Page 39 - SA Mountain Issue 62

On a Saturday the 3rd of June, Julia and I left Cape Town while it was still dark outside. We had been keeping a
close eye on the weather that week and were excited, as the conditions seemed perfect for projecting our routes. The climbing at Paarl only appeals to very few climbers and Julia happened to be just such a climber. She was psyched as ever. As a matter of fact, it was the most psyched I had ever seen her. She picked me up just before 7 am and we blasted off to Paarl at an alarming, above-average, speed. We were both very excited and joyful. Sean Maasch and Joe Mohle had bolted several new routes on the left of the Cobalt Blue Wall, and Sean had gifted the left-hand one to Julia to open.
She had told me that she had never opened a sport route and that I should prepare myself, because she gets pretty obsessive. I replied by saying that I hope her route is very hard because I wasn’t going to be able to do mine anytime soon. We laughed and I felt happy to feed off Julia’s contagious energy. I remember that at that moment she was really happy . . . but then again she was always happy. I thought that this is the kind of person I want to have around when I need to try hard. Julia always gave everything and took nothing back.
We stopped at the Woolworths for snacks. I grabbed a sausage roll pie for breakfast and asked her not to judge me. She told me to nish it outside and not in her car. I noticed the breeze in the air and new it is going to be windy up there. We needed it. Julia’s route is a 30 metre, very technical, vertical slab, with what seems to be an in nite number of moves. It follows these weird, protruding knobs that you have to squeeze, with tiny footholds. Not exactly my forte but Julia seemed to have a natural inclination for remembering hundreds of moves and standing on her feet forever. She really liked guring out
the puzzle of it and it was amazing to watch her.
At the top of the route it gets pretty
steep and nishes with a dyno right at
the end. When we got there, I set up
to belay her, but she told me that she wanted to go and put a top rope on the route and asked if I would come with her to retrieve her gear after she abseiled to her stance. We walked up the slab to the far right
of Cobalt Blue, as you would to gain the base of Parklife. We got to two bolts on the slab and Julia told me that her anchor was just around the corner and she was going to abseil in from here. It was my rst time belaying her on this route so I followed her lead. She asked if I had a Gri Gri and I said it was at the base of the route. I asked if she could use her bug to abseil to her anchor and she said yes. She then set up a single rope and I asked if she didn’t want to rather use double ropes. She replied that she always did it this way. I was still not convinced and said that I would rather go get the Gri Gri. It would only take 5 minutes, but she assured me she was ne. I asked if she was sure and she said yes. I was concerned, also that she was not using a back-up Prussik cord, and in hindsight I should’ve insisted, but Julia is a very capable and competent climber, so I assumed she knew best.
She started to abseil and I asked her to put both hands on her brake rope. She laughed, and jokingly I asked if I was going to see her again, best to take a photo just in case. Julia smiled broadly and disappeared around the corner. The wind was now hauling and we could barely hear each other. After a while I saw her rope pull tight and swing from left to almost straight down. Her rope was still tight so I gured she must have walked to the far left, or that I was above her anchor. I tried shouting to her but got no reply. I pulled on the rope to try and feel if she was still on it. It stayed tight and then it went slack. I shouted some more but still got no reply. I assumed
IN MEMORY OF JULIA CHEN that either something was terribly wrong, or
she was safe at her anchor and just couldn’t hear and me waiting for me to untie her rope.
I decided to pull up the rope to feel if she was still on it. I pulled up several metres and it was all slack and de nitely didn’t have her on it. So I untied and made my way back to the belay. I remember hurrying to see her on the wall as I made my way back, but she was not there. I found her sitting up and conscious at the base, above where I was standing, 10 metres to the right of the start of her route. I asked if she was okay and she said no. I asked what happened and she said that she didn’t know. When I got close to her I saw the rope burns on her hands and asked if she was hurt. She said her head hurts while she inspected her hands. I then saw the wound on her head and told her we have to get to the hospital right away. Luckily I had parked at the back only 300 metres away, so I was able to carry her to the car. She was starting to lose consciousness but managed to buckle herself up and hold my hand as we raced down the mountain. We got to the hospital 30 minutes later. She had a great doctor and she was taken to theatre right away. I went back to the route with Davide, her boyfriend, while they operated, to try and make sense of it all. I went up to the same anchor and abseiled in and saw her stance 10 metres to the left.
My conclusion is that she lost her balance while trying to clip into the top anchor. She might have grabbed the rope above her bug instead of the dead rope below, and could not hold herself. I think she made her way down relatively slowly, but at the bottom, when hitting the slab, she must have ipped upside
down and hit her head very hard. She broke nothing and had barely any scratches except for the blow to the back of her head. I am terribly sorry for everybody’s loss. It was a small thing with great consequences. Julia was doing something that she loved with all the energy and psych that we knew her so well for. She was truly happy and that is how I will always remember
her.
SEPTEMBER–NOVEMBER 2017
SAMOUNTAIN.CO.ZA 37
Julia in Echo Valley. Photo ZOE DUBY
Jacques van Zyl