At our wedding in May 2013, Simon promised to love me, ‘in sickness and in health,’ and in return, I vowed to love him, ‘in injury and in health’. This was partly, I admit, for comic effect, but mostly because I know that it’s injury not illness that could bring Simon down and challenge our marriage. Simon doesn’t get ill. He does, however, spend his life lurching from one injury to another. This is usually as a result of over-training, but given our interests and his drive to push himself to the limit, I have sometimes wondered what life would be like caring for a disabled husband. I’ve thought about various physical impairments but never a head injury. And I’d never really thought about how it might happen.
We’d been planning to climb The Nose for a few years, ever since we left Yosemite National Park in 2010 with several other ‘beginner‘ big wall routes under our belts. Simon thought that the only things that could hold us back were other ‘punters’ on the wall, and his dodgy elbow. I worried about my fitness and whether our climbing ability was still up to it. We arrived in the Valley and climbed a few other routes as a warm up. So far, apart from one uncomfortable and rainy night on a tiny ledge, things had been going extremely well.
We had come up with a cunning strategy; climb to Sickle Ledge then, unlike most teams who fix ropes and abseil down, we’d spend the night there, thus getting a headstart on those other teams. On Day Two, we’d climb to El Cap Tower. Day Three would hopefully get us to Camp IV, V or VI. Day Four might get us to the top, but if not, we’d take enough supplies for Day Five.
On Wednesday 1 October, we started our predawn walk to the base of El Cap. My load was too heavy, and I had to stop in the woods and start shuttling smaller loads along a shorter distance. Simon went on ahead with the fully loaded haulbag before returning to help me with all the other kit.
We were pleased to discover that, apart from one team of speed ascentionists, there was no-one else on the first pitches of the route. The closest teams to us were above Sickle Ledge. This meant that there would be no-one ahead of us to hinder our progress. We started climbing and made it to Sickle Ledge by midday. The heat was fierce and the long, narrow ledge looked pretty uncomfortable. One of the teams ahead of us had backed off and there were a couple of teams behind us who looked like they were fixing for the day. We had lunch and discussed options. There were another six pitches to go to the next bivvy at Dolt Tower, but if we made it there we’d have it to ourselves so could guarantee a comfy night’s rest. Between us and Dolt Tower, however, were the infamous Stove Leg Cracks; strenuous, difficult pitches with complicated pendulum swings for the person seconding. I was worried as a friend of ours had hurt themselves on one of these pitches. The temperature on Sickle Ledge was unbearable, however, so we agreed that it was best to keep moving rather than sit around.
Our progress was slow, but steady. The ropes kept getting tangled, especially when the afternoon winds picked up. Simon had to swing across a number of sections, then back-clean the gear from the route to make sure that I could then pendulum across. Most of the time, he was out of sight, but I could hear him swearing when he got one of our two size 3 cams stuck. This was a disaster. We needed both cams to be able to climb the pitches above us. If we couldn’t retrieve it, we’d likely have to back off. Simon spent about 20 minutes wrestling with it, and I’m sure the tourists down in the meadow could hear him cursing. Eventually he abandoned it and I started jugging up the rope. Using some intricate, cam-extracting techniques I was soon able to rescue the piece of stuck gear and we whooped with relieved delight.
By 6.45pm it was starting to get dark, but we had just a couple of short pitches to go. Simon was out of water, and his lips had swollen to an enormous size with dehydration. I hadn’t been working as hard, so gave him the rest of my water. We put on our head-torches and by the time I reached the top of Dolt Tower it was dark and Simon had scoffed a whole packet of fig rolls and was halfway through a litre of tea. He was concerned about how thirsty he was and whether we’d have enough water to complete the route. I was less anxious – we were already ahead of schedule.
When Simon stood up, his legs seized with cramp. He stomped around in agony and I persuaded him to drink some more water. We settled in for the evening in the company of a little mouse with big ears that scurried around eating our crumbs. The moon was incredibly bright and lit up the rock face like an Anselm Adams’ photograph. We decided to visit the gallery when we made it back down – perhaps even buy a print of El Cap as a souvenir.
Above us, I could see the head-torches of a team bivvying on Camp IV and could hear the voices of another team, still climbing. I snuggled into my toasty bivvy sack and pitied them. There was no-one between us and them. This meant that we could attack the classic pitches of The Nose; Texas Flake, Boot Flake, King Swing at leisure. These pitches were often crowded. We were so lucky to be up here alone!
