Does twice make it a thing?
It had been a long day climbing, we had started a little late due to prolonged celebrations the night before.
We had climbed a beautiful alpine route, and for the first time in 10 years I’d felt the joy of climbing higher while the surrounding mountains shrunk, dropping away until they no longer blocked the view, and I could see for miles, mountains on three sides and on the forth, a drop straight down to the artic sea.
At 4pm we had watched the sun disappear behind the distant mountains. Now everything was coloured with the soft blues and pinks of dusk.
My body felt tired, but my mind was in a haze of happiness and renewed dreams. I hadn’t considered this style of climbing since I’d broken my back. The long and difficult approaches in New Zealand kept alpine climbing out of my reach, but here I was in Norway, and it was possible.
We had just finished the third or forth abseil, it was my job to pull the rope from the anchor above and Aksel’s job to set up the next abseil.
The end of the rope flicked me in the face as it flew past. I was to tired to register any pain, and at first thought how lucky I was that it didn’t hit me in the eye.
Then I realised that I could no longer see properly. I closed my eyes one at a time to test if I was still wearing my contact lenses and quickly snapped out of my haze when I realised that one of my expensive lenses was missing..
I asked Aksel, my friend of 2 days and local in this area, if he could check whether the contact was on my face or my jacket.
No he answered. It was late, getting dark and we needed to keep moving. He confirmed that I could still see, then abseiled away. Leaving me alone at the achor to panic.
I was in one of the most expensive countries in the world, Norway, I hadn’t paid extra insurance to cover contact lenses.
I thought back to the time I’d had lost a contact while travelling in France. Unable to see properly I had boarded the wrong train and ended up in Geneva, instead of Chaminox.
I put my head torch on and frantically searched.
There, on the snow was a tiny light blue object, my contact! Excited and unable to believe my luck, I ripped my gloves off, picked up the lense and shoved it in my eye…
I turned in time to watch my glove begin to slide, then disappear down the climb. My favourite glove, gone.**
Two years later, back in the northern hemisphere, Scotland this time, I turned the tap on to wash my lense. Whoosh, and it was gone.
We searched for 2 hours – floor, walls, ceiling, window sill.. before we found it in the basin overflow.
**I found my glove a few days later, after many hours searching!
I bought these boots for work, they were a bit small, but I can’t really feel my feet, and they were on sale.