tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59612544885363278482024-03-13T20:44:42.714-07:00Climber in a flat landClimber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-8971863909288507712019-02-04T08:29:00.000-08:002019-02-04T08:31:20.842-08:00Decision<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Decisions, decisions.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am in the back seat sitting next to my son when the phone goes. It is Pete Naylor on the other end, asking if I know anything about our friend <a href="https://flatlandclimber.blogspot.com/2019/01/salmon-curry.html">Steve</a>. A rumour has started that he has been killed in a climbing accident; Pete Naylor wonders if he has been out with the club.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I phone around a few people, being cagey about what I say, just asking if he has been in an accident. I am very conscious of my son, he is quiet. It is the specific kind of quiet that means I-am-listening-but-I-don't-want-you-to-notice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">No one knows anything.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I get off the phone. My son asks "What's happened to Steve, Dad."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I don't know. He might have been in an accident, but no one knows if he has. He might not have been in an accident." This is strictly speaking true. But it is not a comprehensive truth, is it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I hear it, I think Steve probably has been killed. In our climbing community, I've never heard a rumour like it. We aren't constantly running round saying "Steve's been killed again", for him to turn up on Sunday and order a coffee. But getting confirmation is difficult. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, I get on the internet. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">EXPERIENCED CLIMBER KILLED IN GLENCOE</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">DECEASED CLIMBER WAS MEMBER OF MOUNTAIN RESCUE TEAM</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">TWO MISSING ON BEN NEVIS</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">BODIES RECOVERED IN MOUNTAIN RESCUE SEARCH.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">None of these are Steve. But eventually, we get confirmation that the worst is true and Steve has been killed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> *</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssO2iY4WpO0zmavxIQKutcrs9utBJm4-2ej9patya-4YzZPqEuQm3J0gb4RUaUWn1I1Si-Esfaw37gN9HjHz5ZkkoEKeuPHFUlaSPos_xjCwLW9FdIs1H0Th4LemSEKgm09x4xyKcK1IY/s1600/12605509_10156392806630548_8158063265831778581_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="747" data-original-width="1328" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgssO2iY4WpO0zmavxIQKutcrs9utBJm4-2ej9patya-4YzZPqEuQm3J0gb4RUaUWn1I1Si-Esfaw37gN9HjHz5ZkkoEKeuPHFUlaSPos_xjCwLW9FdIs1H0Th4LemSEKgm09x4xyKcK1IY/s640/12605509_10156392806630548_8158063265831778581_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">End of a long but good day, Glenmore Lodge training a few years ago. Photo thanks to Jono Bailey.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't tell my son. In fact, it is a fortnight later when someone phones me, and I talk to them about it. After I hang up, it is obvious that my son has heard every word.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"What's happened to Steve, Dad?" He asks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I'm afraid he was killed in an accident." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">My son cries. "Next time someone has an accident I want you to tell me."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> *</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I come back from a one day climbing trip, just to the Peak, no snow involved. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"I was perfectly safe, I only did easy stuff."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Just because its easy doesn't make it safe," he says. "You told me most accidents happen to people climbing below their grade."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had no idea he was listening so carefully. Of course I have told him that: when he's worried that the climbs I am doing are hard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Well, anyway," I say "I didn't take any risks."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Yes you did. You drove there."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>The drive to the crag is more dangerous than the climbing</i>. I can hear myself saying it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> *</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Are you still going to go on the winter trip then?" my partner asks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"No. Probably not. It's not fair to him is it?" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've made my decision. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I cancel my place on the Highball Winter Trip.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ah, I think. I prefer nice clean rock anyway. I'll get on the slate, or the grit. None of my best climbs were in the snow, I never got onto something I could lose myself in the difficulty of the movement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I look at my instagram feed. Scottish Winter has started and celebrity climbers are staring to post pictures of brightly clad spacemen iceaxeing up rime-plastered rock. I feel a lurch every time I see one. I try and remind myself of the anxiety I felt every trip, constantly looking for signs of avalanche, a week's worth of poor night's sleep. I keep thinking of the laughs we've had though, on <a href="https://flatlandclimber.blogspot.com/2016/03/ascent-into-madness.html">Curved Ridge</a>, or routes on the Ben. It's hard to think I won't be there this year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I tell those who need to know that I'm not coming. A few already know. My friend Tim says he has the same fears. I explain my decision to another friend who calls it "fair and sensible. Respect". Everyone says "you'll be missed."</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhchbTygyOCtjFPUKx5fWefPTzLKX_NuLiHxC0ZEJfPv9f62dJnvaNh_BsEKB3VtV5AhGyPt0hrbJxZcqhDXBY1Ct0ckKjKWuTXyRGzhJSBymxyW3l1gt-8v9nKxelmbFuzZo1YjHEalgyY/s1600/12417641_10153850372921346_4906342654906987023_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhchbTygyOCtjFPUKx5fWefPTzLKX_NuLiHxC0ZEJfPv9f62dJnvaNh_BsEKB3VtV5AhGyPt0hrbJxZcqhDXBY1Ct0ckKjKWuTXyRGzhJSBymxyW3l1gt-8v9nKxelmbFuzZo1YjHEalgyY/s320/12417641_10153850372921346_4906342654906987023_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Making myself look better than I am, photo thanks to Tom Wilkinson.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You're fucking forty, I think. Stop worrying about feeling left out. </span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-68710677792771331082019-01-16T00:00:00.000-08:002019-01-17T03:20:18.314-08:00Salmon Curry<h2 style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Salmon Curry.</span></b></span></h2>
