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It is, perhaps, the defining element of ‘adventure’ – the possibility that it could all go horribly pear-shaped at any moment. The chance that one’s jolly wilderness escapade can turn, in the fraction of a second, into a ghastly Touching The Void/Franklin Expedition/The Worst Journey In The World horror story lurks like a hairy ogre over any adventurous endeavour; baring its teeth in a terrible grin and rubbing its hands with anticipatory schadenfreude.
There is, perhaps, something slightly worrying about that part of human nature that makes us seek out such situations. As a young boy, a significant factor in the attractiveness (for example) of canoeing a river in the deepest wilderness, was the remote chance that I might end up lost in the back of beyond, equipped with nothing but a big knife and my wits, and having to supplement my diet with the slower and more succulent members of the boating party. Indeed, as a youngster, I was to be regularly disappointed by the monotonous predictability of a world where our Scout Troop always returned from camp with the same number of small boys it had left with.
As an adult, the often long and intricate fantasies of childhood have become condensed to fleeting moments of whimsy where, for example, the plane I am on crashes and I, and the shapely raven-haired beauty in seat 16C, become stranded in the wilderness below with nothing but the fridge from business class and our wits to sustain us until we are conveniently rescued one week later.
Whatever the daydreams are, they are still a feature of my imagination and I believe they reveal a latent desire to be in a situation where one’s mettle is tested to the maximum, preferably in the close company of raven haired beauties, fillet steaks and a plentiful supply of a finely balanced merlot. What’s more, I believe that most people who search for adventure have the same secret longing to prove they are made of the right stuff, even if it is only to themselves. I like to believe Ray Mears occasionally thinks to himself, "Bloody Hell; thirty years of survival training and not one air-crash, ship-wreck or otherwise transport related marooning. Even a winter’s day power-cut would be something. Some people have all the bad luck."
The good (or bad, depending on your point of view) thing about adventure is that if you look for it often enough it will eventually, and inevitably, rear up and bite you in the ass. There is a well-worn expression, involving jugs and wells and the relative likelihood of those jugs of higher mileage becoming shards of pottery on the kitchen floor, that sums up the situation very nicely. Essentially it boils down to this: the more you go to the well, the more likely it is you will have a ‘Touching The Void’ moment.
Even my own, relatively pedestrian, pursuit of adventure has resulted in a fair collection of bangs, thuds, screams and whimpers. I’ve fallen out of things, into things and off things. Been hit by things, bitten by things and been given diarrhoea by things. I’ve been lost in the Thar desert equipped with only a bath towel and a roll of toilet paper; nearly drowned in an Australian rip-tide; been chased by a pack of murderous dogs in Bulgaria; charged by sacred cows twice; fallen through a cornice; caught in an avalanche; attacked by a parrot and had a spider the size of a labrador puppy crawl across my face.
I’ve had to fix my car in the Moroccan wilderness while suffering from a catastrophic bout of the skitters; been ripped off in eight different languages; lost nearly three stone to an un-named malady picked up in India and had to prematurely end the trip of a lifetime because the local warlords decided they hadn't shot anyone in a while.
Motorcycles seem to be a particularly rich source of adventure related catastrophe. I’ve had more breakdowns than I care to remember and one cruel commentator has suggested I've had more motorcycle crashes than girlfriends. Although, to be fair, I have crashed my bikes into a Norwegian ditch, a Romanian van, a Moroccan car, Saharan sand-dunes, another Scottish motorcycle and verges of multiple nationality. I once had to push 200 kg of broken-down motorcycle for 13 kilometres under the Turkish sun with only half a pint of water to slake my thirst. All those stories I read as a boy; of tongues swelling up like potatoes and ringing sounds in the ears, turned out to be true.
Now, it might seem that all of the above could be explained simply by a predilection towards haplessness on my own part, but I have lots of friends who’s lives are a similar litany of calamity and carelessness. They have broken their ankles, arms, ribs and even their necks. They’ve torn ligaments and tendons and smashed in their teeth. They’ve been stretchered off mountains, plucked from the sea by the RNLI and rescued by RAF helicopters. They have crashed things, smashed things, bashed things and mashed things. They are, in short, equally as accident prone as I am.
