There are two ways to tell the story of Jesse Dufton. One is about a talented blind rock climber. The other — the more complete one — is a love story.
Published: 28 seconds agoTAFRAOUTE, Morocco - Molly Thompson craned her neck so she could make out the man climbing the tower of red rock. Squinting into the desert sun, she tried to identify a crack he could grab on to or a ledge wide enough for his foot.
Molly’s words were meant to conjure the smallest nooks from the darkness so that Jesse’s hands and feet could find them. Lifelong climbers have watched Jesse in disbelief. They have asked if his lack of eyesight makes it easier to ignore the sheer heights . Or if he can see enough to make out variations in the rock .Jesse, an Englishman who uses a cane to navigate the London Tube, has stacked up achievements. He climbed the formidable Old Man of Hoy, the spire of rock rising off the coast of Scotland. He was the first person to climb a 300-foot route in Morocco, which he named “Eye Disappear.
It was a version of the effort he had made his whole life. Jesse was born with a condition in which the light-sensing cells of his retina gradually deteriorated. As a child, he had only a fraction of normal vision. He knew it would continue to get worse as he aged.At age 2, he was bouldering.Jesse’s vision was rarely a subject of family conversation. He went to a normal public school. He continued climbing higher and harder crags.Cornwall aged 6, prussiking practice.
But the sudden vision loss was impossible to hide. Jesse felt he had been plunged into total darkness. Even the dim light and shadows he had used to guide himself were gone. And he would have to rely on Molly. Which he hated. He would need to hold her hand or her hiking pole when they walked to the crag. He would need her to choose his routes, to describe the rock formations, to double-check that he had the right gear clipped to his harness.
And then, as his vision dissipated, a logistical challenge got in the way: How would he know when to lean in if he couldn’t see her face? If he couldn’t even find her? Jesse and Molly at the Kasbah Guest House in Tizourgane, Morocco. During their first climbs after Jesse’s vision vanished, Molly would walk him to the base of a crag and look up. She’d consider how to describe the rock. Where should she start?
So Molly described the route that would get him to the top, a series of handholds and footholds, a rock described so it could be climbed, not admired. She knew that milliseconds - a slightly more concise or vivid description that would allow Jesse to move faster - could prevent a fall. She knew that if he fell, people would blame her. She would blame herself.
In his lifetime, it’s been mountain sports where blind athletes have made some of their greatest advances. In 2001, Erik Weihenmayer became the first blind person to summit Everest. Now, paraclimbing competitions have several categories for blind athletes, depending on how much of their vision remains.
The reason, Jesse believes, is that he has a different relationship with the rock than a sighted climber.
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