Darren lives in an old haunted house with a cement wall in his back yard. I don’t believe the two are related — the ghost and wall that is. Maybe they are. A train runs along the top of the wall. Maybe someone was killed by the train and now lives in the house. Anyway, ghosts aren’t real, despite Darren’s claims of it being haunted.

So moving on to the more interesting part of the story: the wall — it has nice finger sized cracks in it. I tried climbing it in around -20 Deg C weather. Good for the friction, cold on the hands. After about 15 ft I couldn’t feel my fingers any more. The crack narrows at the top and the difficulty increases.

Faced with continuing on or trying to down-climb, I picked the less recommended option of whining for awhile, hanging there until my strength faded, and falling. One of the bigger drops I’ve experienced.

Surprisingly the fall didn’t hurt. But as my fingers warmed up I got the worst of it: the screaming barfies. I’m a fair-weather climber so i don’t get the opportunity to experience this much, but words really cannot describe the pain. Actually they can. Perfectly. The screaming barfies.

The bastard wall. Focus courtesy of Darren.

The bastard wall. Focus courtesy of Darren.