And here’s the rub: none of my friends are idiots. None of them are guilty of being ill-prepared or inexperienced in their pursuit of adventure. It’s just that they are the jugs that go most often to the well, and so suffer the risks accordingly.
My own ‘Touching The Void’ moment occurred in 1999. I was in Wanaka in New Zealand for the winter season, engaged in the constructive pursuit of being ‘un vagabond du surf’ ( a snowboard bum). One night, towards the end of the season, some friends and me were in one of the two pubs that the town boasted, discussing a hard day on the slopes. It had been a good season, if not a great one - there had been just enough snow to keep the piste in good condition and the off-piste fun. For those willing to hike, there had been great snow out the back of Treble Cone.
As we sat there, nursing our beers and talking about what we would do and where we would go when the winter ended, the rain began to fall outside. A light drizzle at first, it soon coagulated into a steady downpour - gurgling down the drains and splashing off the pavements.
"You think it’ll be cold enough to be falling as snow on the hill?" someone asked.
"Dunno, what’s the temperature here? About eight or nine degrees?"
"Well, they reckon you lose a degree for every 100 metres in altitude, so yes, it must be dumping up there."
We looked at each other and grinned; the season wasn’t quite over yet! As the night wore on, the rain became snow and fell thickly in big, soft flakes all over the town. Gradually, the pub started to fill up. People who had decided to spend the night watching TV, reading or otherwise saving their pennies, had decided they must go out. The heavy snow that was falling in a constant swirling mass was something to be shared. You couldn't stay in on a night like this - you had to go out and meet friends and talk about tomorrow. By midnight the pub was packed with laughing, excited people. Skiers and boarders who knew that tomorrow would be epic. Tomorrow would be a day to remember.
We were on the hill early the following day, desperate to be the first on the untracked snow. Each lift we took opened up new areas and we seemed to be getting endless fresh tracks. The hill was busy, to be sure, but there seemed to be enough freshies for everyone. It was a wonderfully heady, exciting experience.
At last, the moment we had been waiting for finally came: ski-patrol opened the top T-bar. A whole new area of fresh, steep off-piste was opened up and we jumped at the chance to rip it up. As we dismounted the T-bar at the top, we looked down on crisp, open fields of untouched powder. There was a blue sky above and perfect snow at our feet. All caution was forgotten as we took off - flying figures tearing up long rooster tails of snow behind us. I was out in front feeling as strong and confident as I've ever felt. I was the master of my situation, the best rider I had ever been - the best I would ever be.
The problem with convex slopes is you can't see what's coming. The problem with being young and dumb and brimming with confidence is that you think you are the master of any situation. I can still see it - that fraction of a second. The brief moment of realisation as the killer appears. You can't do anything. You try, but it's pointless. Fate is coming for you, come what may - open space where there should be mountainside.
The next thing I knew I was lying face down in the snow. Unspeakable pain raging up and down my back. I couldn't move; partly because of the pain and partly because I was securely fastened to 162 cm of Burton snowboard. There were people around me - voices I recognised, but I couldn't tell you who they were, I still couldn't. I don't know if that's because I was drifting in and out of consciousness or because my mind has blanked out the memory.
At last I was shuffled carefully onto a sledge which was attached to the back of a snowmobile. That journey back to the ski centre seemed to last for an eternity. They were probably taking it extremely slowly, but it felt like they were hammering along over the bumpiest parts of the piste. I fought the desire to tell them to slow down.
In the ski-centre the resident Doctor pumped me full of drugs and told me everything was going to be OK. He pinched my toe.
"Can you feel that?"
"I don't know."
I couldn't feel anything but the butcher's knife currently twisting and turning in the small of back. I fought the desire to tell the Doctor I was scared.
The drugs took hold. the pain didn't go completely, it just became manageable. It was a half hour helicopter ride to the hospital in Dunedin. All I can remember is staring up through the window at the sun flickering in the blades of the rotor and thinking: "I'm not insured. This is going to be expensive."
Suddenly I was in the Emergency Room, lying on a stretcher bed. They needed to x-ray me, they explained. It would invovle rolling me onto my side. I nodded. That sounded OK. They rolled me. It wasn't OK. A sudden, savage surge of pain bit into my back causing me to vomit. As I vomited the muscles in my my back went into spasm causing another surge of pain - which made me vomit, which made the muscles in my back spasm... a horrible circle of agony. All the time I wondered if at any moment my spinal cord would finally tear, leaving me paralysed. It was, without a doubt, the most frightening moment of my life.