<h4 style="font-family: Helvetica;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;">Mike and Serge sat down at the hostel table in front of me. I looked at them frosty, my skin tight after a day in the wind. I was still waiting for my dinner, Steve was over in the kitchen behind us, cooking.</span></h4>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Alright, Pete,” said Mike, deadpan. He was holding a plate piled up with glistening pasta, a creamy, cheesy sauce over the top. As he put it down on the table, he did a little drumroll with his knife and fork.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWmdcN7yHMH6JzHxt72Yssec2J5PE3rmel6jGwD9cIMm2KZ_y1WzqFQf_GDc0htSCtF4nHOd0cReNXJpnDzg1To_49-tumoK0RpLiXDiGgRnPrB8tulNCbgzXNlmYEBUK1M4OjOcn0G1uk/s1600/IMG_0636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWmdcN7yHMH6JzHxt72Yssec2J5PE3rmel6jGwD9cIMm2KZ_y1WzqFQf_GDc0htSCtF4nHOd0cReNXJpnDzg1To_49-tumoK0RpLiXDiGgRnPrB8tulNCbgzXNlmYEBUK1M4OjOcn0G1uk/s320/IMG_0636.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steve Gaines on the summit of Beinn a'Chaorainn</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Alright, Pete,” said Serge, who stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth and grinned. As he went to put his plate down on the table, he casually swirled it underneath my nose, so the steam and the smell rose up. The sauce was shop-bought, out of a jar, with cheddar roughly grated over the top.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">“You are a pair of bastards,” I said and they both cracked </span>up laughing <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> Serge, while he was laughing picked up a forkful of pasta and put it in his mouth, but couldn’t chew it through the giggles.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Ah, Pete. I know what he is cooking <i>is</i> amazing, but wouldn’t you rather just have a load of shit and be eating it now?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Fuck. Off.” I said. “Anyway, I knew it would be like this. It’ll be worth it.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Behind us, Steve was cooking away: the kitchen opened onto the dining area. Steve was the only climber I knew who brought his own pestle and mortar with him. He was using hobs on two of the three cookers, squeezing the foreign backpackers into a corner, as they panicked and made simple food to get out of his way. His pans were mounting up. Now and then I would get up and wash some, just to keep on top of it, clear away another set of chopping boards.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steve’s voice was quiet, a very soft Edinburgh accent, delivered low, and sometimes hard to hear. I saw him turn at the waist and wave. You would never mistake Steve, the way he moved. His posture was so stiff, all the bones in his neck were fused, it slowed him down but never stopped him. He beckoned and raised his eyebrows, and I went to pick up the dinner.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It <i>was </i>amazing. Steaming jasmine rice, with anise and cardamom. Soft floury naan. Then a wok full of curry, the sauce a deep orange yellow colour, chunks of pink salmon.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Serge and Mike weren’t laughing any more as the rich smell hit them. I caught their eyes and grinned nastily at them while I spooned on the rice, making a little volcano shape, then ladled in the sauce. The smell rose up, not just curry powder, but a complex layered scent with the smell of every spice in it. Maybe like music, where you hear the whole thing, but if you focus on it, you could pick out a cymbal or the intricate chords of a guitar.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steve sat across from me, and popped open a beer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“I hope you enjoy it,” he said, very quietly, and I laughed. I would have replied but I already had a mouthful of rice.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhG_sK6RWAO4fi6OdyTgnYcOQN0sw-h-egoMTzpPqXX6alUjdyuoWnRXKF9JARso_F8CcdVWVT2RXSwuXHcavPEQ7HgeSQGuG87-AcIv4g4VqZBjoTx0kiOGiOagAv_fuGEhVd2YPkUpbP/s1600/17218681_10154398369661463_6782830562403681581_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="228" data-original-width="1000" height="145" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhG_sK6RWAO4fi6OdyTgnYcOQN0sw-h-egoMTzpPqXX6alUjdyuoWnRXKF9JARso_F8CcdVWVT2RXSwuXHcavPEQ7HgeSQGuG87-AcIv4g4VqZBjoTx0kiOGiOagAv_fuGEhVd2YPkUpbP/s640/17218681_10154398369661463_6782830562403681581_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Steve and I on what we thought was Western Rib, Aonach Mor, but may well have been Duke's. Photo by Pete Naylor.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was like this every trip with Steve.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>I’m happy to cook if anyone else wants to chip in</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yes! :)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Yes Please from Sam and Charlotte.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>my mouth is watering already, i am in</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The food was always late and always great. That salmon curry. Haggis, neaps and tatties. Sweet potato chips, cooked in an oven and dusted with a light chilli, flecks of sea-salt and rosemary on roasted potatoes. Classic pasta sauces cooked from scratch. There was always plenty but never any left.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few days after the salmon curry, two of our mates didn’t come back on time, we got a text from Charlotte saying they were ‘stuck but safe’, Mountain Rescue had been called. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Shit,” said Serge. “Why don’t we get a couple of pizzas and some beers in for when they get back. They’ll be hanging out, they’ve been up there in the cold for long enough.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is always a buzz when people are late back, out in the Scottish hills in the dark. The young backpackers in the hostel picked up on it and were hanging around, waiting for a story to tell their mates back home. We played up to it a bit. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We saw the helicopter coming in, lights on and touch-down at the landing pad near the school: “Here’s the bird,” we said, and I heard a Swiss girl say ‘here’s the bird’ under her breath.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steve put the pizzas on, they were a couple of shop bought margheritas. He couldn’t leave them alone though, started added toppings, three types of smoked sausage, achovies, olives, peppers. He tore up leaves of basil and chopped oregano with scissors. Where had this stuff come from? He just had it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Mountain Rescue Four-Wheel-Drive came up the hill. Sam and Charlotte got out and walked through the door. They both looked battered, dark circles under their eyes, we picked up their rucksacks. The driver waved cheerily and drove off without a word, no need to add to Sam and Charlotte’s embarrassment at being rescued. It would be routine for him, a ‘Good Shout’ with no lives lost, competent well-equipped climbers rescued rather than tourists in flip-flops.