We set off as the sun rose to bake us. Unknown kilograms of carefully assembled climbing gear carved divots in our shoulders. The Scottish heatwave had been so intense that spring that the Glenbrittle Mountain Hut reservoir on the Isle of Skye was starting to dry up. Shaking off yawns, I tried to keep up with my mountain goat guide who was dancing up the path in lightweight walking shoes. Chris was sixty plus and carrying more than twice the weight of my own heavy rucksack. I was clumsy, inexperienced, and inappropriately shod in rigid leather walking boots that boiled my feet. I watched him as he sprang from rock to rock whilst we made our way to the ominous silhouettes of the Cuillin Mountain ridge.

Scorched piles of dead moss formed neat borders along the rubble paths as feet scattered insects.  We snaked up the dusty paths ever higher into the famous jagged black rock formations. I was trying to hide how out of breath I was. Chris paused for longer than he needed whilst wiping the steam from his large horn-rimmed glasses. We had only met a few days before on our mountaineering club holiday. The club, Red Rope, was a socialist climbing club and surviving relic of a failed 70s revolution. Its egalitarian principles included a pay what you earn sliding scales for membership fees and trips, and a philosophy of more experienced members sharing their skills to encourage equal access to the mountains. Thanks to the club, Chris was taking 23-year-old and woefully inexperienced me out in the Cuillins, motivated only by his passion to share the mountains.

We reached the base of the climb after negotiating increasingly steep rocks that became a sheer 200 metre rock face 200 reaching into the cloudless sky. The heat intensified as the sun rays bounced around the enormous amphitheater of rock faces. The start of the climb was helpfully painted onto the wall – it read ‘White Slab’ with a ‘helpful’ arrow pointing generally upwards. I’d been climbing for just over a year and did not feel comfortable taking the lead, especially not on multi-pitch mountain routes where you had to find the climbing line yourself. Staring upwards, intimidated by the enormity of the climb that lay ahead, I tried to push aside pre-climb nerves.

Climbing is a strange activity. In no other sport would you so quickly hand your life over to a stranger. Two climbers ascend a route roped together, each trusting that their partner will catch them should they fall. You have to trust the leader to choose the right route and place the protective metal gear into the rock to arrest any falls. You have to trust the belayer to catch the leader if they slip or run out of strength. You have to communicate effectively, sometimes muffled shouts, sometimes though using pulls on the rope from long distances away from each other. As soon as one climber leaves the ground, you are completely responsible for each other’s fates. And, I had only met Chris two days before.

We sorted out the mass of ropes and safety gear necessary to climb the 100m of rock safely. Chris tied his figure of eight knot to secure his ropes to the harness and I clipped his ropes to my harness.

“On Belay, Climb when ready!” I encouraged Chris.

As he started to climb, I took a moment to survey the rolling ocean views behind me, the sun casting glittering lights on the sea. The landscape between myself and the sea was arranged in strips. The distant pristine white beaches ended abruptly when they became brown rubble sparsely carpeted in emerald green, which lasted until the hostile environment prevented grass from growing anymore and became spines of increasingly steep and inhabitable rubble. I watched as Chris quietly placed one foot slightly higher into a narrow crack, then expertly felt for a gap in the smooth white granite to gently place his fingers. His dance with the rock had begun.

The first section of the climb passed uneventfully. After I had climbed up to meet Chris at a small ledge a quarter of the way up, we paused to rest together at the belay and wiped the sweat that was pouring off our faces as the sun grew hotter and hotter.

“I am realising my mistake – we should have climbed on the opposite face because this climb is in the direct sun all day” Chris admitted.

I shrugged it off, grateful to be brought along for the ride and forgiving any minor oversights. Chris asked me about my PhD and explained he had done one too, a long time ago, in Philosophy. I asked him what it was about, and he replied with a slightly pained expression common to all who have been subjected to the torture of writing PhDs theses.

“Deep Ecology”

We sat with our feet dangling off the ledge, cradling our ropes, now a mass of tangled organised chaos resting on top of our knees, sharing ideas about the inherent worth of human beings compared to animals. As is so often the case with climbers, we had more in common than an inexplicable desire to haul ourselves up rock faces. The philosophy that Chris described, that argued humans were a form of animal, with no more or less worth than other animals, summarised my world view. I left validated. We are not special, we are just another animal, scrabbling for survival.

