The hitchhiking done for the time being and once again sedentary. Temporarily sedentary in the city of Christchurch.
“Back into the swing of things.” And swing we do. From the city to the station in the basin. Swing into the field of the limestone monolith. The limestone monolith innumerable. All together, an homage to the rock-climbing gods.
The first day back and the sweet kiss of the Quantum Field. A hangboard workout once we’re back at the flat. Swing. This is the rock climbing way.
Toasties in the toasty-maker, and here we are. The willing dopes of a delicious Déjà Vu. Thank you. A classic movie cued on the laptop flipped. Two toasties apiece. Two toasties steaming hot and drowned in Homebrand smoked hickory sauce. Cold beers from the fridge and the throb of fatigued forearms. This is Monday night.
This is Monday night, and by Friday morning. I will have taken two more trips to the Castle Hill basin. From Christchurch. Over Porters Pass and into the rhapsodic revelation of the limestone kingdom.
I will have eaten nine more toasties. That’s eleven all together. From Monday night to Friday morning. That’s twenty-two pieces of bread (a loaf), eleven eggs, two red peppers, a kilogram of mushrooms, a block of cheese, a package of ham, and a bottle of smoked hickory sauce. “Get ‘ur down ya’, boy.” A three day binge of sliced-bread pies. And more to wolf down in the weekend waiting.
But the food is an afterthought. A way to pass the time between bouldering excursions.
There is the first trip to Quantum. Where the sun beats us off of the rock, and Marky and I hitch back to town. Then. There are two trips to the fabled Flock Hill. Flock Hill “better than Castle Hill” according to the New Zealand Rock Jocks that we met in the Darrans. Flock Hill with “more holds and cleaner lines” than Castle Hill according to the stars of the Boone Speed climbing film Big Game. Flock Hill with more rock to climb than the combined Quantum Field and Spittle Hill. According to Mark. According to Mark and a new friend—who is a famed New Zealand Rock Jock in his own right—Mr. Peter Allison. Sometimes referred to as “The Radness.”
No guidebook available. Special access that must be granted by the landowner. Across the road from Castle Hill. On the other side of a shadow valley. And up the slope of another hill entirely. Here we are. This is a Narnia Land. Immortalized forever in the film version of the “final battle.” And here we are.
After a gut-busting snack of coffee poured over heaping helpings of ice cream. After a techno-blasted afternoon ride over the Canterbury plains. With the sun sitting low in the sky. Setting. Here we are. We are here.
And we are the nighttime ninjas. The post-supper savages creeping. Up the green folds of the earth. Up the green field aslant. The rectangle shells and the steady gait. The slow and steady turtle gait and the setting sun behind us setting. It is sinking below Castle Hill. It is throwing our shadows in front of us. Black boxes on moving legs. And we chase them up the hill. A motley flock up the hill. To Flock. We fly.
And does it strike anyone else as strange. After the walk, the pads tossed on the ground below the boulders. Does it strike anyone else as strange that this is what we do?
To climb to the top and walk off? To the top of a boulder, to the top of a mountain? To climb to the top and walk off? Does it strike anyone else as strange? To clip bolts up a sport climb? To unclip them? To place traditional gear up a trad climb? To pull it out? Does it strike anyone else as strange that this is what we do?
We like to climb rocks. So we climb them.
It is a funny thing. To monkey up the stones. To play stone monkey. A funny thing to figure out the body puzzle required to move up the rock. The secret sequence. And it is a different puzzle for every person.
To climb. The verb has a special meaning—a different meaning—to each and every Subject perpetrating the act. That is: each and every climber defines “climbing” in a nuance all his or her own.
But I believe it is a vehicle. Above all a vehicle. Like any number of vehicles designed to move men and women from the indoors out. It is the vertical vehicle carrying we stone monkeys out. Out from under ceilings. Out from the hum of electric lights. Out from the structure. From the brick. From the wood paneling. Out.
To take communion with the open air. This, the sweet Eucharist of mother earth. Her body, her blood. Eat. Drink. And be merry. Carpe Diem. Sieze.
These are the rudiments of our human roots. To thrive in the open. To find a problem. To create a problem. To find a problem and solve it.
Now go fang up that rock.
Yes, two nighttime missions to Flock Hill. The first with Paddy and Peter Allison and a boy named Tony. All of us hopped-up on ice cream and coffee. Snacking on candy. And coffee. An exploratory mission, with Peter Allison the Flock facilitator and guide. And it is through the field we Cyclops climbers. The brigh-white eye of the headlamp strapped firmly to each forehead and floating up the rocks. Moon sliver and the Milky Way burning above. The temps falling. And falling. And falling until we leave the boulders around four in the morning.
For toasties in the dawn-light leaking from the east. Bedtime in the sunshine. Rest for round two tomorrow.
The second mission made up of two cars of climbers. Marky and Peter Hardcore and myself. Peter Allison, Chester, The Fish, and a guy named Troy. And we’re off. Caravanning through Canterbury. The obligatory stop for pies along the way. One car in Sheffield, the other in Springfield. And the battle of deliciousness rages on. And on to Flock Hill.
The sun setting once again, and once again we are the nighttime ninjas. Stealthy. This is a mission to send the unsent. To re-grapple and to grapple anew. To gain the tops of the rocks and to walk off. To climb
Into the shadow land. The moon cradled now by nothing but blue. Now by the enveloping black. While the ninjas swing swift. And swift into night.
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