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The pizzas whisked through the door, we popped the top off beers, and Sam and Charlotte ate while we sat around them, pleased our friends were home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mountain Rescue got Steve back off the hill at the end of November. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“At least he died doing something he loved,” someone said to me, the old cliché. I'd been waiting for it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don’t know, man. I think you’d rather not have slipped and instead walked down the hill to some tasty food you took two hours to cook, with a bottle of wine. I wish I’d got that recipe for salmon curry off you, but anyway. It wouldn’t be the same.</span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In loving and respectful memory of our mate and climbing partner Steve Gaines.</span></span></span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3sQAawcTrvfXS9EbzLde2TLDOR1bGw97ZSS44TS43NzHTPb3MXz0JFh7TSuY9M7GsMad_fJE918laJsn60FXJ8oAyyTSspB-cvX1p-eaYrVpjRUMgUMjkzUyF35R2Lprwas0fDr9Bb0l_/s1600/17039404_10154398369806463_916122409386654134_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3sQAawcTrvfXS9EbzLde2TLDOR1bGw97ZSS44TS43NzHTPb3MXz0JFh7TSuY9M7GsMad_fJE918laJsn60FXJ8oAyyTSspB-cvX1p-eaYrVpjRUMgUMjkzUyF35R2Lprwas0fDr9Bb0l_/s640/17039404_10154398369806463_916122409386654134_o.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pete Naylor, Me and Steve Gaines (right) on Aonach Mor summit. It's all about squinting into the sun for the selfies.<br />
Photo thanks to Pete Naylor.</td></tr>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-77425190536334868162018-12-12T04:08:00.003-08:002018-12-12T04:08:29.936-08:00Free Solo<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Free Solo</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Outside <a href="https://www.freesolofilm.co.uk/">Cinema City</a> in Norwich, there is numerical proof that Norfolk has a proper climbing community. Climbers are scruffy fuckers as a rule, and there a load of people with messy hair and down jackets milling around. Some people I recognise walk in to the Box Office, and the powerful smell of weed like smoky bonfires wafts in with them.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the full cinema I look around </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I know three quarters of the people in here by sight, and when I wave - as an experiment - at least a third wave back. We are here to watch <a href="https://www.freesolofilm.co.uk/">Free Solo</a>, the new film with Alex Honnold, in which he climbs El Cap without ropes </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and doesn't die, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za5dcv7b2OA&feature=youtu.be">similar to my own short film from earlier this year.</a></span></h4>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowBvTwUBrfBgSa2McGXXba9_eKTyOA0RBsgY5PmhYtLPE1_mZ2gw5hclv7JFjBYVxoaDxlBGBICxPILoHZVNXtkLA-pkpbd_xQw5M0C47LyMC9y90N2DqUUkAxrwrvpwyvcSC9kb43rPQ/s1600/onesheet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="716" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhowBvTwUBrfBgSa2McGXXba9_eKTyOA0RBsgY5PmhYtLPE1_mZ2gw5hclv7JFjBYVxoaDxlBGBICxPILoHZVNXtkLA-pkpbd_xQw5M0C47LyMC9y90N2DqUUkAxrwrvpwyvcSC9kb43rPQ/s640/onesheet.jpg" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Free Solo Movie Poster.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sit there in the dark surrounded by friends. The seats are comfy, but some of the viewing isn't. Not necessarily the bits climbing either - they're tense enough as he pastes a toe onto a crisp-sized slope of granite above three hundred metres of drop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">No. The hard bits are about Alex's motivation. The way he slips at a question in a psychological test about depression. A casual reference to the 'bottomless well of self-hatred'. Alex teaching himself how to hug, because it wasn't something he grew up with - 'Now, I'm pretty good at it." </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Its a great piece of film, a genuine achievement. Not just all the difficult bits- filming while tied to a rope a kilometre off the ground, wrestling with the ethics of potentially watching your friend slip into an unsurviveable fall - but the much trickier part. It explains to normal people what motivates climbers, not the normal 'adrenalin junky' bullshit.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Climbers will copy things from this film, hoping a bit of the magic rubs off on them. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Van sales might go up. I expect to hear "I eat the same food every day, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">because I'm eliminating variables" more often. The meal of choice will be sweet potato, spinach and tinned chilli. This will be served as a 'Climber's Lunch' or a 'Honnold' at crag cafes. Climbers will eat straight from the pan, and pretend they don't know how to make coffee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"There'll be a lot more deaths." my mate Garry says after the film. "Next ten years, death rate'll go right up, people going soloing."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not so sure, I don't want to believe that. He's probably right, people ignoring the preparation that Alex went through, and believing that easy ground well within their normal capability is always safe. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Climbers-Novel-M-John-Harrison/dp/0575092173/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544615598&sr=8-1&keywords=m+john+harrison+climbers">M. John Harrison</a> wrote that climbing's 'dangers were artificial but perfectly real. The hinge between the game and its consequences were an act of choice." As climbers we need make choices honestly, and don't lie to ourselves about why we are doing it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The bit I hope climbers copy from this film is being honest about their mental health. Or at least talking about the darker motivations that pull us up there onto the wall.</span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-2709575670849045472018-08-06T08:49:00.001-07:002020-04-18T01:29:32.044-07:00First Timer<h2>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-38733132166386741142018-04-23T13:01:00.003-07:002018-04-23T13:53:03.396-07:00The Chop<h2>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The Chop</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Yet another medical professional looks at me in disbelief. </span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Wait. Were you fixing something on your house?'