We got up at 4.30am the following morning. We had breakfast in the dark, but by the time we were ready to start climbing the sky was lightening. We reached El Cap Tower by lunchtime. A pair of daytrippers were hot on our heels, so we decided to rest on the spacious ledge and let them go passed. We chatted with one of them while we waited for his partner to catch up. They promised to dedicate the final pitch to us, and would think of us still climbing while they celebrated with a beer that night.
The next pitch was Texas Flake – a huge detached flake that you had to squeeze up behind. The topo said that there was just one bolt protecting the pitch. Simon disappeared behind the flake for what felt like a very long time. I wondered if he was stuck. At least the other team were still close at hand if we had any problems. I sat and frazzled in the sun. Despite the factor 50, my arms and legs were burning. I noted the interesting tan lines that were developing from wearing shorts and knee pads.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something falling. I turned to watch as the beanie hat slowly floated down the crag before catching an updraft and drifting back up above me and out of sight. Funny to think that something dropped could end up above you. Perhaps the owner would find their beanie waiting for them when they topped out.
Eventually, Simon shouted down that he’d made it to the belay and I prepared to second the pitch. This was a conspicuous feature on the rock face, so I was aware that there would be a lot of people watching us from the meadow. I ducked behind a boulder for a private pee.
It was unbelievably difficult to jug up the rope behind the flake – really strenuous and cramped. I wish I’d just climbed it, but Simon, to make his ascent easier, had followed Andy Kirkpatrick’s advice and ditched the rack of gear at the base of the pitch, so I had to carry this up as well, cursing Andy!
Sitting on top of Texas Flake was an incredible position. The feature was about a foot wide and there was a two foot gap separating it from the main wall. A bolt ladder led up and left, taking us to the base of Boot Flake. We made it up here and I lowered Simon down on the lead rope ready for the King Swing. This pitch involves a wide, swinging traverse to get across to the next climbable feature on the wall. To make it easier, Simon had left everything behind except for two size 4 cams. He tried an explorative swing across the expanse of rock. He was too high, so I let him down further. Again he swung across, but fell short. Eventually he was in the right position, yet he had to run to and fro a few times to build up momentum to get across. I then lowered down the gear and the tag line and he started climbing. He was hidden behind a long rib of rock, so all I could do was watch the ropes slowly rise up the granite until they were parallel with me. He made it to the belay and we transferred the haulbag across.
Now it was my turn. I tied in to the lead rope as close as possible. I then untied my end of it and threaded it though the in-situ karabiner and tried to equalize the ends. This was tricky as one end was just a loop. I wanted to make sure I had enough rope to abseil on as I didn’t want to get stuck partway across. Finally I was ready and started my abseil. My prussic loop kept over-tightening, so it was really hard to slide down the rope. I’d made it just over half way when I realized my mistake. I’d reached the end of my abseil rope. Worse still, there wasn’t a knot to warn me, just a two-inch tail jutting out under my prussic loop. I should have made this end really long, I now understood that the other end (the loop) would have naturally got longer as I abseiled down. ‘Help, Simon, I’m going to drop off the abseil rope”.
“Are you tied in to the leadline?” he asked,
“Yes.”
“Are you backed up?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll be fine, then.”
I knew he was right, but it was still pretty scary lowering off the abseil rope. It shot through the prussic and whipped up towards the lower off. I didn’t drop, but took a big swing below Simon. I heard later that this caused a coach load of tourists to scream in fright. It just made us laugh.
The next few pitches to Camp IV took a long time – lots of traversing and faff with the haul bag. Simon had run out of water again – he couldn’t believe it was possible to survive on the recommended three litres a day. I gave him the rest of my supply. We caught up with another team (probably the ones we’d heard the night before). A girl called Carolina had just abseiled down to her haul bag and was preparing to jug back up to the Great Roof. She and her partner had a portaledge, so were taking it easy. They’d been on the route for five days already. Five days? Simon and I exchanged looks!
We made the last pitch to the belay and settled down in the sunset, pleased to have made it before dark. As we’d been forewarned, Camp IV was fairly poor; two sloping ledges, one above the other with an annoying gap behind the lower one. No cute mice on this ledge – just a nest of giant ants. We tried our best to get comfortable while we cooked dinner. Yet again, Simon suffered from cramping hamstrings. I urged him to drink more, but he was still concerned about our supplies. We did some calculations. I was really keen to finish the route the following day. There were 11 pitches to go and the last few were easy. It would be so good to have climbed The Nose, bottom to top, in one push, in just three days! Simon was a little more cautious, if it took two more days, we’d only just have enough water, he wanted to stick to the three litre rations, while I thought it would be better to keep fully hydrated now. Why suffer for multiple days – even if we ran out of water near the top, we’d still make it. Simon conceded a little and had a bit more to drink.
