Sygno – The Hard Way

As it happened one day, in a country far north, two middle aged men were driving into Sandnes’ greater ranges with no special mission other than to spend some time together – and climb.

By Cinder Beau and Stewart Foxhome

Restless and indifferent as they were, they hadn’t even decided where to go or what to climb, they just drove and talked, mostly about music and women and climbing – the main subjects in life (in random order as it is impossible to rank them). After passing through the village of Burnland, Stewart pointed at a large mountain appearing on the horizon. “Why not climb that one” he said, slowing down the speed to let his fellow companion Cinder have a look.

 “Yes indeed, why not” his friend replied, and they both eagerly started looking sideways and chatting about what kind of adventure this might result in. Climbing routes is fun, but climbing new routes is the real adventure, heading into the unknown, where no man earlier has trodden, not knowing what to expect – this is the real deal, the right stuff or as the wannabe youngster might put it: Climbing new routes is the Shit.

When they passed the Burnland church, one of them got the 1000 yard stare and fell into deep thoughts. “I’d rather be in the mountains thinking of God, than in church thinking about the mountains.”

The other one frowned and replied: “We are apes – we should be climbing.” “You’re an ape”, said the first one. “And the evidence for that is found in your lack of insight into the metaphysical aspects of life. If there is no higher meaning with these empty lives of ours, why not just resort to hedonism and exploitation? What is the point in any achievement at all, if not set in a greater context? Why on earth should we go through the adversities and dangers of climbing that mountain in front of us, for example?”

“I think that’s rather obvious: Because it’s there.”

There wasn’t much more to say about that. Joyfully they parked the car, and then with a bit more devotion they sorted through their equipment, this ritual every rope team must go through as an symbolic act before they tie in. “Today we can use my equipment” Stewart insisted, while Cinder, the more experienced one, answered thoughtfully: “Certainly my friend, but I insist we bring my 3-cams and micro nuts, I sense that these slabs are compact and scarcely protected.”

The walk-in went in silence, both of them thoughtful, not knowing what to expect. But soon they forgot what was waiting for them and returned to the basics: Women, music and climbing.

“A first ascent, could you by any means compare that to making love to a new woman” Cinder asked into the blue, while Stewart nodded cheerfully.

“In the old days we might say “virgin”, but they are even scarcer than unclimbed routes these days,” Stewart replied, and they both laughed heartily as they started to cross The Burnland Falls, stepping carefully on slippery rocks, watching with fear as the white water thundered past them.

“I feel we are touching the void here” Steward said as he jumped across the lethal depths with a grim expression on his face. He turned around to give his friend a helping hand, but Cinder was already on the safe side, avoiding the touch.

“Come on comrade, we have no time to miss, the mountain is awaiting us, and I really have to get home in time to for the nine o´clock news”. The two climbers started on the long hill up towards Mount Sygno, finally getting a closer look at todays target.

“Goodness gracious” Cinder said while slowly absorbing the huge dimension of the vertical landscape in front of them, “this must be the ugliest mountain I ever saw.” ”Looks even more uninviting than these hideous creatures”, Stewart replied, looking anxiously at the wild beasts of Burnland; giant long-ragged musks who breathed fiercely through their snouts as they were slowly approaching the two climbers. “Damn your eyes, Sir”, Cinder uttered nervously. “Well, let’s not forget the words of Hemingway: There are only three sports; bullfighting, motor racing and mountaineering. All the rest are mere games. Be a good sport now, old chap.”

After having negotiated the endless moors and marshes of the greater ranges of Burnland, while outmaneuvering their increasingly aggressive four-legged adversaries, they finally found themselves in the soothing shades of the old oak forest surrounding their destined mountain. A short scouting for a possible way up took them to a dead oak tree next to their chosen line. It reminded them of how momentary life is. Stewart said silently: “The last time I was here, I was looking for a dead body..."

“For real?” Cinder stared at his friend. A couple of seconds passed which seemed like an eternity, until Stewart finally nodded almost imperceptible while he stared deep into the ground. 

“Did you find it?!”

“No. But I found a meaning in searching.”

Unable to say any more, Stewart tied in and looked obsessively at the hideous wall, towering above them. He began his climb, one a step at a time, upwards into the light, leaving the dead tree behind him, gaining height steadily like an ox pulling a plow through the green slices in the constant shadow.

Stewart, attacking the wall in terrible style.

