Portaledging
Bored of camping on the ground? Then spend a night dangling high in the hills, sleep with 300m of thin air directly below you, and experience the highs – and lows – of portaledging.
Fancy a night dangling 300m above the ground? This isn’t for everyone...
Condition number five of Honister Slate Mine’s portaledging activity form reads thus: ‘I agree I will not defecate or urinate from the portaledge’. There is, however, no specific clause forbidding vomiting, and right now it’s all I can do to keep my breakfast down. Mischievous Trail photographer Tom Bailey isn’t helping. He has the lens of his camera stuck in my face and is asking me to explain on video just how sick I’m feeling. I mutter a few words, one of them ‘off’, and slump shivering with my eyes closed and arms wrapped around an upturned Black Diamond climbing helmet. It feels like only a matter of time.
Two weeks earlier
The Trail team is on the look-out for overnighting activities for this July issue of the magazine. Camping, bivvying and bothying are all well covered, so we’re looking for left-field alternatives. Among the ideas that pop up on our radar is cliff camping at Honister. I’ve visited Honister on several occasions previously and know that they lay on a good adventure. So I get in touch and ask if they might accommodate us again, this time in a tent hanging from a cliff. “Sure thing,” says Prentice, Honister’s activities manager. “Come on over and we’ll happily string you up for the night. One thing, though – you won’t be hanging from a cliff but dangling from our Infinity Bridge.” No worries. How much of a difference can it make?
“The Infinity Bridge is 300m above the valley floor. As the bridge moves, the portaledge moves, swaying and rotating”
Two hours ago
As we drive towards Honister Pass, something high above catches my eye. A speck of orange glows among the dark of Fleetwith Pike’s crags. Parked by the side of the road, Tom pulls a pair of binoculars from his pack. “That,” he says, “is our accommodation.” He passes me the bins. Suspended in mid-air like a pyramid teabag about to be dunked is a bright orange tent. “It’s moving quite a lot,” I note. A thought has occurred to me, one I don’t like, so I replace it with another. “How do we get into it?”
11∕2 hours ago
We’re at Honister. We’ve been introduced to Nathaniel who’ll be looking after us. He’s geared us up in helmets and harnesses, provided instructions on how to use the walkie-talkies (he will be on hand all night to answer calls for help) and the portaledge (there’s a dummy one hung on the side of a building – it’s easier to absorb the critical information with both feet on terra firma) and is giving us a run-down of tonight’s schedule: 17:00 We’ll be escorted to our accommodation.
18:00 Dinner will be dropped off to be eaten al portaledge.
20:00 We’ll be collected and taken for the evening’s ablutions.
20:30 We’ll be returned to our accommodation and left for the night. 07:30 We’ll be retrieved from our tent and taken for breakfast.
Some basic arithmetic reveals a potential 11 hours between toilet breaks. I’m of an age where that’s just about manageable, but I’m wondering how stringently ‘rule five’ is enforced...
1 hour ago
Honister’s Infinity Bridge is 150m long and 300m above the valley floor. It bounces as we move along it towards the orange pyramid dangling from the bridge’s lower wire. And as the bridge moves, the portaledge moves, swaying and rotating. That thought pops back up and again I push it aside. Above the tent a webbing ladder hangs teasingly from the bridge. Nathaniel clips a rope to my harness and tells me to descend the ladder, unzip the tent, and climb onto the portaledge. Sounds simple. It isn’t. The bridge moves. The ladder moves. The portaledge moves. Despite affirmations from Nathaniel that he has me on the rope and I can let go with both hands to make the job easier, I can’t bring myself to release the ladder from the whiteknuckle grip of my left hand. It’s not that I don’t trust Nathaniel, but I’ve only just met him; my hand and I have a close bond going back years. I get the zip open and haul myself onto the portaledge.
It’s about 1.5m wide and just over 2m long. A scaffolding-like frame keeps the base taught, and six straps attached around the outside keep the whole thing in the air. The flysheet is wrapped around the base to keep draughts and rain out and tapers to a point over my head. The straps and ropes that will keep us secure collect around a beefy-looking carabiner and disappear through the roof where, I assume, they are securely attached to the bridge. As instructed I clip onto a safety rope, shuffle towards the back of the ledge to make room for Tom, and begin to feel the first ripples of nausea.
