Fear versus reality — a salutary mountain experience

Introduction

On 21st April 1982 I had a most instructive experience on Bidean nam Bian, the highest of the Glencoe mountains in the Scottish Highlands.

This is a complex and awesome mountain with a brooding and menacing atmosphere about it. It has a number of largely precipitous and very craggy spurs and ridges (including the well known Three Sisters of Glencoe, subject of many Glencoe picture postcards), with subsidiary summits, between which are steep, deep, craggy-sided valleys leading to upper corries (hanging valleys).

Novices are commonly warned that it's essential to be very sure of your descent route if you're in the cloud on top, because there are many apparent descent route gullies and tracks in different directions off the high ridges, most of which would lead you quickly into serious trouble as many of the upper slopes are decidedly convex. I knew about this, having been on the mountain the previous year in good visibility and seen for myself the abundance of tracks starting down in the most hair-raising of places from the high ridge tops and apparently just beckoning people to disaster.

The day in question had a fairly good weather prospect, though with uncertainty as to whether the low cloud wreathing the mountain tops would fully lift off or break up. I was still very much in the process of gaining basic experience, having by this time had three annual spring visits to the same area of the Highlands, and, as usual, I was walking on my own.

My salutary little near-disaster walk

On this particular day, for the first time I chose to ascend the mountain via the Coire nan Lochan track between the ogre-like precipitous spurs Gearr Aonach (on my left) and Aonach Dubh on my right. Rather than just follow the track into the upper corrie, I turned off to the right just past the imposing climbing pitches on the flank of Aonach Dubh, following a brief easy steep scramble that led me onto steep grassy ramps winding among the crags, to the top of Aonach Dubh.

I then followed the ridge round, bearing left along the top of awesome organ-pipes-like cliffs onto the quite pointed summit of Stob Coire nan Lochan. By this time I was in the cloud, and there was patchy old hard snow on the block scree. I had my ice axe to assist me on snow, but no crampons (the spikes that one fits to the soles of one's boots in order to be able to safely walk on ice and frozen snow).

I was now very mindful of the cautions regarding descent routes on this mountain, considering that I was in the cloud. At least I could descend via the Coire nan Lochan track that I'd come partly up — except that I then burnt my boats by continuing along the narrowing rocky ridge for the main summit (see photo below, which shows snowier conditions than on the day I'm talking about).

The ascent was extremely steep and very narrow too, largely covered with hard and partly refrozen snow, and as I ascended, carefully jabbing into the snow with my ice-axe handle, I felt very nervous on this slippery stuff with tremendous drops both sides, and realized that not only would I be terrified to try descending on that, but it simply didn't make good sense, especially seeing that I didn't have crampons with me.

Descent options

So, where was I going to descend, then? — I'd read that An t-Sron, the western-most ridge, could be safely descended if one kept well to the west of The Chasm, so I made my way along the summit ridge, over Stob Coire nam Beith, towards An t-Sron, but then I got another idea, especially as there was a bit more visibility down on the south side (i.e., the opposite side to Glen Coe).

From here I was looking down a formidable steep and seemingly unremitting scree slope to where it levelled out into a minor col that leads onto a much lower subsidiary top called Beinn Maol Chaluim, and from that low col I ought to be able to descend relatively straightforwardly into Fionn Ghleann, which would lead me back to the Glencoe road about a mile further west than my starting point.

This really did look forbiddingly steep, but I was making slow progress down, frequently dislodging chunks of scree, which went off skittering down below me. Often some of the scree stones moved a bit down the slope as I put weight on them, and I was getting increasingly nervous about this, even though I'd read somewhere that this was a perfectly workable ascent or descent route. I didn't wish to emulate one of those scree stones skittering and bouncing their way down there! Was there a better line to take, then? This didn't seem right. I seemed to get quite a way down, yet the distance still to go down appeared to be as forbiddingly huge as ever.

Sensible prudence got the better of my hint of recklessness; reluctantly, and feeling distinctly alarmed at what I'd let myself get onto on this occasion, I laboured my way back up to the top, in the cloud again, and resumed my westward line on the summit ridge, and then steeply down towards the An t-Sron ridge, along the way passing along the top of the headwall of Coire nam Beith (on my right), which was a forbidding white-out although it was also supposed to be a safe descent route, and then walking along to the end of the An t-Sron ridge. I was feeling rather shaken by my impromptu little 'adventure', and was feeling a growing anxiety to make sure that I got a really secure descent route this time.

So, I pointed myself to what seemed to be well to my left (west) of the top of The Chasm, and started descending, still in the cloud. The ground was steep and loose with little bits of grass and mossy cushions and became rapidly steeper and less consolidated as I descended, with lots of loose gravelly stuff, as I descended with increasing gingerliness. I was feeling weary by now, and increasingly anxious. This wasn't my idea of a safe descent route. Surely it must ease out in a moment into the manageable scree slope that I'd been led to expect!

Then the mist in front of and below me darkened ominously, and I suddenly realized that I was looking out of the base of the cloud, the bottom and other side of the glen now faintly visible through the swirling mist — and there was the slope below me, steepening further into precipitous crags! Ouch!

