The World is NOT a Dangerous Place

"Let me be clear my friends, THE WORLD IS A DANGEROUS PLACE. Let me repeat it and be even clearer on it - THE WORLD IS INDEED A VERY DANGEROUS PLACE" These words were resonating in my head, all over again. I heard them in person, during the visit to a rally for the support of the greatest Canadian Prime Minister, on August 12th. Be afraid my friends, this world is dangerous. I am the only one who can save you and make you feel safe and secure. The Prime Minister was referring to, of course, to our global "world", plagued by problems that seemingly cannot be solved. This is how I intended to begin my speech at our first meeting of 2015/2016 season. I felt that I wanted to incorporate politics and awareness - I wasn't sure indeed that this combination could work. When I rehearsed, my only adviser said that she didn't understand the connection between the prime minister, this dangerous world and my story. So, I decided not to give this speech, but as it was already written, I am publishing it here. It might make some sense to some.

Introduction

(This is how I would start my speech): Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who know my name, and know what I support, it will be easy to relax and follow my story. For those who don’t know me, my name is BB, and I am a thinker, member of a minority, and a person who lives his life in his own way. If you expected me to speak about my favourite politician, our commander in chief, the economist genius, the strategist, our Prime Minister Stephen Harper, you were wrong. No Harper story today. This is a different story. I will tell you how I learned to see again, and how I woke up from a deep sleep. 
How I rejected to stay blind. How I regrew my sense of awareness.

During our climb - lots of fun

Unfortunately, there was no commander in chief, Mr. Harper, in the vicinity, to save me, to bring me to safety, to show me his leadership qualities. I am sure that all of you understand this as part of my satirical view of Canadian politics. Of course, the world didn’t want to hurt me intentionally, the world was just there, doing the only thing it could - IT WAS JUST THERE. Smart people will understand that I am indeed talking about our world outside human influence.
Story It was 8:30 PM on August 29th, and Stephane, my climbing partner, and I were stuck on a narrow ledge on the west face of West Baldy mountain. It was getting dark, it was getting cold, the wind was blowing out of this world, we didn’t have any water left, Stephane didn’t have his prescription glasses, I didn’t have the headlamp, we were running out of slings, we were running out of food, we were tired, we’ve been on the mountain since the early morning….we were lost. Nobody knew where we were, our SPOT device stopped emitting a signal, we didn’t have prusiks to try to climb back up, and we were running out of rope. West Baldy is not a big mountain. It is close to Calgary, just by highway 40, across Barrier Lake. You can see its mother peak, Mt.Baldy, when driving to Banff, just off the casino. It is in our backyard.

During our climb we practiced skills we needed

We were on a ledge and we didn’t know if 60 m of our rope would be sufficient for our next rappel. 

We almost run out of rope once, and had to improvise a mid cliff rappel. 

I can tell you the feeling that is produced when you can see that the end of rope is closer and closer, and that the rope might not be long enough…...
I guess Stephane could compare it to parachuting and knowing that the parachute is faulty. He was the one who rappelled first without knowing if the rope length would be sufficient. We could see our ascent ridge on the right hand side, as it seemed not that far away, but it was not possible to traverse it from our position. We had to try to go further down, and then possibly to climb up, to see if the drainage ridges would join somewhere at a higher elevation.

West Ridge is "Climber's Scramble"

We already rappelled four times, left rappel slings on the mountain, tried to get out of the drainage on the left and on the right, but each time we were denied it, as the walls were too big and the bottom was too deep. Our only option was to descend deeper into the canyon, hoping that we would find an escape route on either side. Or to climb back - but we knew that this option was not possible. All of our attempts ended with even higher walls on both sides and we had to continue down climbing.

Stephane ready to climb the crux

And after every rappel, there was the next one, longer than the previous one, and the canyon was getting deeper and steeper. We knew that there will be a moment when we won’t be able to rappel further down, as it it would become too deep and too steep. However, I always believed that we would find the path to safety if we find a spot to cross the ridge on the right hand side, as on that side, the West Baldy ridge that we climbed today, was protruding. I also knew that there was probably only one such a place on the whole mountain - as by going down, the drainage was becoming wider and steeper, and going up, it was almost vertical. I also knew that we didn’t have any choice than to find that passage. We climbed up some 20 meters, unroped, there was no time left for a “proper” climbing, we were running out of time, and somehow I felt that there must be something right above the vertical face, that Stephane tried to climb. He got up, finally after sliding numerous times, he yelled from above:”I don’t see a way from here, we’ll have to downclimb and try the side of the drainage”. I thought, “Where are you Stephen Harper? When are you coming to save us?” Poor Prime Minister - everything's his fault. Even on this ledge, on the west Baldy face, he was responsible for our troubles.

