As I throw the rope down and then watch it uncoil—over the backdrop of the Grose Valley, over the bright epicormic growth of the bush, over the airspace I’m about to step into—I go through the last checks in my head. Shoes, draws, ascending gear, a few lockers, courage …
Why am I here again? Whose idea was it to be dangling in space, hundreds of metres off the valley floor, nine millimetres of tightly woven nylon keeping me from becoming history?
I set my rope protector between the nylon sheath and the mean-looking ironstone edge. That’s right, it was mine, it was all me. My idea, my objective, my motivation. Internal locus of
