‘You’ve gone quiet,’ Erica said as they pulled in. ‘Nervous?’
‘A bit.’
She put a hand on his leg and squeezed. ‘Don’t be. There’s really no need. There’s no actual danger up there. It’s all about the line of sight. It’s deceptive. Makes you think there are cliff edges where there are none. You can follow me if you like, when we get up there.’
He nodded.
‘Remember, Adam,’ she said. ‘It’s never as bad up close as it looks from afar.’
19
There was one other car in the small, dusty parking lot, but no sign of its occupants. They swung on their packs, picked their way along the smooth rock of a dry waterfall, and soon they were on their way.
The route to Strawberry Peak, for those taking the mountaineers’ path, began in a ravine called Colby Canyon. In winter months, when there wasn’t a drought, this canyon featured a wide, shallow stream, collecting into rocky pools in places, and fed by cascading waterfalls that had carved smooth-walled funnels into the canyon’s sides.
When Erica and Adam entered it, it was tinder-dry. The canyon’s high walls offered some shade, though, and at that time in the morning the air was cold rather than cool. Adam’s hands felt bony, his skin taut and his limbs brittle. His left leg was stiff and slightly painful.
He followed Erica as they climbed the side of the canyon in switchbacks, and soon emerged onto its upper, eastern lip. Below them, quite suddenly, was a long drop down to the canyon floor – far enough to make Adam feel a moment’s dizziness.
‘It’s gonna get hot now,’ Erica said. She walked steadily and rhythmically, picking her way along the parched, narrow path.
The mountainside rose greenly above them, and the ridge – and Strawberry Peak’s summit – soon came into view: a daunting, vertical pile of dark grey rock.
‘Doesn’t look so bad from here, right?’ Erica said, tossing him a smile.
‘It looks steep,’ Adam said.
‘It is steep. But it’s not dangerous.’
‘I believe you.’
After an hour’s hiking Erica suggested they stop for a break. Adam fished his Ziploc bag from his pack and placed it on the ground. The sun was high above them now.
‘My God,’ Erica said. ‘What did you bring?’
‘Sandwiches,’ Adam said.
‘And a boiled egg?’
‘Two. In case you wanted one.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ Erica laughed. ‘And what’s in that can?’
‘It’s mackerel.’
‘You’re so weird!’
Adam grinned. ‘It goes with my outfit.’
‘You’re like some guy in an ancient British nature documentary. In your funny hat.’
‘The Tilley hat is the greatest ever made.’
‘But your ears are tucked in!’
‘There’s one downside,’ he said. ‘Anyway, what did you bring?’
‘Energy balls.’ She produced a shiny metallic bag covered in fluorescent yellow text and containing lots of brown balls, flecked with white.
‘That’s like something from a truck stop. The hiking equivalent of trucker speed.’
‘It’s just coconut and oats and some peanut butter. They’re organic!’
‘You can keep your balls to yourself,’ he told her.
She was rummaging in his pack. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Did you only bring bottles of sparkling water? On a hike? You’re so weird!’
He wanted to lean forward and kiss her, but wasn’t quite confident enough. He was trying to convince himself when the sound of a lizard flicking away through the scrub, somewhere near his right hand, distracted him.
They fell into a happy silence as they both ate, and each drank a great deal of water.
‘I guess I’m also a little weird with snacks,’ Erica said as she packed up.
‘In what way?’
‘I’m kinda careful with sugar. As a kid I wasn’t allowed it. My parents sent me to school with raisins. I got laughed at. None of the kids wanted to swap.’
‘Oh dear,’ Adam said.
‘So I used to steal the sugar bowl and take it under my covers at night.’
‘And now you eat energy balls.’
‘Exactly. With natural sugar only,’ she said. She stood up, swung her pack on. ‘OK. Let’s get going. It’s still a long way to the top.’
‘Yes ma’am,’ Adam said.