Above us, the portaledge team slowly made it along The Great Roof pitch. We had to get passed them tomorrow. Simon planned a dawn attack – perhaps we could overtake them before they’d even climbed out of their sleeping bags! I wondered how we’d manage to share the hanging belay with them, both teams had so much stuff.
We tried to sleep, but it was too uncomfortable. I eventually moved to the upper ledge and managed to squeeze myself in behind the haul bag. The bag worked as a barrier to stop me from slipping off the sloping ledge. I heard Simon snoring below me – at least he was getting some sleep.
Simon woke me just after 5am. We’d overslept! He hadn’t heard the alarm. I still felt really tired and was glad we'd had a lie in. He didn’t think he’d had much sleep at all. “It’s not supposed to be easy,” he commented over breakfast. “Andy Kirkpatrick said we’d need stamina for suffering!” In the dim predawn light, we looked up at the next pitch. It was graded easy 5.7, but Simon looked apprehensive, “It looks quite hard!” We sorted our gear and were ready to climb just as it got light. Simon started up the corner, clipping an old piton. It wasn’t much help as it was about level with the bolts of our belay. After a couple of moves he came back down. ‘That’s too hard. It can’t be up there.” Now it was just after 6am and a bit lighter, we could see more of the pitch above us. Simon stepped across to where I stood. The lower part of the rock face was fairly blank, but there looked to be good holds about a metre above our heads. “Ah this looks better,” he said, and started to climb. “Can you just give me a minute to run the rope through?” I asked. It was still looped through a sling as we’d left it the night before. I was worried it would snag just at a moment when Simon needed slack. “Oh, it’ll be fine,” he responded, “Let’s get going”. He started climbing while I hastily pulled some rope through. It was stuck. I looked up and saw that Simon had reached the larger handholds, so I turned my attention to untangling the rope.
“Argh!” Suddenly, he slipped and was sliding back down. I yanked down on my end of the rope, but he shot passed me. The rope pulled tight, and I looked behind me.
Shit! He’s fallen of the edge. That’s further than I expected him to go. His legs are sticking up in the air in a comedy fashion.
“Si . . . Simon . . . are you alright?” He’s not moving. He must have knocked himself out. Get down to him, quick.
The rope was held tight by the gri gri clipped to my harness, so I tied off a loop of it and unclipped myself from the belay device. Because there was now a bit of slack in the rope Simon fell to the side, hitting more rocks. Still only his legs were visible.
Oh shit. He’s still upside-down. That’s really bad, get him the right way round.
I gave myself more rope and rushed down to him. When I saw his face, I was shocked.
Oh my god. He’s covered in blood. His brains are coming out of his ear. Is that an important part of brain? Can he live without it? Blood’s pouring out of his nose. His other ear is bleeding as well. It’s all in his mouth. He’s bleeding everywhere. Maybe it’s not that bad. He’s still breathing. He’s snorting and snoring, is he choking? I can’t get us down by myself.
“Help. Help. Call 911! Help. Help. Call 911!” Keep shouting until someone hears. There’s no-one around, who’s going to hear me? Carolina. Shout louder. “HELP! HELP! CALL 911. HELP! HELP! CALL 911.”
Grab his rucksack straps, pull him upright. His head’s lolling about everywhere. What if he’s broken his neck? Just get him the right way round. He’s too heavy. All the gear is weighing him down. The longer he stays upside down, the more brain damaged he’ll be. What if he’s already a cabbage? This isn’t working and the other team aren’t moving quick enough.
“HELP! He’s hit his head, HURRY, He’s DYING!”
I can’t lift him, I need to get below him. My rope is too short.
I scrambled back up to the belay and extended my rope. The portaledge team shouted down, “We’re getting our phone. It’s in the haulbag, so we need to reach it.”
For fuck’s sake. Why is their phone hidden away in their haulbag? Where’s our phone? In our haul bag. I need to get back to Si.
This time, with the extra reach, I managed to get Simon horizontal. Because we were just hanging on the ends of the rope I had to hold onto him. I found a small ledge to stand on and I could then support us against some slabby rocks. Simon had one contact lens stuck to his cheek. I picked it off.
I can’t let go of him to get to my phone, why hasn’t the other team come to help?
“Have you called 911?”
“We’re still getting to our phone.”
This is all taking too long. There’s nothing else I can do. We’re just going to be stuck like this until he dies. Shit! He really is going to die. Simon is going to die here in my arms. . . .
