| Pizza,
Chocolate y Cerveza |
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I remember now why I came here. This feeling, of floating
up overhanging rock, fingertips finding and gripping
every edge, every crevice, like a child in a tree blissfully
unconcerned about height or danger. Instinct takes care
of decisions without bothering me. Where best to head
for and how best to get there appear to decide themselves.
And I am strangely unconcerned by the scant protection
available and the unthinkable consequences of falling.
Already a distant memory is the headache of planning
an expedition deep into the heart of Venezuela in the
aftermath of major political unrest. Even the jungle
approach, machete trail-breaking, heavy loads, irrepellable
insects and constant damp heat are no longer important.
I am left with pure enjoyment; movement, freedom and
grace, and I relish every second of it.
Occasionally I have this feeling when running. For
an all-too-brief moment during a good run it is as if
my body is running itself, needing no help and certainly
no effort from me, like I’m just there to enjoy
the ride. But for this to happen when climbing is wonderfully
intoxicating. Here I am climbing moves I’ve never
done before, that I’ve never seen before, that
nobody has ever seen before. And they’re flowing
past with the ease and effortlessness of a well-rehearsed
routine. It is a shame to have to rejoin the real world
when I run out of rope and need to find somewhere to
belay.
“I’m SAFE,” I shout down when I’ve
arranged a belay, and as I flip my heels out of my shoes
to ease the pressure on cramped toes I set to belaying
Anne and Alfredo as they follow.
My gaze wanders over the roof of the forest, across
the open grassy plains of the Gran Sabana, and comes
to rest on a distant tepui – a flat-topped rocky
peak much like Acopántepui, the one we’re
attempting to climb. Its sheer walls give it the appearance
of a fortress, an impenetrable stronghold many times
higher than the grandest castle. Its summit is green,
alive with plants no doubt very different from those
crowding its base. For the tepuis are evolutionarily
magical places, whose summits have an ecology all to
themselves, protected as they are from the attentions
of the many creatures roaming the scrub and the treetops
of the jungle far below.
Venezuela is indeed a land of beauty and of contrast.
It is hardly credible that my breathtaking panorama
is just one of a huge number of spectacular vistas for
which this country ought to be far more famous. Most
people are aware of Angel Falls, at nearly 1000m the
highest waterfall in the world, but how many know it
is just one of hundreds, if not thousands of jaw-droppingly
beautiful cascades? And how many are aware of the unspoiled,
snow-capped Andean peaks of the Sierra Nevada and Sierra
La Culata, or the scores of uninhabited, coral-rich
islands in the archipelago of Los Roques, lost in the
turquoise expanse of the Caribbean beyond the surf-fringed
beaches?
For climbing too this is paradise, though the nature
of the objectives make it unlikely that popularity will
ever be a problem. The cliffs are big, with even the
smallest tepui walls reaching several hundred metres
in height. They’re hard too; because tenacious
plant-life thrives on angles as steep as vertical, to
climb clean rock is to climb overhanging rock. These
factors alone should be enough to cut down considerably
the list of potential suitors, but then there is the
remoteness. Not even 4x4 vehicles can get close. Light
aircraft, helicopters and dugout boats are the only
way in, usually combined with a wild jungle trek to
the foot of the chosen wall. Paradise it may be, but
easy it certainly isn’t.
“This is horrible!” Anne shared my pleasure
on the previous pitch but isn’t at all impressed
by the amount of loose rocks on one above. It is hard
to tell which pieces will stay in place if used as handholds,
and equally hard to be sure that any rocks pulled off
won’t sever the ropes below. She begins tapping
each hold with her knuckles, leaving the most hollow-sounding
well alone and trying to distribute her weight evenly
between as many of the others as she can. All of which
is not easy while at the same time having a two-metre
overhang to surmount.
Successfully negotiating this obstacle is a big relief,
as it allows us to haul our large bags of equipment,
food and – most critically – water without
fear of dislodging further debris. Each tethered bag
is released in turn, swinging out into space like a
giant pendulum before being heaved up by the toiling
leader. But relief is short-lived, as it is now late
into the afternoon and the good ledges we hoped to find
have not materialised. The climb is going to take many
days, and unless we can sleep the nights will be long
and the days ahead fearsomely hard work. The ledge we’re
on is about a metre long and triangular. Hardly ideal
but better than nothing. We find a similar one just
below, and by nightfall the three of us are established
on cramped, precarious and vertiginous perches.
In the distance we can make out the dim lights of Yunek
Ken, the village we flew into despite the lack of any
discernable airstrip. We arrived without prior notice,
almost inevitably since this tiny Pémon Indian
village has neither telephone nor radio links with the
outside world. Even so the villagers were more than
happy to help carry our heavy loads to the tepui. The
local chief is quite familiar with climbers, Italian
and American teams having been here in recent years
to attempt the tepui. In fact he has seen more climbers
than travellers or trekkers. The area is not mentioned
in the Lonely Planet guide and as a result the number
of Western travellers who have found their way here
can be counted on one hand. Accordingly village life
is amazingly unaffected by cultural and technological
developments we take for granted. Travel is either on
foot or in dugout canoes and almost all food is picked,
grown locally or hunted using home-made cross-bows and
blow-pipes. Radio reception seems to be the only major
difference to life in Yunek Ken since the Spanish introduced
Christianity in the 17th Century.