The path steepened, and the air became hot and dry. From this point on, he knew, there’d be no cover. He was sweating freely, and he could see beads of liquid on Erica’s bare shoulders too. Her ponytail bounced above her slim neck as she walked. Adam watched her long legs, the planes of her calf muscles as she strode, the sheen of sunscreen that made them glisten.
She moved along the rocky path with a catlike grace, barely making a sound. Tall, sleek and slim, and impossible to tear his eyes from.
‘Tell me more about growing up,’ he asked her, wanting to hear her speak more. He was breathing hard now, his legs aching as they climbed the steep, zigzagging path to the ridge ahead.
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘I loved horses. I had one. I was a showjumper.’
‘Wow.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What happened to the horse?’
‘I left for college, but my parents kept him until he died. They have some land. It isn’t expensive really, in South Carolina. Not compared to here, anyway.’
‘What sort of politics are your parents into?’
‘Oh, they’re Democrats,’ she said. Then after a moment: ‘What about you?’
‘I veer around the middle,’ Adam told her.
‘Hah,’ she said. ‘Interesting.’
They were silent again, apart from their panting. When they stepped out onto the ridge beside a small, flying saucer-like water tank, they came across the occupants – Adam presumed – of the other car in the parking lot. They were a couple, or at least a man and a woman. Mid-twenties, Adam thought. The girl was sporty and skinny. She had her hands on her hips, and kept moving, birdlike, in light little steps. The man was chubby and bearded, and carried a wooden stick.
They greeted each other with nods and muted hellos.
‘Going to the top?’ the woman asked.
‘Yes,’ Adam said. Now that they’d stopped, the nerves had taken hold of him again. From here, he knew, they’d turn off the main path onto the mountaineers’ trail.
‘You guys too?’ Erica asked.
‘Yeah, exactly,’ the girl said. She was swinging her pack on, as though keen to get going.
‘Hope we all make it,’ Adam said.
‘Oh yeah, you will,’ the woman said. ‘It isn’t bad at all. I’ve done it before.’ She seemed keen for them to know this, Adam thought.
‘Well, enjoy,’ he told them.
‘You guys too.’
The couple disappeared past a bluff of rock, around which the path made a sharp turn.
‘Well,’ Erica said, smiling. ‘That’s the hard work done.’
‘Yes,’ Adam said.
He saw that she’d noticed his nerves. ‘I’m not making it up about it being safe and easy,’ she said. ‘You’ve scrambled before, right?’
‘Yes, on a very frightening ridge in Scotland.’
‘And you were fine?’
‘The advantage then was that once you were on the ridge, you either had to keep going or call mountain rescue. It turns out my fear of embarrassment narrowly outweighs my fear of very big drops.’
‘Well, that’s perfect,’ Erica said. ‘You don’t want to embarrass yourself today either.’
‘No, I don’t. I’m actually having the best day I can remember,’ Adam said, truthfully.
‘Good,’ Erica said. ‘Because now we’re at the fun part.’
The mountaineers’ path was easy to miss. In fact, Adam had initially done so on his solo attempt. It didn’t seem like the sort of place a path would be, because it ran straight up the side of a steep bank of roc
k, away from the better-used main trail.
They climbed onto it and began tracing their way up the dusty path, picking their way between bristling, dagger-like Spanish Bayonets – the botanical equivalent of a porcupine in defence mode – and scorched, sharp branches of deadened trees.
‘There was a big fire up here,’ Erica said. ‘The Station Fire, they called it. It started in La Cañada and burned a quarter of the forest.’
‘How did it start?’ Adam asked her.
‘Arsonist,’ she said. ‘It usually is, from what I’ve read.’
The path climbed steeply to a mass of vertical boulders, narrowing to a fine point above them. Once again, it reminded him of the spine of a fish. The angle up and over this obstacle was greater than forty-five degrees, and this was where he’d turned back previously.
‘This part is easy,’ Erica said. ‘Maybe fifty feet. There’s a ton of hand- and footholds.’
She turned back and grinned at him, clinging to the rock with hands and feet.
