Dripping Stone

Dripping Stone

Tonsai Bay, Thailand

Noah and Zach Gostout, John Collis, myself

Last night was a prime example of the bond of mischief, risk, and camaraderie that joins us young goons.  First, the situation: after a relaxed day of cragging on the sultry coast of southern Thailand, John Collis and I decided to cap the day off by ascending a line of pockets and tufas dubbed Humanality that climbs the sheer limestone wall directly above Tonsai bay’s “Freedom Bar.”  Enter the absurd factor.  We set off at dusk with a rope and a rack of draws, monkeying up a large banyan tree slinging branches for pro and scrambling across mossy ledges to the first anchor.  The night air cool, the wall’s overhang sheltered us from the drips cascading from the jungle above.  Guided by ambient light of the bar below I let my headlamp dangle unused around my neck as I searched the soft glowing face for telltale shadows betraying pockets and edges.  Progress was rhythm, movement constant, mild fear of the vertical sharpened senses and the runnout, the dark gulf of air below, didn’t matter. 

John stoked on Humanality

Four pitches up the holds petered out.  Confronting the puzzle, sweat slicked on my limbs and ran rivulets down the sockets of my eyes.  Not until I leaned out and took in the whole situation did the next puzzle piece fall in place: smearing my feet on the polished stone I fell out, arresting downward momentum with my palm at arm’s length on the base of a gargantuan stalagtite.  Thus braced, I could stem between the slick wall and the gnurled dagger of stone.  This compressed position was secure, but the shimmer of the next bolt lay further out on the face, beyond the security of the stalagtite.  I matched hands on the one pocket within reach and beared down as my feet swung through air to the wall, strained a toe out to a tenuous smear, tightened everything and groped for an edge at arm’s reach, caught it, and leaving the previous pocket experienced a dizzying moment of balance, caught between the inertial barn-door swing into the night and the tension binding hand to foot through the curve of my spine like a drawn bow.  The moment mastered, I reached my free foot through to backstep a glassy nubbin and stood up, hugging the bulging stone, to stand secure in an alcove. 

Below, the stalagtite glowed in the bar light like a misshaped gargoyle dripping from the cliff, the mountain’s own lifeblood oozing from its craggy pores with the incessant tropical rain, but arrested in space and time by chemical wizardry.  If it weren’t this alchemy of footloose ions and monsoon rains and the tropical heat this cliff would never have sprouted such grotesque offspring; at the crux of the wall, where the holds dissapear, there would be no way to keep the rhythm upwards. 

I clipped the belay and started bringing John up, settling into the soft moment of the evening.  The cliff glows amber, bristling with fanciful creatures of dripping stone.  The melodious hum of the bar below, travelers relaxing, the banter of many tongues blend with the soft vellure of beer and rum, the crackle of chicken thighs sizzling on braziers, the bassoon croaks of frogs and primate sonatas in the surrounding jungle.  In the bay longtail boats drift at their moors, and the occasional growl of their naked engines reverberates from the islands which perch silent and black on the horizon, lit by the passage of firefly vessels. 

Even though it is night, my body is sticky with sweat.  Drops periodically run down the inner curve of my eyes, and even into my ears while pumping on the pitches.  Everything is wet or sticky somehow, cascades of drops still rain from the stalagtites that crown the cliff.  Earlier that afternoon we lay on our backs on the patio of the Freedom Bar, watching drops plummet towards us.  If you focus hard and track one in its motion you can catch it in its perfect shape, a pearl of pure water, exquisite in its geometry before obliteration on the deck. 

John makes it to the crux and gapes incredulously at the blank wall and menacing finger of stone which seems to hover in space.  He leans out to the stalagtite and finds he’s still on, and as I illuminate the holds for him he stems toward me; several hard pulls later he joins me in the alcove, dripping sweat.  We soak in the night’s ambience for a while, but the whisper of the bar below sounds inviting and we soon began our rappels. 

After gathering snarls of rope from the branches of cliff-dwelling palm trees, I looked over the edge to toss them again and was surprised to see the glistening limbs of a human scaling the wall beneath, and then I am not surprised at all, because I know before hearing his voice that it’s Noah.  “You too!”  “We have beer!”  John and I wait on the ledge as the brothers Gostout nimbly ascend the next pitch and join us.  The silence of night drifts higher above us as we crack beers, first wiping the cool bottles over our foreheads for relief.  We discover that a climbing shoe clipped to the anchor makes a fairly secure beer coozie, and the bond of mischief sizzles on the flicker-lit wall.  We toss our ropes and are rewarded by a dull thump as they hit the roof of the bar, then spin and harry each other with flying ninja kicks as we simul-rap to the bar.  As I’m shouting “off rappel” for the next two, Noah is already ordering another round. 

Again we’re on the patio aglow in the effervescence of beer and the aroma of noodles; as bottles crowd the table so do our memories emerge and fill the conversation, risks and laughs shared.  The cliff looms silent and soft above us, dripping its lifeblood off stone gargoyles to the tin roofs and patios below.  

Noah demonstrates the "tethered shoe coozie".  Safety first!