Stop being so melodramatic. This isn’t a film! He’s still breathing. He’s Simon, he’s not going to die. But what if he ends up seriously brain damaged like that snowboarder in Crash Reel? His breathing sounds strong, but he’s snorting. Is he inhaling blood? Should I take his helmet off? The straps might be choking him.
I removed his helmet. His scalp was covered in blood.
Where has he hit his head? I can’t see anything. Is the blood just seeping out of his skin?
Suddenly, Simon started to groan. He twisted his head around and hit it on the rock. I put his helmet back on.
“Simon, open your eyes.”
He opened them and stared at me. His right eye was more open than the other, but he was looking at me with intent.
“Simon, are you ok?”
He stared at me. Then passed out again.
The portaledge team are shouting something. They’re finally on the phone to Yosemite Search and Rescue. I must make YOSAR understand how urgent this is.
“His name is Simon, he's 37, he’s hit his head, he’s unconscious, but breathing. Hurry, or he’s going to die.”
I need to get him lying flat, his feet are still high relative to his head. Perhaps I can get him back up on the ledge. I can’t shift his feet.
I shouted up to the other team, “Can you get down to me to help?”
The man above abseiled down, he was about 15 metres to our right. “Hi, I’m Adrian. I don’t think I can reach you, but I have my phone on me. YOSAR are going to phone me back when they’ve made a plan, if anything changes we can phone them.”
Surely he can get across to us, it can’t be that difficult. But Adrian had reached the end of his rope and there were no rock features to help him traverse across. I’ll just have to stay like this with Simon.
“Simon, you’re going to be alright. Help is on its way. You’ve hit your head, but you’re going to be alright.”
“Simon, can you say something? Do you know who I am?” Simon stared at me with his one big eye. I felt his determination. He closed his eyes. Still breathing. I picked the blood clots out of his nose.
What else can I do? I’ll take all this gear off him. It can’t be comfortable. I’ll take the backpack off too. I can’t get it off his right arm. He can’t move his right arm. Maybe it’s broken. Urgh – he’s got a big hole in his elbow. It’s stopped bleeding though. His hand is trapped beneath him. I’ll just leave his bag on, I don’t want to hurt him.
What’s the time? 8am. Where’s the helicopter? We’ve been here for ages.
Simon groaned and started to move. He grabbed the rope with his left hand and pulled himself upright. Now he was standing in a narrow slot in the rock and lying against the slab. The effort must have been immense. He passed out again. Still breathing and still upright. I took his backpack off him. It was soaked in blood.
Adrian made some small talk, “They’ll probably send a helicopter. It’s good that you’ve got some gear there. Can you make an anchor point?” I threaded a sling around a couple of rocks then clipped this to the chest loops on Simon’s gear harness. Now he was held in position.
Adrian’s phone rang. It was YOSAR. They wanted to speak to me. Adrian explained that he couldn’t reach me. I scooted up to the haulbag and pulled out the phone. Adrian shouted the number across to me.
It’s not working. What code do I need for an American number?
“Just call 911 and they’ll put you through.”
Finally I was connected to YOSAR. They needed to know if Simon’s pupils were equal. I scrambled back down to him.
“Simon, open your eyes.” His pupils are both really small. What if he’s blind? Why can’t he talk to me?
It was now 9am. YOSAR told me that they were organising a helicopter, and that they would phone every 10 minutes for an update.
There’s a crowd of people down there, watching. I wonder if our friends are there? It’s getting hot. I’ll take some layers off. Simon looks really uncomfortable in his helmet. I’ll take it off. He needs a pillow. I’ll use my top. He’s got a cut above his right ear. How did he get that if he was wearing his helmet? It’s still oozing. I’ll press on it. He can use my hand as a pillow. I’m thirsty. Simon’s water is just here. That’s handy. Simon must be thirsty too.
I offered him some water. He took a sip then coughed it out.
Oops –that was a mistake. I don’t think you’re supposed to give casualties anything to drink. What time is it? 9.15am. YOSAR haven’t phoned. I’ll call them. I can’t get a signal.
I had to climb back up to the belay ledge and after a couple of failed attempts, managed to get through to Chris at YOSAR.
Will they save me as well? Am I selfish for worrying about that? What about all our gear?
YOSAR Chris explained the plan. As instructed, Adrian hurriedly jugged back up his rope to the relative safety of his portaledge.
“Simon, the helicopter is coming. Can you hear it? Hang in there. Not long now.”
Simon lay there; slumped over but still breathing.
As planned, the helicopter flew passed slowly to assess the situation before returning to the meadow.
A megaphone voice boomed out from below, shouting instructions to other climbers to make themselves safe.