‘Ready?’
‘As I’ll ever be.’
They began hauling themselves up the rock. Adam’s heart was beating very fast. His knees were trembling, and his palms broke out in a sweat.
Great, he thought. Here I am, clinging to rock, thousands of feet in the air, drops either side of me, and the two things I need most are steady legs and dry hands.
Speed, he thought. That is the answer. The actual climbing was technically very easy. His long body enabled him to lever himself up the rocky pile very quickly. Before long, his head was by Erica’s bum.
‘Woah there,’ she said. ‘I don’t wanna kick you off this thing.’
He paused, looking upwards. Erica glanced back at him.
‘Adam,’ she said. ‘It’s OK to look down.’
He did so. The ridge was wider than he’d thought. He was placed in the centre of the rocky mass, with large boulders either side of him, blocking off any real chance of a fall. He took a deep breath.
‘It’s all in the eyeline,’ Erica said. ‘It deceives you all the way up. What looks like a sheer drop never actually is one.’
Soon, they emerged onto a wide, flat ridge – Strawberry Peak’s shoulder. Adam sucked in breath and turned slowly. The mountain feeling – that of standing on top of the earth, looking down as though from a plane – suffused him. Around them were the thousand square miles of wilderness.
‘Wow,’ he said.
‘Beautiful, huh?’
‘It’s amazing up here.’
Erica was gazing along the path ahead of them, which now ran straight along a steepening ridge to the top.
‘I think that couple must have missed the turn,’ she said.
‘Maybe they were taking the other path,’ Adam said. ‘The main one.’
‘She said they were going to the top. It’d be a very long way around to do it from the other side. Wouldn’t make any sense.’
‘Maybe we should have said something.’
‘Yeah. But she didn’t seem to want any advice,’ Erica said.
‘Yes,’ Adam said. ‘I got that feeling too.’
They set off along the ridge. Ahead of them, the scramble to the summit rose as a vertical bank of rock. Adam tried to ignore it, focusing on the softer views around his feet, or below them in the valleys.
His eye was caught by a small raptor, zooming through the air below them and banking hard, dropping and climbing, apparently playing, rather than hunting.
‘What’s that?’ he asked Erica.
‘It’s a sharp-shinned hawk,’ she said. ‘An accipiter. Looks a lot like a Cooper’s hawk. Took me years to learn how to tell the difference.’
‘And how did you? Learn, I mean.’
‘My dad. Hours out watching with him. Standing in hides with nothing happening, talking to weird old guys with telescopes. I thought I was hating it at the time, bored out of my mind. But I love it now. Those were some of the best times of my life.’
‘That’s how I feel about hiking,’ Adam said. ‘Every summer in Scouts, slogging up hills in Scotland in the rain. Slumping into stinky minibuses afterwards, steaming and exhausted. Thought I was hating it too, and now I do it for fun.’
‘Exactly,’ Erica said, smiling as she watched the aeronautic bird.
When it had disappeared, she pulled her water bottle out of her pack and drank from it, looking at him.
‘You haven’t said anything about your family,’ she said.
‘My father died ten years ago. Heart attack. My mum has quite advanced dementia and is in care in Somerset, where I’m from. I have an older sister. She’s a journalist, in Malaysia.’
Erica frowned, and broke eye contact. ‘Right. I’m so sorry,’ she said.
‘There’s no need.’
‘Don’t you miss your mom? I mean…’
‘There isn’t really a whole mum to miss.’
‘But still, I mean…’ She fell silent for a moment. ‘I’m sorry, I’m being pushy.’
‘Not at all. I should see more of her. So should my sister.’
‘You’re all so far-flung…’
‘After Dad died, there didn’t seem as much reason to do all the usual family tradition stuff. He was quite good at that. Gregarious. Without him we became a bit unmoored.’
‘You’re not close with your sister?’
‘We are and we aren’t. She’s eight years older than me. She’s very clever, and she makes me feel a bit stupid.’