We wake on our ledges to the sound of music, a melody
carried on the morning breeze we recognise at once as
one of Alfredo’s favourite tunes. Alfredo is a
Venezuelan friend we climbed with the previous year
after meeting in Caracas. He jumped at the chance of
attempting Acopán with us, and brought with him
immensely useful local knowledge without which we might
never even have reached the base. He has brought also
a collection of musical instruments from Bolivia and
Peru, and calms many a stressful moment with a few bars
on flute or pipes.
Three days of exhilarating climbing and we’re
cruising, though the nights squeezed onto inadequate
ledges have been less of a pleasure. The climbing’s
been hard – about as hard as we could have coped
with and yet remained on course to reach the top while
we still have food and water. But we’re feeling
especially good now. Three hundred metres of overhanging
rock is beneath us and the way ahead looks clean and
featured enough to be possible within the three days
our supplies will last. Despite tired limbs the rock
passes quickly by. We’re in tune with the wall
now; we know its character, its personality, and its
tricks. We can ‘read’ the way ahead, and
our team is functioning smoothly, almost without need
of communication. We’re on a roll.
Until we see the roof.
“Where did that come from?” We look at
one another incredulously as the huge projecting ceiling
comes into view above us. We didn’t spot it when
we scoped the wall from the village and it has been
out of view until now. But there it is, fully 12m of
overhang, and we aren’t imagining it. Neither
are we optimistic about our chances of climbing it.
Even though it is still two pitches above, it looks
monstrous and terrifying. We look for ways around it,
but the roof extends a long way to both left and right.
Traversing the blank walls would slow us down badly,
and we really don’t have time to spare if we are
not to shrivel like prunes with dehydration. Our water
supplies are already severely stretched.
On any big wall water is a major problem, but here
the heat further exacerbates it. How much does an active
person needs to drink each day in a hot and humid climate?
Five litres? More? All the theory would suggest more
if that person is to perform at their best. But even
five litres a day for six days would weigh 30kg. And
that’s just for one person. If we were to try
and haul that much extra weight each it would take more
than our six days, which then would mean we would need
more water. We have limited our water to just two litres
each per day, which may not sound too ridiculous until
you realise half of this is used in rehydrating meals.
With only one litre a day for drinking and washing,
a little dirt no longer seems such a problem.
As we near the roof we begin to see possibilities.
The angles no longer look quite so impossible and we
can make out cracks. Mentally we trace a potential line
through the bulging rock architecture and manage to
convince ourselves it may not be so bad after all. But
close up this illusion is shattered. The real steepness
is undeniable as the wall bulges out intimidatingly
above us, guarding access even to the base of the ceiling.
But we’re here now so we may as well give it a
try.
The look on Anne’s face as she approaches the
next belay makes me wonder whether this time we really
have overdone it. I’m glad she didn’t fall
on that pitch; I wasn’t strictly truthful when
I said it was safe, and a slip could well have launched
her into mid-air, 400m above the verdant roof of the
jungle. While unlikely to cause her any physical harm,
it would have been a terrifying experience. And then
even for a climber of her experience, regaining contact
with the rock would be a complex, nervous and energy-sapping
trial.
As it is we’re now in the most inaccessible,
most intimidating and most lunatic place I can remember
ever having the arguable pleasure of belaying; tucked
into a tiny corner in the very heart of the huge, bulging
roof, under a large ceiling of smooth, compact sandstone.
The way here was hard and irreversible, and from here
our choices are severely limited by the patently unclimbable
ceiling above us and the severely overhanging walls
to either side. Our only chance is to the right, where
the ludicrously undercut sidewall is teasing us with
the promise of a horizontal crack leading out under
the ceiling. But from here the crack is tantalisingly
out of reach and frustratingly out of clear view.
“The way I see it we have three options,”
I explain in as matter-of-fact way as my racing pulse
permits. “Ideally we’ll be able to climb
directly up to the ceiling from here, and what looks
like it may be a handrail will lead from there the fifteen
or so metres out right to the edge, where we’ll
find big holds to pull round on.” We both look
out right, then above us trying to envisage moves up
the decidedly blank wall, then back at each other as
it is all too obvious this first option isn’t
going to happen. No matter how stupid we may have been
to find ourselves in this situation, to compound it
by trying ridiculously hard moves above the hollow block
we’re both tied to would be asking for serious
trouble.