</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Oh no. I was just climbing it. For leisure.' </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I feel pleased that on a Friday night in A and E, I have brought something new, an innovative example of human stupidity. I have gone far beyond the mere drunken brawling, transcended the drug addict who has fallen through a roof (if she scrubbed up she might be quite attractive), and provided light relief from an unusual number of people with no visible injury or illness who need an ECG.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The wound is a good 'un too: two inches long across the muscle at the base of my thumb. It looked like a rough cut through pork steak, in the split second I looked at it before I clapped the other hand over it to stop the blood.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Who put these steri-strips across?'</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My son's steri-strip, not bad for a first go</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'My son. He was very good at it.' He was too. He saw how calm I was, so decided to enjoy it. No one at his school would have had the chance to First Aid their Dad, he'll be bragging.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Oh. Good job.' Polite, I think they could have been neater.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">For such a gory wound, none of it hurts, until -ironically- the needle goes in for the anaesthetic. Oh my GOD, even as I feel it numb, it's like a super-wasp sting, especially when It goes in near the joint at the base of the thumb.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But pretty soon, the flesh feels cool and oddly like it belongs to someone else. The doctor stitches me up, evenly. Now, these stitches wouldn't be any good on a jacket or smart pair of trousers, but in the palm of my hand? Spot on. In fact they are so good I am worried that the scar won't be gnarly enough. Could I not have had a hapless fifth year student coming down off a medical-grade-amphetamine-fuelled twenty hour shift? They'd have made a beautiful mess.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Too neat.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Right. You'll need a tetanus, in each arm. I'll send Olga in.' More fucking needles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Embarrassingly, I can't role the sleeves up far enough. I have to take my shirt off, exposing my tanned muscular body, with little excess body fat. In this case housing a dickhead, who has wasted everyone's time by getting a horrendous injury climbing the front of his fucking house.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'How long are these in for?' I ask about the stitches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">'Not long. Next Friday, arrange it at your local surgery.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Next Friday, I should be out of the surgery early enough to still . . . drive . . . </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">to . . . Wales. Oh no. I've blown a weekend on the slate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">My eyes fill with tears, and the nurse asks if the anaesthetic has worn off. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stitches: I prefer to think of them as friendly spiders.</td></tr>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-63980098722279154062017-12-06T02:42:00.000-08:002017-12-06T02:43:34.375-08:00Incompatible Wants and Needs<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 24px; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>Incompatible Wants and Needs.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><b>This might not be the experience I've wanted this weekend, but it might just be what I need. I didn't imagine heading for a big fall onto suspect trad gear, I wanted to spend the weekend cruising stylishly to victory over climb after climb. But the first thing I need to do is survive it, and that's going to depend, mainly, on something I've done a minute or two before. Placing a tiny piece of gear, a lump of metal the size of a wine gum...</b></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYG-fU2hPnRhud3NaEltYlQbJ3pNWVw4muIA72lun_jHzmJJb8SCzdLdWejN9jtEXAQDWk4UOPcePulRgqq4lmpkzO6ybOla51vyiX2Vn1TRrxpZuZ3yaT22U8zHlbfJDpAesxPEyPhcSw/s1600/DSC01349.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 12px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYG-fU2hPnRhud3NaEltYlQbJ3pNWVw4muIA72lun_jHzmJJb8SCzdLdWejN9jtEXAQDWk4UOPcePulRgqq4lmpkzO6ybOla51vyiX2Vn1TRrxpZuZ3yaT22U8zHlbfJDpAesxPEyPhcSw/s320/DSC01349.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He's looking shaky...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">And as I pad my feet uselessly around, bunched up, unstable and out of balance, I look for handholds, try out my options, then return to what was inadequate a few seconds before. The handholds -as I find them- don't change but they seem to get worse, as my strength runs out. Finally, they spit me off in disgust. Curbar has no tolerance for the weak, the clumsy or the cocky. </span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Forget all that shit about falls lasting forever: I'm dropping through the air, but in less than a second I am bouncing on the end of two half-ropes, gently sproinging in the air, halfway down the E1 route. Two or three pieces of nonessential gear - as it turns out- are ripped out of the crack by the sideways whip of the ropes, they twirl down the ropes, still linked on by their quickdraws. I look down at Lee, who has got his 'fucking hell, Pete' face on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">"I think you saw that coming, mate."</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">He nods. "Yeah. It was a mess."</span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">Our gang of mates from Norwich, sitting on bouldering pads, look delighted at the entertainment I am providing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="text-align: center;">Mind you, now that I know I am alive, I'm pretty pleased too. A lot of people go through their climbing career without a genuine, uncontrived fall onto trad gear. Lucy Creamer (or maybe Airlie Anderson) once famously called Al Burgess -one of the notoriously tough Burgess twins- a wuss when she found out he had only ever had one trad leader fall. I like Lucy Creamer (or maybe Airlie Anderson).</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bob toasts my lack of success</td></tr>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="text-align: center;">Now, the fact I have put a big old fucking fall on the gear does one thing incredibly well. That gear ain't coming out. After a few half-hearted goes at moves on the rope, I take the ropes, rig an abseil and swing down to get the gear out. Two nuts are not moving. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">'Anyone got a nut-key?' Everyone looks confused, they scratch around and come up with nail clippers and a plastic brush. For the sake of politeness, I have a go at getting the nut out with these, but it is as useless as trying to move a broken-down truck with a pencil.