I don’t travel well. If I try to read in a car I rapidly begin to feel quite poorly. It’s to do with the stability of what my eyes see not matching the movement that the vestibular system of my inner ear is sensing. In the back of the portaledge tent – a solid, stable room according to my eyes but a swinging, swaying fairground ride as far as my ears are concerned – the ripples of nausea are becoming waves. Looking out towards the mountainous horizon in the distance helps a little, but not enough. The tent bounces more enthusiastically as Tom descends the ladder and climbs in. He takes one look at me. “Are you alright?” “No I am not.” I shuffle to the edge of the portaledge, dangle my legs into the empty space below and gulp down air.
Now
Lying back with my eyes closed helps. The tent begins to bounce again. Nathaniel is above us. “I’ve got your dinner lads.” He lowers a haul bag into the tent. It contains a magnificent spread of food: wraps, pork pies, cheese and crackers, melon and pineapple, blueberries and raspberries, orange juice, chocolate mousse pots and a delicious array of bite-size cakes. My stomach feels hollow and I wonder if eating might help. When the savoury scent of the chorizo and chicken scotch eggs hits my nostrils I abandon any thoughts of eating and resume my reclined feebling.
“Bugger!” Tom sounds surprised and bemused. “I’ve lost my bottle!” Not wishing to misplace his Tropicana, Tom had tucked it into the corner of the tent. However, unbeknownst to him, although the flysheet is wrapped around the underside of the portaledge it’s not attached to it; Tom’s OJ is bouncing down the crags towards the pass below.
Later
Nathaniel is back to escort us to the facilities for the day’s final toileting opportunity. “How are you doing lads?” Tom gives him a full and frank report of the current status. “I’ll take you down and give you a chance to recover. Get something to eat. It’ll help. And if you don’t want to come back we can put you up in The Bothy.” Climbing back up the
ladder is harder work than it was coming down, but as I step off the Infinity Bridge and on to solid ground I feel immediately better. And hungry. After polishing off the wraps, the fruit, a chocolate pot, and several cakes, I’m almost human again.
I’ve squeezed every last drop out of my bladder, had a pep talk with my vestibular system and am climbing back down the swinging ladder (more smoothly this time) and onto the portaledge. Tom follows. He zips up the flysheet and we settle back in our sleeping bags. The fabric floor of the portaledge sags, causing a subtle ‘roll-together’. A low fabric divider runs along the centre of the tent to prevent accidental (or intentional) spooning. The tent isn’t air-tight and the ventilation is pleasant. As the light fades, the interior orange glow of the tent subdues and I slip into cradlerocked sleep…
1:42am
I awake to the sound of distant rockfall rumbling. ‘Did you hear that?” Tom asks. I grunt in the affirmative and go back to sleep.
5:17am
I need a pee. It’ll have to wait.
The next morning
I’m back on the edge of the portaledge with my sleeping-bag-wrapped feet dangling. Despite a couple of awakenings, it’s been one of the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had under canvas. Right now
I’m enjoying watching the dawn light gradually claim the fells. The air is deliciously fresh. Down in the pass a car comes to a stop, pauses, and then moves on again. Had they spotted the orange speck in the mountains? Last night I might have envied them, wished to swap places. This morning, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. I get a child-like glee in being up high, watching the world from a unique angle – part of why I like being in the mountains – and there can’t be many more unique than this. Gnarled climbers might suggest that it’s not a proper portaledging experience unless you’ve hung your backside over the edge and tried not to hit anything (or anyone) valuable below. They might be right; it might not be authentic. But it’s certainly been an experience, one that just took me a full belly and a decent sleep to appreciate.
The radio crackles. “You boys awake yet?” Nathaniel’s voice asks. I push the talk button and tell him we are. “How’d it go?” he asks. “Good” I reply. “We slept brilliantly and no-one was sick.” “That’s great news!” He sounds pleased, and is no doubt relieved he won’t spend the morning hosing down a portaledge. “I’ll be over to get you in a bit.” I tell him not to rush...
Somewhere in time...
“Hello, Ben – I’m you from the future. Quit your gibbering, you’ll be off portaledging soon and you need to hear this advice: take some travel sickness pills, have a decent lunch in advance, and maybe – just maybe – consider packing a bucket…”