Simon is sagging further down the rock, he’s slipping away, I need to tell him what’s happening. The helicopter is coming back, he mustn’t give up. Still breathing. Still strong. What’s causing the delay now? I’ll tidy up and create some space for the rescue team.
Eventually, just after 10am, the helicopter took off again with one of the crew dangling beneath it on a rope.
That’s dramatic. How close will they get? Will the rotor blades make it really windy? Wow, that’s close. Oh, it’s not too windy.
The YOSAR winchman hanging threw me a rope. It fell short. The pilot flew even closer. The rotors seemed less than a metre away from the overhanging rock above. The winchman threw the rope again. This time I caught it and held on tight, pulling him in.
I should explain which karabiner is the belay strong point. He’s not listening to me. He’s just going to do his own thing. OK, I leave him to it.
The helicopter returned and dropped off a second winchman. From that point on, I sat and watched the YOSAR crewmen, Aron and Jack, maneuver Simon onto a stretcher. They were completely focused on the task and didn’t want any assistance from me. Simon groaned and feebly attempted to untie the straps that fastened him into the stretcher. I saw him move his right arm and felt relief that it wasn’t broken. Other than that, I didn’t feel anything. I was numb. I dug out my sunglasses and put on some suncream. The crowd down in the meadow had grown larger. There was a road train pulled into the layby. I imagined the tour guide pointing us out, the tourists taking pictures with their zoom lens cameras.
The helicopter returned and the crewmen used a telescopic pole to catch the rope dangling beneath it. They fastened this to the stretcher. Suddenly, Aron and Simon were flying away from the rock face.
That would make an incredible photo. Should I take one? Should I be thinking of taking photos? Shouldn’t I be too distraught to even consider it? Simon would want to see it.
By the time I got the camera out, the helicopter and its cargo were tiny specs in the distance.
Now it was just me and Jack. We cleared up the gear, and emptied all the water out of the haulbag to make it lighter. I tried to rinse the blood off the rock, but it had dried on. There were a couple of big clots where Simon had been resting his head.
That’ll really freak out the next team that bivvy here! Look at all this gear. I’ll never be able to abseil down with all this kit. It’s too heavy. What a shame to pour this water away.
As I worked with Jack to clear up the bivvy ledge, he pointed out the easy ramp of rock which we should have climbed instead of trying to go directly up from our camp. In our tiredness the night before, we’d missed it. In the dark of the morning, we couldn’t see it and had just tried to follow the small line drawn on the route map. Jack asked me if I was competent. Do incompetent people make it this far? I said I was, then he shouted a string of instructions to me in American. Eventually, I managed to translate this into British climbing terms and we set off. Jack took our big haulbag and most of our gear. I took his lighter haulbag and a rope. I clipped it onto my belay loop and it hung between my legs. It was still really heavy. I waved goodbye to Caroline and Adrian above me.
Slowly we made our way back down the wall. Fifteen abseils to the bottom, down all the pitches Simon and I had climbed the day before, passed Dolt Tower where we’d spent the first night, down passed Stove Leg Cracks where we’d got the cam stuck. Jack tried to make conversation. I tried to respond. For five hours, we focused on pulling the ropes through, following safety procedures, fighting the wind. As we neared the bottom we passed more climbing teams. Some asked me how it was going. I felt ashamed that we’d failed, that I was being rescued.
We reached the bottom at about 3pm. Here, we were met by the rest of the YOSAR team. They were full of excitement at the rescue. One gave me an update that Simon had reached hospital. He was critical, but stable. They helped carry all of our stuff back to the car. On the dashboard, I found a bag of food and a message from our friend, Mike. He’d had to leave to fly home, but I was touched by the care package.
I went back to the YOSAR office, gave a statement, had a bottle of water and spoke to Simon’s doctor on the phone. Simon had fractured his skull but his other injuries were relatively minor. They’d know more following further scans. The news was no comfort, I didn’t know any more than when we’d been hanging beneath Camp IV. The hospital was a three hour drive away. The YOSAR staff offered to drive me. I declined, so they printed off directions.
I left the YOSAR office and went to the toilets to change my sweaty t-shirt, wash my filthy hands and brush my tangled hair. I then collected our food supplies from the bear box and tried to get a refund for our campsite. I was clearly avoiding having to face the next stage in this crisis.
Finally, at 4.30pm, I left Yosemite on the long drive to the hospital in Modesto. Driving passed El Capitan, I asked the mountain to spare my husband. Please let him be alright . . . not just alright, but Simon. Please let him fully recover from this. After all, he only fell five metres. I ate a banana and burst into tears.
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