Water drank, salt washed from our eyes, it was time for Chris to climb higher. He set up the wall with his climbing gear jingling like a bunch of keys punctuating our presence in the solitude of the magnificent rock basin. Suddenly, unannounced from above, rocks came hurtling down the face and Chris screamed to press my body into the wall. I quickly leapt up from my ledge perch, and span my shaking body face forwards to hug the cliff. I screwed my eyes together in a desperate attempt to block out the reality of the rocks whistling past my head behind me. I heard the whooshes and echoes of falling debris disturbing the afternoon silence. Relieved, I heard the rocks roll down the foothills and come to rest, rumbling in the distance. The brief calm that followed was short lived.

“I think I have gone the wrong way” Chris announced. Craning my neck upwards, squinting to make Chris out in the brilliant afternoon light, I saw him peering uneasily to the right and the left of the climb, trying to locate handholds and footholds, trying to discover the route onwards. Rock fall happens when you are climbing, so I hadn’t been too worried, but putting two and two together, I realised with growing panic that maybe the rocks had fallen because Chris had come across an unstable section of the wall. Suddenly I became very aware of our precarious position, me stood on a ledge 50m above the ground, and him, carefully holding a thin lip of granite 20m above. I realised that we couldn’t move down from this point, the only way was up. I translated Chris’s calm ‘going the wrong way’ to mean that the safe route he had planned was now non-existent. We were climbing blindly up a mountain face, not sure if the route we were on would actually lead anywhere, not sure if it was even possible to reach the top from where we were.

Eventually Chris found a position on the rock to make himself safe. I quickly raced up to meet him. My rucksack was feeling heavier and my heart beating more and more wildly as I saw the limited places to place protective gear around us. I was engulfed by a wave of realisation of the danger Chris had been in when he had been climbing and hoped he had secured himself at the belay above. Relieved to meet him again, I tried to absorb his calm energy though I started to question how we would get off the route. The last droplets of water evaporating under the intense sun formed a wobbling mirage that distorted my vision and amplified my uncertainty. I no longer appreciated the views and instead eager to feel solid ground under my feet again. I was suddenly jealous of the ant sized day hikers meandering in the foothills below.

“We’ve definitely gone off route” Chris mused reflectively, studying his dog eared cryptic guidebook.

“Will we be OK?!

“I don’t know” Chris stated bluntly in a somehow reassuring manner. Or maybe that was my blind interpretative optimism. “I will just have to keep going, but I don’t know if there is a way up from here.”

He set off cautiously, gingerly, slowly, creeping up the rock, balancing on miniscule edges of rock and frantically feeling for the route. I held my breath, trying to push out images of the news report announcing our death. Why had I taken this risk? Why was I up here? I made silent promises never to climb again if I made it up.

It didn’t take long for Chris to turn round, and smile, beaming hope, positivity and good feelings for my future. He had found the route again. We would be OK. We would make it. We were going to be fine.

As we topped out of the climb a few hours later, the sun started to lower in the skyand offered us some blissful relief from the heat. I surveyed the 360 degree panoramic views from the top of the Cullin Ridge with Scottish Highlands and islands as far as the eye can see. I felt truly blessed to experience this magical vista usually concealed behind fog, mist and rains. My vows to never climb again abandoned, feeling partly silly for how scared I had been just an hour before, I was eager to get down to our group hut and share the story of our epic with the rest of the club. It was also my turn to cook dinner and there were a lot of potatoes to chop into chips for 20 mouths.

After a brief rest, we packed away the climbing gear, drank our remaining water and prepared for the hour descent. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Chris looking confused, scanning the horizon for signs of familiarity, squinting his eyes. I realised, we were lost.  He took off his glasses so that they hung about his neck on a string, and he turned to face me.

“I’m not sure I know how to get off this rock” he mused. The sun blinked high in the spring sky and then yawned, gently smiling at us to remind us there was still some time, but to go quickly. I hauled my bag onto my back, exhausted from the exposure, and followed Chris across the flat exposed rocky outcrop littered with patches of green moss, the only plant tough enough to survive the hostile surface. I scanned the horizon for other signs of life. There were birds circling above, but the only sound was a distant echo of people walking on the paths below. Maybe even people we knew. They were unreachable.

