Exactly! We were made for rocks. Strength, brains, agility. After watching the film How to Get Dad into Reform School (Jak dostat tatínka do polepšovny) for the twenty-sixth time, we'd learnt how to climb the Dragon's Tooth to perfection. So we're off to climb the Dragon! We're not scared of it.
But uh-oh! There is a Dragon's Tooth at Hrubá Skála, all right. But it looks completely different from the one in the film. I can't see the thread that Dad Luboš had his sling through, or the hold that broke off with him. The whole thing looks rather steep. Because it isn't that Dragon's Tooth. The film's Dragon's Tooth isn't called Dragon's Tooth at all, but Skaut. And here we are. Well, at the foot of the tower. The right one this time. Good morning!
Right, so what did they say in the film? Oh yes, three points of contact. Of course. Nicely on your toes. And find the route with your eyes. Luckily this TV line is climbed so often that climbers' feet have worn unmissable footholds into the soft Hrubá Skála sandstone. Luboš had his sling placed somewhere around here, didn't he? Sure thing. A thread as big as they come. If you're following in the footsteps of the mountain rescue chief, you might as well go all the way. Only his sling was blue. All I've got is a yellow one. So we won't be photographing this bit.
Aha! And I can see it won't go down low. I'll have to go higher. There's a pocket above me. A hold on the right. Swap hands. And finally, that thread! "Pull down on it so it doesn't snap." Oh, I've been waiting a good 20 years for this moment. Every time I grab a thread on sandstone, I think of it. But today I'm holding THE thread, Vašek's thread. God, what a feeling. I'll just fondle it for a little longer. Hope I'm not holding anyone up.
Which means Hovorka is fine, no fracture and ribs intact. We'll escape punishment today. No wonder, since I brought Mum to the rock with me. So we can keep playing at being climbers – let's climb even higher.
The Vašek-and-Luboš manual has one major flaw, though – there's no shot of how and where the two of them top out on the summit. Meanwhile, the guidebook Nejkrásnější cesty na písku (The Most Beautiful Sandstone Routes) says: "Up the face alongside the little crack to below the overhang." Right, that fits. The overhang is above our heads. And it goes on: "Up the crack over the overhang to the summit, or traverse right into the chimney and up it."
So let's get this straight. That crack must be some kind of mistake, surely!? It's all salted out, ugly, and there's bound to be some nasty friction slab waiting at the top anyway. I'm not going up that. But a chimney? On the right? Where exactly? The nearest chimney I can see is on Hrubá Skála castle behind me.
Even further right than I think. The chimney is round the corner. At one point I got properly wedged in there and very nearly burst into tears. But luckily there's nowhere left to fall – the chimney below the summit even has a floor.
And so we sit on top feeling like we're in a fairy tale. Not a soul around. Just sun, rocks, the apple we forgot at the bottom (damn), the Dragon's Tooth... ahem, Skaut, actually, and the two of us. Plus Mum. Which means Máňa can stay in the museum – we'll get down on the rope. We just have to find the abseil anchor, which is hidden here like a case for Columbo. Which brings me to another small flaw in the 1978 climbing manual – you abseil somewhere else. And not comfortably at all. Scared!
But we did it. After all, we're you-know-what, right? Climbers, of course!