“Well done you old eagle” Cinder said hopefully as Stewart finally reached the light where the ruthless sun was shining. It didn’t take long before their delicate mood was overshadowed by the bottomless doubt that standing unprotected in a vertical wall can provide. This endless knot of fear that tightens in ones stomach and spreads to your limbs and brain, threatening to paralyse them all. Still, they climbed on. Mind, winning over matter.

“I chose to climb” Stewart muttered to himself. Fearing that the last pitch would be even more challenging than the first, he had insisted on the first lead. Perturbed by the sudden fact that this pitch was scarcely protected for his taste, he established a rather unpractical belay station as soon as possible, where he would be standing on a small, 45 degrees outward leaning ledge for the next 90 minutes, while the humid summer heat would make his increasingly swollen feet remind him that there is probably no pleasure equal to the pleasure of climbing a dangerous Alp, but that this is a pleasure which is confined strictly to people who can find pleasure in it.

”Safe”, he cried to his friend. Cinder, having been caught in the middle of his own thoughts somewhere between climbing, music and women, got aware that the mountains were calling and he had to go. Approaching the first belay stance, he was already enjoying the satisfaction of this first ascent. ”This is so much more than a mere sport”, he yelled. ”This is a creation; our creation, just like a painting or a song.”

They both shivered in the heat, sensing danger waiting above as they looked up the endless slabs leading to the summit, like a stairway to heaven but without stairs.

“Less is more” Cinder cried as he left the safety of the belay and ungracefully pulled on almost invisible crimps and smeared his lower extremities onto the glazed granite, or might it be gneiss? He never fully understood the difference between them, and tried to remember what his old climbing mate Grim (not the Reaper, but the Geologist) had taught him back in the days when they vagabonded the alps of southern Spain, and ended up drunk in the Alicante harbour. After that evening his brain was more or less reset and Cinder had to start all over again.

Distant memories like this went through his brain as clouds passing, while Cinder carefully climbed into the unknown, slower and slower every minute until he came to a complete stop above a narrow niche with excellent handholds and a deep layback crack. Above him waited a not so narrow slab with good friction, but unfortunately the crack ended up in shallow grooves. He hesitated, looked up, looked sideways, looked down on his sore feet and finally in search for help he looked down on his belayer who was enjoying butterflies swarming around him.

“Stewart! I don’t know what to do or where to go. My feet hurts and my life’s a mess. What a savage arena!”

“Oh dear” Stewart said silently, and then yelled up to Cinder: “It's all in your head”, ignoring the very desperate state of mind Cinder was experiencing. “Go on you warrior, don’t let me down now. Remember at the top awaits triumph! And tea and a school bun, fresh from the Hana Spar-bakery. In times like this, we cannot face tragedy!”

Cinder pulled himself together and looked yet another time in all directions, seeing nothing but a granite desert and sweat pouring down in his eyes. Or was it tears? He closed his eyes and looked inwards, into the depth of his shallow soul, searching for a solution to this Gordian knot, trying to balance the thin line in front of him and at the same time excluding the fact that his last piece of protection was countless feet below him, at least 5.

“Stewart!” he screamed.

“Yes?”

“Have you heard the Norwegian expression “angsten eter sjelen”?”

“The Norwegians?! I didn’t even know they had expressions. What does it mean?”

“I have no idea. But a Norwegian friend of mine uttered this once he was in a similar situation. I think it is suitable to say this now.”

“I guess it means “keep calm and carry on”. Please do.”

“All right. Very well then.”

Cinder leaned his exhausted body to the solid rock, expanding his arms as if trying to embrace it, but looking more or less crucified to the wall, to Sygno. Suddenly he sensed a sweet sensation to the left. His fingers could barely reach a vertical crimp, not possible to see, only feel. He followed the braille trail, climbing with a blindfold until he could reach some shallow horizontal cracks traversing leftwards, giving access to the top buttress.

“A crack! Stewart, there is a crack here! That’s where the light gets in.”

“The light cams?”

“Ummm, yes…something must fit!” Cinder said and frantically shook his nuts and cams as if he tried tried to put all his gear in at the same time. He now threw all his strength and wits into building a system of belays that probably would have filled the EU requirements for hanging his Audi A6 Avant 4,2L on the crux. Stewart smelled danger. If Cinder felt the need for this kind of protection, would he, Stewart, even be able to pass that crux? He saw his companion more or less elegantly moving past the obstacles and into the more forgiving buttress, while feeling his heart sinking. “At least Cinder will get up”, he thought. “The United Kingdom will summit, that’s what matters!”