When they had finished I felt like crying. Would they let me go now? Could I just go and sleep? I was incredibly tired. However, I had one last question:
"Do you think my spinal cord is damaged?" I asked a man in a white coat.
"Can you feel your feet mate?"
"I think so."
"Then I reckon you'll be fine."
And I was. A week later, securely trussed in a back support and hobbling on crutches to keep the weight off my vertebrae, I was ready to leave the hospital. I'd had my fill of mince and tatties and ice cream and jelly and morphine enhanced Tom and Jerry. My Aussie mate Stuart had come to pick me up and I was ready to go home.
I stopped at reception and told the nurse I was leaving.
"Do I, um... owe you you anything?" I asked, nervously thinking about half hour helicopter rides and week long stays in hospital.
"I dunno." She said. "Hang on, I'll just go and check..."
As she dissappeared on the hunt for someone who might have a bill for me, Stuart looked across at me.
"How fast can you move on those things, mate?"
It was six weeks before I could fly home, and even then I had to lie flat for the duration of the flight. It was five months before I was fully recovered. Six months after breaking my back, I climbed out of the cable car at Brevent in Chamonix. On my first run, a sharp twinge of pain shot through my back at the point it had been broken. But it was a reminder only, a little warning from my subconscious not to go to hard, not to be too confident - not to ride too fast when I didn't know what was coming.
A little while later someone asked me-
"So, when did you decide you were going to ride again?"
And I had to answer honestly.
"You know, it never occured to me that I wouldn't."
Because, no matter what we do, no matter how modest or extreme our personal adventures might be, danger is a significant factor in their appeal. To try to avoid all risk is to miss the point of adventure itself. Indeed, to give up doing something you love because the risk has become unavoidably apparent, is to admit you hadn't properly assessed the risks in the first place. As anyone who is partial to a spot of adventure will tell you, with risk comes enormous reward. While breaking my back remains the most horrible experience of my life, it was worth it.
It was worth it for the numberless days of waist deep powder, the steep descents of tight, cold couloirs in the mountain's shadow. Worth it for the nights in snow-holes and the freindships earned. Worth it for the deep blue skies over blazing white snow-fields. Worth it for the days of my life that are etched in my memory forever.
There is, perhaps, something slightly worrying about that part of human nature that makes us seek out such situations. As a young boy, a significant factor in the attractiveness (for example) of canoeing a river in the deepest wilderness, was the remote chance that I might end up lost in the back of beyond, equipped with nothing but a big knife and my wits, and having to supplement my diet with the slower and more succulent members of the boating party. Indeed, as a youngster, I was to be regularly disappointed by the monotonous predictability of a world where our Scout Troop always returned from camp with the same number of small boys it had left with.
As an adult, the often long and intricate fantasies of childhood have become condensed to fleeting moments of whimsy where, for example, the plane I am on crashes and I, and the shapely raven-haired beauty in seat 16C, become stranded in the wilderness below with nothing but the fridge from business class and our wits to sustain us until we are conveniently rescued one week later.
Whatever the daydreams are, they are still a feature of my imagination and I believe they reveal a latent desire to be in a situation where one’s mettle is tested to the maximum, preferably in the close company of raven haired beauties, fillet steaks and a plentiful supply of a finely balanced merlot. What’s more, I believe that most people who search for adventure have the same secret longing to prove they are made of the right stuff, even if it is only to themselves. I like to believe Ray Mears occasionally thinks to himself, "Bloody Hell; thirty years of survival training and not one air-crash, ship-wreck or otherwise transport related marooning. Even a winter’s day power-cut would be something. Some people have all the bad luck."
The good (or bad, depending on your point of view) thing about adventure is that if you look for it often enough it will eventually, and inevitably, rear up and bite you in the ass. There is a well-worn expression, involving jugs and wells and the relative likelihood of those jugs of higher mileage becoming shards of pottery on the kitchen floor, that sums up the situation very nicely. Essentially it boils down to this: the more you go to the well, the more likely it is you will have a ‘Touching The Void’ moment.