“The second option, “ I continue, “is
to find some holds around this corner here…”
whereupon I extend my tether and lean across from the
belay, past the tiny sloping edges we can see, which
probably aren’t good enough but just might be,
to find that even these melt into a smooth and unclimbable
wall. Our eyes meet again, just as Anne is trying to
stop her look of ‘this really isn’t fun
any more’ from becoming one of genuine terror.
For we both know only too well what the third option
is.
Our eyes drop as we look down at our feet, where the
end of our tiny ledge dissolves into a horizontal fissure
running along the very lip of the undercut sidewall.
Lowering myself, I begin swinging nervously but excitedly
along it, feet dangling uselessly over the void, and
with enough exposure to keep a minor celebrity in work
for a lifetime. I meet a crack and follow it upwards
and outwards to the ceiling itself. Wow! What a route!
I feel intoxicated by excitement and adrenaline as I
hurriedly slot some gear into the crack, at the same
time trying hard to prevent the sustained exertion from
turning my forearms to jelly. Glancing rightwards, I
see to my delight a line of flat handholds, albeit without
accompanying footholds, leading right to the lip of
our great barrier roof. All that remains is a race,
a controlled burn, to make sure I make it across before
my arms give out.
The clouds have been building for a while and we’ve
been quietly ignoring them. Each of the last few afternoons
has been the same and the worst we’ve seen has
been brief passing showers. But this time we’re
getting worried. The massing clouds are darker and more
widespread than before and telltale swathes of rain
are already sweeping across the plain, giant theatre
curtains heralding the close of our happy scene. Our
delight in successfully rounding the roof quickly turns
sour as we realise we are now totally unprotected from
the elements. Abseiling back under the shelter of the
overhang is no longer possible as the other ends of
our ropes now dangle uselessly in hundreds of metres
of space. Meanwhile the rock above is becoming steadily
wetter and more slippery.
Unable to move in any direction, we resign ourselves
to a long sleepless night of discomfort. Hanging in
harnesses and concentrating hard to avoid dropping anything,
I hold the lighted stove in one hand and the pan in
the other while the others search for and prepare our
dried pasta meal. We do our best to ignore the rain
and set about making the most of what little comfort
we can find. We have a couple of hammocks, and by arranging
them one above the other we are able to at least take
the weight off our harnesses. They have a nasty habit
of restricting blood circulation after a few hours of
hanging. But two people in one hammock squashed against
a jagged wall is hardly the lap of luxury. And with
rainwater falling, dripping and soaking every unprotected
inch, sleep seems a distant prospect. This is probably
not the ideal time for Anne to admit she’s never
slept in a hammock, having been nervous about the idea
in the past. Nor the time for Alfredo to admit this
is the first time he’s ever bivvied on a ledge,
let alone on a blank wall.
The night is indeed long and unpleasant. For all my
added experience, I sleep the least of all of us and
am delighted when the sky brightens, even more so when
the sun appears and the rock ahead ceases to glisten.
Surely we must have cracked it now? We climb on, ever
upward and outward, though increasingly the rock holds
are supplemented with plants of various types. At one
stage the rock holds disappear completely and I resort
to jumping for a bush on the edge of a small overhang,
though I have no idea whether it will hold my weight.
I quickly develop an intimate knowledge and appreciation
of the local flora, albeit largely in terms of which
species attach themselves the most firmly.
The summit arrives almost unexpectedly, late in the
afternoon of our last day’s water. We collapse
in three heaps, revelling in the joys of being horizontal
and in our freedom to untie from ropes that have bound
us together for almost a week. Thankfully we find water
on the tepui top, much of it scooped from shallow puddles
in the boulder-strewn terrain. This enables us to linger
an extra day and explore our new domain. It is eerie
to think that nobody has ever been up here before, that
we are the first to see the remarkable wind-carved rocks
and the delicate purple orchids. We feel privileged
and honoured, and take extra care to leave this paradise
very much as we found it.
With so much overhanging rock around we are understandably
more than a little concerned about the descent. We have
to abseil down a 600m wall with 100m ropes. Despite
descending a section of cliff we believe to be a good
deal less overhanging than the one we had climbed, it
nevertheless sees us swinging near the end of our ropes,
frantically trying to regain contact with the wall to
fix anchors for the next abseil. It’s more than
worth it though. Waiting for us at the bottom, safely
protected from the attentions of the monkeys, porcupines,
jaguars, snakes and legions of ants, is the stash of
fresh food we’ve all been dreaming about.
Summary: An account of the first ascent of Acopántepui,
Venezeula. The route, ‘Pizza, Chocolate y Cerveza’,
600m, E6 6b, on the central tower of the tepui, was
climbed entirely onsight in six days in March/April
2003 by John Arran, Anne Arran and Alfredo Rangél.
They took no falls, hammered no pegs and drilled no
bolts in the process.
The expedition would not have been possible without
generous support from The North Face, Beal, Petzl, The
Mount Everest Foundation and the BMC, to all of whom
many thanks are due.
This article, by John Arran,
first appeared in the 2003 Alpine Journal.
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