Chris’s expert eye quickly found a potential way down and we found ourselves stood above a deceptively steep scree slope comprised of a diverse mix of enormous boulders and blocks the size of fists. Having broken my feet and ankles in a sledging accident when I was 10 years old, being steady on my feet has never been something I could claim, and scree slopes were among my least favourite things, especially when burdened by a 12kg rucksack. There was no choice though, and despite my rising exhaustion, the adrenaline kicked in as we set off gingerly stepping down the moving boulder slope.

As tends to happen with scree slopes, the stones kept escaping from under me, sending mini avalanches cascading downwards in an alarming crawl. I tried to settle into a rhythm of riding the waves of stones, sliding at angles, focussing all my energy on not tumbling. We picked up pace, skidding faster and faster, eager to reach the bottom. Suddenly, my body froze. It became apparent that the reason the rocks were picking up such alarming speed was because they did not neatly roll towards the bottom of a slope, but instead, they tumbled off an 80m cliff edge, which was exactly what we were about to do if we continued to move in the flow of rubble.

Alarmed, Chris shouted me to start clambering back up the slope. Fear and panic kicked in once more as I turned around and started fighting upwards against the tide of stones pulling me backwards. Using my hands and feet to negotiate the down escalator towards doom, I exhaustedly heaved my body and rucksack, one small piece of progress at a time. It felt like an eternity, with every passing minute feeling like I may be pulled over the cliff edge. All my senses heightened as adrenaline focussed my mind. I. had. to. get. to. the. top. I. had. to. get. to. the. top.

What had got me here. Why was I here? Why did I have to keep challenging myself? Couldn’t I just be happy with safe activities, climbs at the local climbing wall, climbs at the local crag. Walks and BBQs in the local park, or pub. It was a bank holiday weekend, and I thought of my non-climbing friends in Bristol doing ‘normal’ activities. I had pushed myself my whole life, I was always trying to push my boundaries, I could never settle. I could never relax. I could never sit still. I was never enough. I always had to be more, I always had to do more. And now, here I was, in a self-made race to survive with injury or death below. In some ways, this scree slope was the physical embodiment of my lifelong to survive myself.

Out of breath, shaking, soaking wet, wide eyed, I joined Chris who was sat on a rock at the top of the scree. It had taken us three minutes to slide down the slope and over an hour to clamber upwards. The sun was nearly down and the temperature was dropping. I realised that I had not packed any warm clothes, my optimistic self that morning unable to fathom why I would need a jacket in a heat wave. All I had was a lightweight wind sheet designed for running in a breeze. As if my deprivations all attacked me at once, I also realised, whilst gasping for breath with a dry, dehydrated throat, that I had no water left. We were back on top of the Cuillin ridge, with no idea how to get down, no warm clothes, no water, fatigued beyond measure, and the sun was going down. Panic started to overwhelm me.  

I looked to Chris for reassurance. If he was nervous, he did not appear so. Then, he crouched down towards an unusually large pile of moss, and took off his rucksack. I watched him locate a hydration bladder among his climbing gear, and he gestured for me to come closer. I realised, with horror, that he was going to start squeezing the moss to fill his hydration bladder. Chris was worried. He did not look it. But squeezing moss for water could only be motivated by worry. It was immediately apparent that he was contemplating that we would not get down very soon, or worse, that we would not get down tonight. As I looked up at the cloudless sky, and around at the exposed desolate ridge, I realised that it would very quickly get very cold up here.

Unable to contain my worst-case scenario anxious thoughts any longer, I sacrificed my brave facade.

“Are we going to die, are we going to have to spend the night up here?” I blurted out, finally allowing myself permission to be outwardly afraid.  

He paused squeezing the moss, and slowly raised his eyes. He made eye contact and looked at me calmly, reassuringly.

“No, I shouldn’t think so. But we should prepare ourselves for a potentially very long, very cold, and very uncomfortable night.”

I wasn’t reassured. I was cold, dehydrated, exposed, tired, delirious. I had read enough books, watched enough episodes of real-life medical dramas as a child, to know what this could mean. Yes, it was unlikely. But, if we were stuck out here, in the middle of nowhere, with no phone reception, no water, no warm clothes, then bad things could happen. I tried to take comfort from Chris, but I realised that this man would not show his true fear to me. He wanted to protect me. This was not the sort of man who was about to succumb to spreading panic.