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Advice floats up from ground level: "Get a big loop of rope, and yank it from above. Don't rotate it, just sort of pop it back the way it came!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">The most original idea though is: "get some deodorant and spray it so it chills the metal and contracts." Now, I'm 99 percent </span>sure<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> that this won't work, despite being based on sound physics. Part of me will always regret not trying though. We should have done it, just for the crack. One of the </span>lads<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> even HAD some deodorant, it would have cost us nothing to try.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Its fucking hopeless, I need some tools. Lee has a go, no chance, so I walk all the way down to the car and grab a load of screwdrivers from the boot of my car. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">By the time I get back to the crag, a few people have had a go at abseiling down and trying to get the nut out. Its quite a good laugh. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">So begins the massive fuck-on of trying to<br />
get out a lodged nut with a pair of nail-clippers.</td></tr>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the screwdriver, it takes a few seconds to get one of the nuts out. Tragically, the other is there to stay. Until the cold weather - or deodorant- contracts the metal perhaps and it drops out not the hands of another more deserving crag-rat. To be honest, its quite a relief when we give up on the other nut. I mean, it cost a fiver and saved my life so owes me nothing.</span><span style="font-family: "times"; font-kerning: none;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;">The other lads move on and we say goodbye, then m</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">e and Lee head along the crag. We have time for a few more routes, having wasted an hour and a half on those lodged nuts. Plenty time enough for me to climb a couple of E1 slabs with minimal protection, and take another fall off another E1. Now, it might not be as good for your ego, but these falls, and making mistakes, is going to make me into a much better climber Which is what I want, and therefore, this fucking fight is what I need.</span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-81857281299443153762017-10-28T13:29:00.002-07:002017-10-28T13:29:45.129-07:00Cold Sweats<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cold Sweats.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This poor junky is jonesing bad. He's od'd and its screwed him up, so now he can't get the monkey off his back.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I am not bloody joking either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two Sundays ago, I came away from the crag having taken a load of big hits onto bouldering pads. A night in a tent and I could feel my back wasn't right, because with twelve years of a disc injury, I know the signs. I get back out to the crag, try and do as much as I can, because nothing wrecks you harder than slackening off on the exercise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What I cannot get away from is the six hour drive home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Driving is hands fucking down the worst activity humans do. Not just for the planet but for the effect it has on the driver- the anger, the isolation, the dangerous weight gain around the belly, the atrophy of essential core muscles, the mental illness, the money, the carbon, the fucking lot. Just look at those three champions of the car: Clarkson, May and Hammond? Case closed.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Look at these happy bastards!</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the time I am home, my back is as bad as its ever been, perhaps a new level of pain. I always reckon, when it is bad that it is between 1 and 4 on the Goulding 10-Point Chronic Pain Scale - 10 being Childbirth, 1 being a dead leg.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I get out of the car I think 'Yep, that's a five.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So climbing is out. The trigger for injury is crashing into the pads from height, so sensibly I need to avoid doing this. Thats okay. If I have a week off from the Bouldering Gym, I can convince myself that it is good for my fingers: all those little micro-tears and sub-injuries can get a healing bath of hormones and proteins without any more wear and tear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is- new Uni course, rural Norfolk and a holiday booked in North Norfolk - I can't stop fucking driving. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The recurring injury is normally over in three days as long as I keep walking the dog. Actually, the pain is worse in the top part of my back, which isn't damaged, but my sprinting muscles are doing the job my marathon-runners should be, getting tired and cramping up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By the time I drive up to Gateshead and County Durham for my sister's Birthday, I have had the pain for fourteen days, with three of those days painkiller free. This is not good.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But if physically I am a wreck, then mentally the pain is far, far greater. Climbing is only 20% about physical aspects and 80% about your mental aspects. Correspondingly, if you think I am in pain physically - and you can tell, as I walk around like Tina Turner- then you should see the inside of my head.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That could be me, cooling my fingers in the breeze...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whatever holes I have that climbing fills start to gape. My sleeping goes to total shit as I am not tiring myself out with all that beneficial exercise. When I do sleep, I get technicolour dreams of climbing on the grey, grey slate. Then I start to NOT dream about climbing and this is worse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Antsy, I start checking social media a LOT more. It is a particularly fertile time for pictures from my friends. They are all at crags, taking lobs on ropes, crashing into mats, and hauling themselves up vertical rock faces. I have NEVER seen so many pictures of climbing. I feel so left out, when can I climb with my friends again? maybe its deliberate! maybe they hate me? I notice the slide into paranoia just in time before I start blocking social media accounts, and only befriending people who are in bands - I'm not even musical.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Get a grip, I think. Get a grip. But this only makes me wonder what KIND of grip: crimp? </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sloper? drag? gaston?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I sweat. There's nothing for it. Tomorrow, fucked back or not, I am going climbing.</span></div>
Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-70794444877310801742017-10-21T15:48:00.001-07:002018-04-23T13:45:17.175-07:00Previous Posts<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Previous posts.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've bashed out a load of these now, although not in a particularly regular or organised way. However, the format of the blog means that older stuff gets buried, like a manky banana at the bottom of your climbing back. So lets not let that banana rot into an adhesive slime; lets unpack that climbing bag and find out where the fuck your favourite quickdraw went.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are five of my favourites and the reason you might like to read them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/shrapnel-from-near-miss.html">1. Shrapnel from a near-miss</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hands down the most popular blog to date. Why? people like to read about the misfortunes of others, it makes them feel all real inside.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. <a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/lessons-from-scottish-winter.html">Lessons from Scottish Winter</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This one got shared a bit by people who were on the same trip. If you want to understand climbing and risk taking then have a look at this. Its the closest I get to a genuine insight, in list form.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. <a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-shape-of-things-to-come.html">The shape of things to come</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Grim predictions for a dystopian future. Note, that this was written pre-Brexit. If you instead </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">want to know how Brexit or the 2017 election affected my climbing then </span><a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/breaking-news_21.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Breaking News</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/brexit-examined.html" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brexit Examined</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Don't expect accuracy, impartiality or saint. I'm not the BBC.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. <a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/psychological-experiments-on-small.html">Psychological experiments on small children</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not as bad as it sounds. Actually, this post delivers sensible and sensitive information about parenthood that Social Services have so far failed to condemn.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. <a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/risk-brings-death-but-fulfils-life.html">Risk brings death, but fulfils life</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Get your tissues out, the saddest thing you'll ever read</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> with swearing in. I bloody loved that dog. At Christmas too.</span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-71146243892896648202017-10-18T13:30:00.000-07:002017-10-18T13:45:35.527-07:00Watching the achievements of others<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On Watching the Achievements of Others.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Its that time of year again: The Big Flash. One of the three best climbing competitions in the UK. And I am not there.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, don't get me wrong. This is not some protest against competitions or indoor climbing. I've got plenty of misgivings about climbing being in the Olympics, I find it harder to relate indoor bouldering to climbing outdoors, and I ain't never gonna win NOTHIN'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">No. The reason I am not going is because of a series of fuckups, which go like this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. Me and Garry decide we NEED a weekend on the slate: fuck yeah!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. The only weekend we can do is the weekend of the 13th, 14th, 15th. We book it with my partner and his spouse (not the same person).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. That turns out to be the weekend of the Flash. Fook!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. Tom Smith turns to me in Highball: 'Speaking of volunteers, are you going to run isolation, which you do each year, in an incomparably professional way?' (words to that effect). I look embarrassed and go quiet. 'Is that a yes then?' It is not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. Then, Garry backs out, for the un-understandable reason of having to be around for the imminent birth of his sister's child. I respect Garry's priorities, but they are wrong.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. I find out that a plan b is possible. The Brothers Slarke are going bouldering to Northumbria. I resolve to gatecrash their party.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kyloe In. Nice eh?</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I do, and we have a good couple of days: Kyloe In is closed for shooting, presumably red squirrels because we don't see any. Back Bowden is not as sheltered as it should be from the howling wind: which to me is nowt due to <a href="https://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/lessons-from-scottish-winter.html">Scottish Winter</a>. Johnny and Bob? not so happy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Through all this time, hundreds have people will have been passing through he Highball doors: many will be competing, at any level, Nu Kids for lower grade climbers, the comp proper for the talent and the graft. Lots of people will be coming along for the first time, having delicious coffees and generally enjoying the vibe: which, fair go, is festival-like.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We keep following the updates. Even in the data wilderness of the Northumbrian backwoods we can watch everything unfold over the FaceAche posts, live stream and general Twittery.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sadly, Bob wins a tenner which is the<br />
