His toe slipped and he fell. Boing, fend off wall; bounce gently; he was okay. Relocate holds, get back to climbing. Was that all? Why, it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as he had thought it would be! With such a system there wasn’t the slightest danger!
The way Frank failed to agree with this served to refocus Charlie’s attention on the wall.
Some of what Charlie was doing was familiar to him already, as it resembled the scrambling he had done on backpacking trips in the Sierra. The steps, grabs, and motions were the same, but here he was performing them on a surface drastically more vertical than any he and his backpacking friends would have attempted. Indeed if he had ever wandered onto such a face during a scramble in the Sierra, he would have been paralyzed with fear.
But being top-roped really did remove the source of that fear, and with it gone, there was room to notice other feelings. The action felt like a kind of acrobatics, unrehearsed and in slow motion. Charlie became absorbed in it for a long time, slowing down as the holds seemed scarcer, until his fingers began to hurt. For a while nothing existed except for the rock face and his search for holds. Once or twice Frank spoke, but mostly he watched. The tug of his belay, while reassuring, did not actually pull Charlie up; and now he began to struggle, with only a final awkward lunge getting him up to the rim.
Very absorbing stuff! And now a surge of some kind of I’M STILL ALIVE glow was flowing through his whole body. He saw how it was that people might get hooked.
Then it was Drepung’s turn. Charlie sat with his feet swinging over the edge, watching happily. From above Drepung looked bulky, and his expression as he searched the rock face was uncomfortable. Charlie had his years of scrambling experience; Drepung did not. After hauling himself up the first few holds he looked down once between his feet, and after that he seemed a bit glued to the rock. He muttered something about a traditional Tibetan fear of falling, but