Even my own, relatively pedestrian, pursuit of adventure has resulted in a fair collection of bangs, thuds, screams and whimpers. I’ve fallen out of things, into things and off things. Been hit by things, bitten by things and been given diarrhoea by things. I’ve been lost in the Thar desert equipped with only a bath towel and a roll of toilet paper; nearly drowned in an Australian rip-tide; been chased by a pack of murderous dogs in Bulgaria; charged by sacred cows twice; fallen through a cornice; caught in an avalanche; attacked by a parrot and had a spider the size of a labrador puppy crawl across my face.
I’ve had to fix my car in the Moroccan wilderness while suffering from a catastrophic bout of the skitters; been ripped off in eight different languages; lost nearly three stone to an un-named malady picked up in India and had to prematurely end the trip of a lifetime because the local warlords decided they hadn't shot anyone in a while.
Motorcycles seem to be a particularly rich source of adventure related catastrophe. I’ve had more breakdowns than I care to remember and one cruel commentator has suggested I've had more motorcycle crashes than girlfriends. Although, to be fair, I have crashed my bikes into a Norwegian ditch, a Romanian van, a Moroccan car, Saharan sand-dunes, another Scottish motorcycle and verges of multiple nationality. I once had to push 200 kg of broken-down motorcycle for 13 kilometres under the Turkish sun with only half a pint of water to slake my thirst. All those stories I read as a boy; of tongues swelling up like potatoes and ringing sounds in the ears, turned out to be true.
Now, it might seem that all of the above could be explained simply by a predilection towards haplessness on my own part, but I have lots of friends who’s lives are a similar litany of calamity and carelessness. They have broken their ankles, arms, ribs and even their necks. They’ve torn ligaments and tendons and smashed in their teeth. They’ve been stretchered off mountains, plucked from the sea by the RNLI and rescued by RAF helicopters. They have crashed things, smashed things, bashed things and mashed things. They are, in short, equally as accident prone as I am.
And here’s the rub: none of my friends are idiots. None of them are guilty of being ill-prepared or inexperienced in their pursuit of adventure. It’s just that they are the jugs that go most often to the well, and so suffer the risks accordingly.
My own ‘Touching The Void’ moment occurred in 1999. I was in Wanaka in New Zealand for the winter season, engaged in the constructive pursuit of being ‘un vagabond du surf’ ( a snowboard bum). One night, towards the end of the season, some friends and me were in one of the two pubs that the town boasted, discussing a hard day on the slopes. It had been a good season, if not a great one - there had been just enough snow to keep the piste in good condition and the off-piste fun. For those willing to hike, there had been great snow out the back of Treble Cone.
As we sat there, nursing our beers and talking about what we would do and where we would go when the winter ended, the rain began to fall outside. A light drizzle at first, it soon coagulated into a steady downpour - gurgling down the drains and splashing off the pavements.
"You think it’ll be cold enough to be falling as snow on the hill?" someone asked.
"Dunno, what’s the temperature here? About eight or nine degrees?"
"Well, they reckon you lose a degree for every 100 metres in altitude, so yes, it must be dumping up there."
We looked at each other and grinned; the season wasn’t quite over yet! As the night wore on, the rain became snow and fell thickly in big, soft flakes all over the town. Gradually, the pub started to fill up. People who had decided to spend the night watching TV, reading or otherwise saving their pennies, had decided they must go out. The heavy snow that was falling in a constant swirling mass was something to be shared. You couldn't stay in on a night like this - you had to go out and meet friends and talk about tomorrow. By midnight the pub was packed with laughing, excited people. Skiers and boarders who knew that tomorrow would be epic. Tomorrow would be a day to remember.
We were on the hill early the following day, desperate to be the first on the untracked snow. Each lift we took opened up new areas and we seemed to be getting endless fresh tracks. The hill was busy, to be sure, but there seemed to be enough freshies for everyone. It was a wonderfully heady, exciting experience.
At last, the moment we had been waiting for finally came: ski-patrol opened the top T-bar. A whole new area of fresh, steep off-piste was opened up and we jumped at the chance to rip it up. As we dismounted the T-bar at the top, we looked down on crisp, open fields of untouched powder. There was a blue sky above and perfect snow at our feet. All caution was forgotten as we took off - flying figures tearing up long rooster tails of snow behind us. I was out in front feeling as strong and confident as I've ever felt. I was the master of my situation, the best rider I had ever been - the best I would ever be.