The staggering truth was that among all the worlds mediocre climbers, Stewart was a very average mediocre one, on a good day. But on the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain, you can be nothing but honest. Either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will return the day after and go at it again. And probably fail again. But finally, after training your powers relentlessly, eating tremendous amount of biscuits and remembering Captain Scotts heroic efforts, you will succeed - almost. And most important of all, you will do it by fair means, without support and preparations and all that. When times are tough, it’s comforting to be a good sport.

Even more comforting, Cinder promised from above that he would keep a tight rope and most reassuring of all: He would under no circumstance cut it, no way! He was now out of sight, having eventually climbed the buttress of mercy. Just before reaching a comfortable ledge beneath the summit, Cinder put in a last piece of protection, a yellow 3-cam device in a slot God had carved into the very rock. With a desperate last struggle he pulled himself upon the top shelf, into thin air, feeling nothing but gratitude and thankfulness and awe. And an excruciating pain in his toes.

 

Cinder, totally stoked.

Finally he could stand up on his swollen extremities, screaming with pain, the lack of supplemental oxygen in Sygno’s death zone forcing him to breathe heavily. He looked confused around him, feeling dizzy and utterly exhausted, and suddenly noticed a young fellow appearing in front of him. A blond guy with a typical 80s haircut, donning camouflage clothes and hunting boots, smiling inspiringly. They shook hands.

“My name is Jensen. Leif Kristian Jensen”, he said, and added: “I came up from the north side.”

Cinder looked at him. The fellow had no harness or equipment. “Alone?” he asked. Leif nodded cheerfully. “I had been hunting duck on the Kylles lake. I looked at Sygno and felt the urge to climb it.”

Cinder didn’t know what to do or say, other than offering him half of his last biscuit. It was a strange encounter, as the other fellow didn’t say much at all, but he watched closely when Cinder proceeded to rig a belay station. Cinder looked at his belays, called down to Stewart “you can climb” and then looked back over his shoulder, but then the man was gone. He had vanished without a sound.

Further down the mountain, and in the depths of his doubts, Stewart tied his shoes, disassembled his belay station, and took a deep breath. He started climbing, fully fixated on the rope showing the way before himself. It went well until he came to the wide slab where Cinder had placed several belays. It was too vertical to stand firmly while removing the belays, and he was now about to tire in both hands and feet. While overly focused on removing a well stuck nut, he forgot his feet and slid pathetically off the mountain and into the void beyond. Overmanned by helplessness he cried to his friend above. Cinder responded by tightening the rope, and there Stewart hung, like a bag of potatoes out to dry.

However, when climbing the ladder of success, you can’t put your hands in your pockets and give in. After having found a close to normal heart rate, Stewart went for the crux again, fighting like a bull and this time successfully. Soon he could rejoin his friend sitting on the generous ledge, welcoming and congratulating him. They had made it.

Standing now in light, with the setting sun in their faces and wind at their back, the two suddenly experienced a feeling of completeness – not a feeling of having achieved something or of being stronger than anyone else, not a feeling of having arrived at the ultimate point, not a feeling of supremacy. Just a breath of happiness deep inside their minds and hearts.

They looked down the steep abyss they just climbed, turned their heads and followed the horizon from Bear Valley Peak to The Big Rock to The Screws Alps and finally to The Sulk where the horrible rape of the former beautiful landscape was taking place, this majestic terrain soon to become home to a row of repulsive, mastodont windmills that will act as meat grinders for every eagle that would dare to cross Burnland in the future.

Spotting the legal crimes of ordinary people.

The Sygno summit suddenly appeared to them as a refuge, and they had not expected to find any refuge up there. They turned their backs on the soon-to-be-industrialized landscape, and looked west, yonder towards the sea. “Jolly good” Cinder said, but other than that few words were exchanged between them, as anything they would say now would be an embarrassment, and a disturbance of their new-found peace.

Standing next to each other just below the Sygno peak which they chose not to ascend in respect of the local gods, Steward reached into his rucksack and pulled out his thermos. It was teatime.

Cinder, totally bossa nova.

Editors note: This story is based on true events, and as far as we remember everything happened almost exactly a described. But one thing is in fact a fact: In 1985 a young chap climbed the “north wall” of Sygno, after early morning hunting on the Kyllesvatnet just north of Sygno. He did it “free solo” but had no experience with climbing. This happening ignited a fire in young Leif, and afterwards he found and joined the local climbing club Bratte Rogalands Venner. Leif was soon to become one of Rogaland’s most experienced climbers and mountaineers, longtime Chairman of the BRV-board and later appointed to be an honorable member.