EXACT PRICE of a round.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Anyway, after finally getting to Kyloe- hungover- and having a good day there (Johnny Slarke especially comes away with the four prize tick of the crag), we go back to Back Bowden to meet the Brothers Lawson. Sam and Joe Lawson are a pair of wads (note to non-climbers, this is a Good Thing), and Joe wants to do County Ethics, a f7C+ highball problem, while Sam films him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What do we bring to the party? extra pads and spotters, humour, and a stove for making coffee - which is so trad</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Joe gets on a semi-static rope and cleans and ticks the holds, works the moves and sorts out his beta. There is a lot of laughter, and the atmosphere is super fun. Sam gets ripped for his apparent unfamiliarity with dangling from a rope with a camera: silky ninja skills they are not. I am enjoying myself immensely, the crack is good (verbal not rock), and it feels really light and nice to be there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Joe is so casual, he turns from a minor gossip about a mutual friend's Hil-aaaiirrriiiouuus financial dilemmas, and suddenly changes into a climbing machine: none of the psyching up I need, or angsty heavy-shouldered worrying. He is up! and then he is off and landing on the pads.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Joe has a few more goes that night, but ultimately it is not happening. What IS happening is that I am getting a lesson in how to climb hard. Yes, I'm sure all the strength training and board work is important, but just as crucial is the attention to detail. For stuff at this level, tiny fractional differences in skin conditions ('connies') are critical. Joe is also hyper-aware of his own physical reserves, and knows when he is low on energy. So he stops. Tomorrow will see another go.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lights on, cleaning into the night.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By this time, people have finished competing in the qualifiers (over 300 enter) at the Big Falsh and know whether they have made it through. Only twenty men and twenty women qualify for the semis, with some surprises from the local climbers, but generally the travelling pro and semi-pro climbers book their places.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A huge crowd will turn out for the finals to see the final six males and six females. These are some of the best competition climbers in the UK, climbing on blocs set by the best setters in the UK. This style of setting doesn't reflect rock that you might find in nature, it has become its own beast. A good climber makes hard stuff look easy, but in competitions this doesn't work: no tension would build up to thrill the crowd. Instead, blocs are set on bulbous volumes, often with dynamic moves and leaps, which look great and are legitimately difficult. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm sure the watching crowd will be thrilled, the atmosphere will be like a football match.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The technical way to eat a flapjack,<br />
and the non-technical way to take a photo.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While this happens in Norwich, we are back in front of County Ethics. 'Its all about the connies,' sings Joe, brushing and re-ticking the holds, figuring out better beta for critical moves coming out of the crux. Bob looks strong: he has been using bulk powder with his training and suddenly we are all talking about getting him sponsored by them. I declare that Trad is Over For Me and rip off my shirt to become a proper boulderer, but haven't got a bobble-hat. We have a laugh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We eat flapjacks, and I learn there is even a technical way to do this: you don't grip the flapjack with your fingertips because this could impart a tiny bit of grease on. Oh no. You wedge it into the gaps between your fingers where it won't matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The breeze blows, the gods of the skin connies smile down beneficiantally, and Joe starts up the climb. He has everything </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">dialled and in its place, and it looks easy, so easy, to do such a hard thing. Within three minutes he is topping out, and everyone congratulates, and thanks and grins about it. Like the audience at the Big Flash, we have watched someone else achieve something, and we are the better for it. But it is not enough just to watch. You have to get your own ticks too.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I find an off width boulder problem. I am mentally unwell.</td></tr>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-48909754598593465602017-10-05T16:23:00.002-07:002017-10-05T16:24:18.641-07:00Not a clue<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not a clue.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Well, climbers, here's some news for you: Non-climbers haven't got a clue what we are on about, and critically - they can't guess, and don't care.</span></h4>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here, I sadistically introducing my young son to my obsession.<br />
Note I am too tight to buy him rock-shoes, while mine cost £100</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For most climbers, not a problem! as we systematically eradicate those from our friendship list who don't shred the gnar on the rock. (If you don't regularly use the phrase 'shred the gnar', or indeed don't know what it means then obviously you aren't in as deep as what I am). Many of them are probably pleased to see us go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here is a swift summary of some failures of contact between climbers and normal people.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. The jargon. Its detailed, its nuanced, its sometimes a bit fucking silly isn't it? Psyched! Why can't we just say excited? Not to mention the revelation that people who don't need to arrange their own protection won't know what a nut or a quick-draw is. Ask yourself: why would they? Then ask yourself 'can I remember not knowing what a nut or quick-draw was?' No? but why? Its like we re-learned a universal language. Crimps? Jugs? Bomber.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. The experience of fear. People who don't do it just won't recognise. I was talking to my mate Serge the other night, and he said 'You know when you get that actual taste of fear in your mouth? Like that iron-y taste in your mouth?' I looked blank. 'You've never had it? You obviously don't climb hard enough then.' I wouldn't mind this, but its not like I've never been afraid on the wall. Knowing what I put myself through, I can't believe I haven't had the taste, but on the other hand, I HAVE jabbered meaningless shite at the top of my voice as my boots skeeter on slimy rock with no gear in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. Paradoxically, non-climbers think its much more dangerous than it is. Sport climbing? statistically safer than the drive to the crag. Trad? most UK climbers operate at a laughably easy grade. Soloing? anecdotally, most soloing deaths - and there are enough- happen on relatively easy ground, grades below what the dice-rollers are known for climbing. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hands mauled from hand-jamming: a particularly mild session</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The reality is that it is safer than a lot of other sports : definitely horse-riding or rugby. Although bear in mind I haven't backed this up with any research, statistics or evidence. I'm just asserting it, and I can't be fucked to check.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. Even though non-climbers think that its more dangerous, this doesn't equate to more interesting, especially if you can't imagine why someone would do it in the first place. Remember that spoof list on <a href="https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=7326">UKC "You know you're a climber when..."</a> Lot of truth in that especially: "</span></div>