She thought for a moment. ‘So your parents, they were older when they had you?’
‘Yes. I was unexpected.’
‘Cute.’
‘Do you have siblings?’ he asked her.
‘A younger brother. He likes football – the American type. And hunting and fishing. He’s a doctor too, back home in SC.’
‘Smart pair,’ Adam said.
‘I suspect he’s a Republican, so he’s maybe not that smart,’ she said. She turned back to the trail, and began picking her way along it once more.
A little while later, the ground turned rockier, until they found themselves making their way across big boulders. All too quickly, they’d reached the foot of the big summit scramble.
‘So?’ Erica said.
‘You were right,’ Adam replied. ‘It doesn’t look quite as bad up close.’
From where they were standing, Strawberry Peak’s summit looked like a massive, upturned ship’s hull built of giant granite lumps. At least, Adam thought, it wasn’t quite as narrow as it had appeared from the bottom.
‘We go pretty much straight up,’ Erica said, gripping the rocks and lifting herself onto them. Her calves strained a few inches from Adam’s eyes. When her feet were beyond the height of his head, he followed.
The climb wasn’t quite vertical, but it was near enough. As Erica had said, there were plenty of hand- and footholds. The stone was cool and dusty under his hands. His heart was beating so fast that he wondered if it was sustainable without something terrible happening in his chest.
Eyeline, he kept thinking. The bank of rock felt as though it was narrowing, space – exposure – closing in on him from either side. Before each upward pull, he was sure that he’d find himself abruptly on a cliff’s edge, a yawning drop below. Then, fear overwhelming him, he’d drag himself up to find the mountain swelling out further, more routes between the boulders that would keep him away from any drop.
Erica had paused, scanning for a direction. A big rock above her was jutting out sharply, blocking the way.
Fuck, Adam thought. His heart beat even faster. Fuck fuck fuck. I don’t like this. Stopping was much worse than going. She must have taken us the wrong way, he thought, panic rising. There’s no way around that rock…
‘To our left,’ Erica said.
There didn’t appear to be very much at all to their left. Just a few sharp rocks, and then space. Beyond that, a valley with a tiny thread of road within it, as though seen from an aeroplane.
‘Trust me,’ she said.
She levered herself up a narrow gully, gripping one of the sharp rocks and pulling herself up onto what looked like an edge. She squatted there, her buttocks and thighs spreading above his head, stretching the material of her leggings across them.
It was almost lewd, he thought, gratefully distracted by a surge of desire.
Buttocks, he thought. Focus on the buttocks, and they will keep you safe. The lovely soft buttocks are not like the horrid sharp rocks.
‘Wha… what’s up there?’ he managed to ask.
‘It’s fine, it widens out below us quite gently. We need to move back around to the right. Are you OK?’
‘Let’s keep moving,’ Adam said.
‘OK,’ she said, and disappeared behind a wide rock above.
Adam began climbing again, his limbs trembling. The same process recurred over and over. Raw fear, then the revelation that it hadn’t been quite justified. Even when he looked down, he could see an easily climbable route back to the base of the scramble.
After thirty minutes, he suddenly pulled himself over a large, shining granite lump, to what looked like a steep path, rather than a climb. Erica was standing on it, grinning.
Adam moved onto the sandy path and lowered himself, chimp-like. He could feel that his eyes were wild.
‘How much more?’ he said.
Erica laughed – a big, natural laugh that rang across the rocks.
‘Just this path now.’ She pointed. ‘That’s the top.’
‘Fuck,’ Adam said. He pushed a grey pointed tree branch out of his way, snarling at it when it sprang back into place and poked him, and set off after her. There was one more, short scramble, which he barely paused to take in, and then suddenly they stepped out onto the dusty, rocky flat of the summit.
Adam threw his hands in the air and whooped.
Erica stood watching him, a wide, astonished smile lighting up her face as he twirled and whooped and yelled.
‘Yes!’ he shouted. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’
The Edge Page 18