Rappelling to unknown

Let’s put joking aside - at this moment I knew that if we cannot continue to the right and up, it meant, that we would spend the night on the ledge, stuck on the west face of West Baldy. I yelled back:”Stephane, try to climb up and see what is behind, maybe there is an exit”. “I cannot even approach it”, Stephane replied. “I don’t think that there is a passage there”. I was still calm, but knew I had to push my good friend somehow, and convince him to get to the other side, and see with his own eyes if there was a lifeline for us.

Can you spot me in this picture?

“You must try it. You must go. That could be our chance”. I knew that he was thinking and analyzing. He always does. He replied that he would go, and that he would come back in 15 minutes. Next 15 minutes were long and lonely. I was stuck on the ledge, I wasn’t able to down climb, or to go up, it all depended on Stephane coming back - as he had the rope and the SPOT device, so he was the only one who could bring me up to the ridge. “The world was indeed a dangerous place”, I was repeating the words of our great Prime Minister. “How did I get here?” “What went wrong?”

• I was thinking and imagining that I was at home with Ada
• I was thinking about a coffee and Bruno’s omelette at Bruno’s.
• I was thinking about other mountains that Stephane and I did together, how we were experienced, how we knew what we were doing, majority of time :), and yet, we were walking on a very thin ice.
• I was thinking how stupid we were, to get stuck like this. I was disappointed.
• I wasn’t scared, I was completely aware of everything. I was calm and accepting.

The world indeed WAS NOT a dangerous place. It all made perfect sense. It was amazing how I got awaken from a sleep and could see again, on a such place. In such a precarious position. The world indeed WAS NOT a dangerous place. The mountain was doing only thing it knew, and that was TO BE. West Face didn’t want to injure us, to scare us, to kill us. West Face just WAS. The rock wasn’t wet and wasn’t choppy because it had some agenda against us. The rock just WAS.

Setting the last rappel

The elements, such as heavy rain, and hurricane wind didn’t even know we were there, mother nature was expressing itself, in only way it knew. The world indeed WAS NOT a dangerous place. It was us who endangered ourselves. It was us who made so many mistakes. Being still in one piece was a miracle. It didn't feel dramatic though. Everything was clear to me now. THE WORLD WAS NOT A DANGEROUS PLACE. Time was passing “faster” not because it did, but because we underestimated the mountain. We started late, at 10 AM, instead of 7 AM. We were not going to be rescued because we were too big to fail. It was us, we were dangerous to ourselves.

The picture doesn't do justice - West face that I called names :) after we were safe

I knew that so many things went wrong, and that the only people responsible for that were us. It was us, Stephane and I, who created this “dangerous world”. We were even somewhat prepared, had a rope, belay devices, slings…..but still we were too cocky and arrogant. There were at least 10 things we didn’t do properly. What do you think was the worst mistake? Some of them were rookie mistakes.

Lessons

1. We underestimated the mountain. “It is just there”. “We can do it in no time”. “It is not even 900 vertical meters”. The lesson learned here is: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE MOUNTAIN.
2. We didn’t research our descent route. We ignored the warnings written by other climbers that there was “no easy way down”. We even didn’t descent using preferred routes - we chose our own route. The lesson learned here is: RESEARCH DESCENT ROUTES AND DESCEND FOLLOWING A RECOMMENDED ROUTE.
3. We descended the West Face, and kept descending it, even though we didn’t know what was coming, what was below us. And we ended up on the cliffs. The lesson learned here is: DON’T DESCEND TO AN UNKNOWN AREA. 
4. Nobody knew where we were. We didn’t leave a detailed description of our ascent and descent routes to our better halves. We only told them that we’ll be climbing the West Ridge. Lesson learned: STICK WITH THE PLAN THAT IS COMMUNICATED TO SOMEONE (ANYONE) WHO COULD LET RESCUE PARTIES KNOW WHERE TO SEARCH. LET PEOPLE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING AND TELL THEM WHEN YOU"LL BE BACK.
5. “Minor” lessons (6-12): 
6. (Always) Carry a “normal” prescription glasses. Stephane only had a dark, sun glasses that are prescription glasses at the same time. When it got dark he couldn’t see well anymore, and that was an issue..
7. (Always) Carry the maximum amount of water (in camel water-pack) if going to dry, waterless area. We ran out of water - we only had 2 deciliters of Powerade...
8. Research water sources on the mountain before you climb it, especially if the mountain is the dry one.
9. (Always) Carry extra tapes and webbings if rock climbing (descending).
10. (Always) Carry an extra food.
11. (Always) Carry a headlamp.
12. DO NOT separate when not able to see each other, especially if one of us has a lifeline(s)

Stephane got back after 10 minutes. “I think we can make it”, he yelled. "There is a steep bridge on the other side that we can walk on, and then we can rappel to the bottom and walk to the ascent ridge”.

Our descent route is in red colour.

We were at the car 1.5 hrs later. We were enveloped into darkness. The wind wasn’t blowing that hard, and the sky was clear. There was no smoke anymore. We were safe.

Let me be clear my Friends, The world is not a dangerous place, it is us, humans who are dangerous. To Ourselves and to the World.