“I’m really, really sorry about this” He sighed sadly, as if he could read my mind. 

I managed to surprise myself with how well I swallowed down fear. I was infamous in my climbing club for my frequent vocalising of every type of anxious thought that happened to cross my mind, resulting in a veritable sing song of worst-case scenario catastrophising punctuated with colourful swearwords every time I tried to lead a climb. On this occasion I solemnly realised that vocalising was a waste of energy that I could ill afford. I wanted to follow Chris’s example. This process also started a cycle of terror within as I realised that Chris was probably supressing his inner fears too, as I was trying to do with mine, and I had no idea how much danger he thought we were in.

I knew that we were at risk, but I had no idea how to assess the danger. My inexperience meant that I was completely dependent on Chris to get us down from the mountain, just as I had been to climb safely on the face. Here I was, having handed over my life to a man I had not known for more than a few days. Here we were, going through a potential life or death ordeal in the fading light on the Cuillin Ridge, watching the moon fighting to rise in the soft blue light of the encroaching night.

We set off, focussed, and searched the perimeter for potential routes down the crag. Suddenly, Chris pointed out an almost indistinguishable cairn on the horizon. My inexperience showing, I did not even really comprehend what this meant for us but was buoyed by the change in Chris’s demeanour. He jogged across to the cairn and quickly located several more of these obvsymbols of hope. Cairns, man-made piles of stones, are used as markers for summits, peaks and beauty spots but also way marks for routes and paths. Chris’s eyes darted around trying to find signs and although there was an abundance of possible faint indistinguishable lines snaking across the rubble, he latched onto one, and we moved quickly.

The fear of losing my life was as over as soon as it had started; we saw the way down. I experienced a surge of complex feelings of relief mixed with shame at the now irrational despair I had felt seconds previously. We stood in silence and peered over the edge of the ridge, seeing a steep but descendible hillside that gave way into a grassy ridge, with a clear view of the grass melting into the ground below. We could walk down this. We were going to make it. I suddenly felt very stupid, maybe I had imagined the risk to our lives. Maybe it was dramatic and overblown for me to have been as panicked as I was. I was always panicking unnecessarily, this was typical. I hoped Chris didn’t think I was stupid.

Chris turned to me, and to my surprise, he gave me the type of hug that betrayed how worried he had really been. We stood on the top of the Cuillins for a few moments longer with tears in our eyes, before setting off eagerly back to the hut. The exhaustion, dehydration, hunger and fear seemed a distant memory already, as a new found energy powered us effortlessly down the slope and back to the walking trail we last scrambled up nearly 18 hours ago. The sun set fast and the moon rose in the twinkling night vista. I appreciated every plant, lake and tree and my feet gratefully soaked up the relief of being connected to a solid floor. I was alive.

I have never felt more alive, a gift that activities like climbing in the mountains bestows upon you. In moments where you are forced to face possible death, suddenly you become grateful for every moment on earth, every flower that blooms, every crisp night sky. You want the opportunity to live, to exist in nature, you would give anything just to feel that too often taken for granted joy at being alive and being safe. Only by being so close to death can you appreciate the act of living.

In this state of joy, we arrived back to the hut and I realised with a sinking feeling that I had forgotten that it was my turn to cook. The hut was quiet, and the washing up was piled up on the side for someone else (me). Dinner had already been cooked. Life, reassuringly went on. No one had been worried. Climbers taking longer than they say they will be was considered part of the course, and judging from the disapproving looks of the people who had been reluctantly forced to chop all my potatoes, there seemed to be a feeling that our delay had been orchestrated to avoid the housework. I looked at Chris to contemplate whether he was capable of this deception. I have no answers.

Four years later, I found out that Chris had died of cancer. I had never seen him again, but the memories of our trip were in my heart and had made me love the world, life, and mountains more than ever. My potentially near-death experience on Skye is a story that I retell time and time again. Two strangers. Our journey together taught me the power of being brave, being kind, trusting others, never giving up hope, and to always take extra warm layers, a survival bag and water on any adventure.