Then Fear spoke

This is what Fear said to me. "Philip, you've done it this time. You're on the verge of falling down that lot, and you're whacked and it's too much now to go back up. Blow your emergency whistle or cry out for help, which nobody will hear because of the wind. Best to sit on one of the slight mounds and cry here till you die. HELP!"

I don't mean I was 'hearing voices', but the above was the content of the fear-driven thoughts that were wildly circulating in my mind at that point.

Feeling desperate, I frantically scrabbled in an attempt go up again — but bits and pieces just came away with my hands and feet, and skittered and bounced their way down to those precipitous crags below me, which I myself could so easily soon be bouncing over (HELP!) — and with that attempt to reascend I'd actually descended a trifle rather than ascended, and my legs felt like jelly and I was shaking a little. HELP!

Could this just be a hideous dream? HELP! Surely there must be some way out that didn't involve my death! I racked my brain and silently argued with myself, but couldn't find any answer. HELP! Yes, perhaps this was indeed time for me to sit down and cry till I died — or maybe keep sounding the distress signal with my whistle till I keel over with exhaustion and then roll and bounce my way right down there to my end! HELP!

What about a little experiment instead…?

After a few minutes a more rational aspect of my awareness took over. By 1982 I'd already gained much experience in managing my adverse emotional feelings, and that experience came into play at this point. What I did was NOT to try to deny the fear, but simply to use a little trick to step round it. I thought to myself as follows:

"Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument, then, that this is the end of me and I'm going to die here. I'm a dead duck — fine. Quack, quack, qu-! Therefore there's nothing further to worry about. So, therefore whatever I do now isn't trying to achieve anything such as staying alive, so again there's nothing to be anxious or concerned about.

"Now, just as an experiment to do something with my time, let's put one hand very SLOWLY and gently up here, …and the other hand very gently up there, …and very gently bring my right foot up here …and my left foot, also very gently up here — not to try to achieve anything of course — ever so SLOWLY — but just as an experiment to see what happens if I keep putting one hand very gently up …and then the other …and then one foot …and then the other…" And so on.

In actual fact, when I moved in that slow and gentle manner virtually nothing broke away, so that each hold, however precarious, took me upwards. It took me only some ten minutes, if that, to get back up to the top of An t-Sron, having stepped right out of the mind-crazing fear and anxiety. I also noticed how my moving gently like that was no great effort, putting the lie to the notion that somehow a superhuman effort would be required for me to reascend that little bit.

And now another little experiment…

However, I still had apparent cause for apprehension, for I wasn't at all keen on trying another route down An t-Sron in the cloud, and so now I was really committed to going down into Coire nam Beith, which I knew was an alleged good descent route, but it was untested by me, and, most importantly, was now presenting itself as a forbidding extremely steep headwall of snow disappearing below into the cloud — a white-out. This was going to require a great act of trust, and great vigilance for potential problems.

And, to make things more precarious and knuckle-biting, this extremely steep snow turned out to be frozen and of course, as already noted, I wasn't wearing crampons (sets of spikes attached to the underside of one's boots). So, once again setting aside the anxious concerns about getting somewhere or achieving something, or indeed staying alive, I sat down against the slope with my heels and ice-axe handle dug in, then lowered one foot, digging in my heel, then lowered the other foot, digging in the heel, then pulled out the ice-axe handle and dug it in a bit lower.

And so I edged down like this over a few minutes, and then, as the snow just that little bit lower down was softer I intuitively started allowing myself to gently bottom-slide, with my heels digging in all the time to keep the speed very modest and safe.

After perhaps a minute or two of such very slow sliding with growing elation, I suddenly found myself striding, romping down the still steep but now manageable slope of deep soft snow, below the cloud base and with a clear and spectacular view down where I was going — and I was crying and laughing out loud with relief and joie de vivre. The rest of the descent was a great, breathtaking joy in awesome surroundings, with crags and cliff buttresses towering imposingly above me on three sides.

Postscript — Without predators to flee, who needs fear?

Had I really been in tremendous danger? Well, yes and no. Are you in danger when you're driving in a mass of traffic? Of course you are, in that if you're not exceedingly careful you will have an accident, and, depending on the situation, it could easily kill you. But the other side of the equation is your recognition of the hazards and responding appropriately to keep yourself accident free. My only problem had simply been the intervention of anxiety and fear.

People often say you need fear to make you protect yourself and keep safe. That's almost always rubbish with regard to humans, although fear does serve that sort of purpose for animals in getting them to flee from a predator. For a human, fear jams up the mind so that you can't respond well to the uniqueness of a situation. Fear may make you flee from a predator (how many of us face such an issue even once in our whole lives?) but it actually obstructs you in assessing hazards and managing a situation in a rational way*. Without fear you can be rational instead, and actually be better able to recognise hazards and able to produce a uniquely appropriate response to each situation.

Fear is also one of the prime 'antagonists' of love, so, when you're truly without fear in a situation, the love that's intrinsic in your true and deepest nature is much better able to manifest. Buried fear (almost everyone is carrying at least some) tends to hide that love even when you're not actually feeling fear. To clear yourself of all fear therefore is a 'cool', joyful and loving thing to do. What better and simpler way to do this than relevant methods that I give in Healing and self-actualization — The safest and quickest way…?