The problem with convex slopes is you can't see what's coming. The problem with being young and dumb and brimming with confidence is that you think you are the master of any situation. I can still see it - that fraction of a second. The brief moment of realisation as the killer appears. You can't do anything. You try, but it's pointless. Fate is coming for you, come what may - open space where there should be mountainside.
The next thing I knew I was lying face down in the snow. Unspeakable pain raging up and down my back. I couldn't move; partly because of the pain and partly because I was securely fastened to 162 cm of Burton snowboard. There were people around me - voices I recognised, but I couldn't tell you who they were, I still couldn't. I don't know if that's because I was drifting in and out of consciousness or because my mind has blanked out the memory.
At last I was shuffled carefully onto a sledge which was attached to the back of a snowmobile. That journey back to the ski centre seemed to last for an eternity. They were probably taking it extremely slowly, but it felt like they were hammering along over the bumpiest parts of the piste. I fought the desire to tell them to slow down.
In the ski-centre the resident Doctor pumped me full of drugs and told me everything was going to be OK. He pinched my toe.
"Can you feel that?"
"I don't know."
I couldn't feel anything but the butcher's knife currently twisting and turning in the small of back. I fought the desire to tell the Doctor I was scared.
The drugs took hold. the pain didn't go completely, it just became manageable. It was a half hour helicopter ride to the hospital in Dunedin. All I can remember is staring up through the window at the sun flickering in the blades of the rotor and thinking: "I'm not insured. This is going to be expensive."
Suddenly I was in the Emergency Room, lying on a stretcher bed. They needed to x-ray me, they explained. It would invovle rolling me onto my side. I nodded. That sounded OK. They rolled me. It wasn't OK. A sudden, savage surge of pain bit into my back causing me to vomit. As I vomited the muscles in my my back went into spasm causing another surge of pain - which made me vomit, which made the muscles in my back spasm... a horrible circle of agony. All the time I wondered if at any moment my spinal cord would finally tear, leaving me paralysed. It was, without a doubt, the most frightening moment of my life.
When they had finished I felt like crying. Would they let me go now? Could I just go and sleep? I was incredibly tired. However, I had one last question:
"Do you think my spinal cord is damaged?" I asked a man in a white coat.
"Can you feel your feet mate?"
"I think so."
"Then I reckon you'll be fine."
And I was. A week later, securely trussed in a back support and hobbling on crutches to keep the weight off my vertebrae, I was ready to leave the hospital. I'd had my fill of mince and tatties and ice cream and jelly and morphine enhanced Tom and Jerry. My Aussie mate Stuart had come to pick me up and I was ready to go home.
I stopped at reception and told the nurse I was leaving.
"Do I, um... owe you you anything?" I asked, nervously thinking about half hour helicopter rides and week long stays in hospital.
"I dunno." She said. "Hang on, I'll just go and check..."
As she dissappeared on the hunt for someone who might have a bill for me, Stuart looked across at me.
"How fast can you move on those things, mate?"
It was six weeks before I could fly home, and even then I had to lie flat for the duration of the flight. It was five months before I was fully recovered. Six months after breaking my back, I climbed out of the cable car at Brevent in Chamonix. On my first run, a sharp twinge of pain shot through my back at the point it had been broken. But it was a reminder only, a little warning from my subconscious not to go to hard, not to be too confident - not to ride too fast when I didn't know what was coming.
A little while later someone asked me-
"So, when did you decide you were going to ride again?"
And I had to answer honestly.
"You know, it never occured to me that I wouldn't."
Because, no matter what we do, no matter how modest or extreme our personal adventures might be, danger is a significant factor in their appeal. To try to avoid all risk is to miss the point of adventure itself. Indeed, to give up doing something you love because the risk has become unavoidably apparent, is to admit you hadn't properly assessed the risks in the first place. As anyone who is partial to a spot of adventure will tell you, with risk comes enormous reward. While breaking my back remains the most horrible experience of my life, it was worth it.
It was worth it for the numberless days of waist deep powder, the steep descents of tight, cold couloirs in the mountain's shadow. Worth it for the nights in snow-holes and the freindships earned. Worth it for the deep blue skies over blazing white snow-fields. Worth it for the days of my life that are etched in my memory forever.
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