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<li style="box-sizing: border-box;">The 'what have you been up to?' conversations are just as boring as the next man's because all you ever respond with is 'climbing.'</li>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. The reason they can't imagine why we would do it is because we can't tell them in a way that makes sense. Look at this article from the <a href="http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/rock-climbers-have-excellent-weekend-of-gruelling-misery-20160509108686">Daily Mash</a> 'Rock climbers enjoy weekend of gruelling misery'. Ostensibly, its written as satire, but in actual fact it is a piece of cutting edge reportage which gets more facts correct than most mainstream information about climbing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But here goes at unpicking why I do it:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Someone at uni, nearly twenty years ago, tried to explain why they loved golf - which is a shit game. They said that as soon as they pinged a ball, there wasn't anything else. That was it for me with climbing: as soon as I did it there wasn't anything else. There might have been a bit of an incubation phase, but from those first visits to the wall, through to getting on rock, and getting through stuff at a level of difficulty I couldn't imagine - it was all there was.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Furthermore, the more I do it, the more deeply addicted I get: I don't yet know whether this will culminate in a moment of clarity in five years time where I realise I wear pink shoes that cost £100 a pop and then immediately give up. But at the moment - I'm committed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And probably the final point: its cool because its pointless but beautiful. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I bet that's no clearer. We've got a range of options: take people climbing OR accept the fact a proportion of people in our lives won't ever get it OR keep culling the friendship list.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Which to choose?</span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-88837277124635008432017-08-14T07:35:00.004-07:002017-08-14T07:35:58.613-07:00Steeple Buttress<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steeple Buttress</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I want to go climbing for the purest motive of all: in order to get a free hat. So its off to the Lakes, dragging Rob Prowse up there for a climbing weekend when he should be packing for his actual <i>move</i> to the Lakes. We've selected a handful of routes on the <a href="https://arcteryxlakelandrevival.com/">Arcteryx Lakeland Revival</a>, and there is a bit of a cluster around Ennerdale, including Steeple Buttress, 'a remote and long climb that finishes right on the summit ... v.diff.' </span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The weather forecasts provide </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">de</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tailed knowledge of what we are to expect, but they are also bad, predicting lightning, rain and high winds. This doesn't suit us, so we ignore them. We find the following justifications for our behaviour: 1. MWIS is a little bit wussy and conservative to poke people into making sensible mountaineering decisions, 2. the Met Office is a bit too general and not aimed at climbers, 3. it simply does not suit the time we have available for going to the hills. WE have travelled from Norfolk, were the only rock is sold at Great Yarmouth, and if we burn the fuel we are getting out of the van.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Good call. The weather is nothing like as bad as forecast and we march over the hills to the remote valley. We make good time to attempt Steeple Buttress on the same day, until we have to walk into Mirk Cove. Cue a classic mistake. We decide to contour around the sides of the valley across scree rather than lose height walking on nice spongy grass then meandering our way up to the start of the climb. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tkmHb-1NL4zTAMGTCUorexizOICTLIx86xybPtX1dMA-43Ig0cRFS6ldgKoC71Bo2bx6LVtPQ_1K2wa3Ah0XQBjf858HNMyxM5Shogn3mFkhP0qQDlN94o-ueVSKH5b_lWToRO3bwNhO/s1600/DSC01288.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tkmHb-1NL4zTAMGTCUorexizOICTLIx86xybPtX1dMA-43Ig0cRFS6ldgKoC71Bo2bx6LVtPQ_1K2wa3Ah0XQBjf858HNMyxM5Shogn3mFkhP0qQDlN94o-ueVSKH5b_lWToRO3bwNhO/s320/DSC01288.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What do you see? if the answer isn't 'ankle-snapping death' then you're wrong</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We lose a load of time and arrive at the base of the climb at half two. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";">The hillside is shattered and sheer and looks like the elaborate stonework of a gothic cathedral, all buttresses, gargoyles and gutters.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";">The rock is black and wet.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "helvetica";">Cloud swirls around the top. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having used up our stupidity we make a good decision to not start on the climb: at a pitch an hour we would be up there at half eight also known as nightfall. Nope. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rob's ultra lightweight tarp holds up better than you would think to the wind and rain of the night, but if the climb looked a bit wet yesterday, it canNOT be better today. Still, we think, we'll go and have a look, and take our harnesses ropes and gear anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes. The rock is wet. But the flesh is willing! so off we set. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYk1lPITsIMchAiemTo0nn6XGKmrt6VrJaqHAT9hY2_ia5LVhcNT6_1AgO9Hdyx1XHlldSmayyS6hWUvIEduI4FFm0ks66Lj7Zs04LDp9AG-VMMMVmdmeaVLF0lTyw-DtHd5_UZv_PAv5/s1600/DSC01275.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYk1lPITsIMchAiemTo0nn6XGKmrt6VrJaqHAT9hY2_ia5LVhcNT6_1AgO9Hdyx1XHlldSmayyS6hWUvIEduI4FFm0ks66Lj7Zs04LDp9AG-VMMMVmdmeaVLF0lTyw-DtHd5_UZv_PAv5/s320/DSC01275.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The route is to the left of the picture. None the wiser?</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, I have been guilty of thinking that the grade of V. Diff is frankly a bit beneath me. After all, I can onsight 7a (I did it once, and not again)! I have been known to climb E1 and E2 and find them easy! As it turns out, the difficulty is not in the technicality of the movement but rather in the 'Mountainy-ness' of the route. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is a fight up shattered rock with no gear, interspersed with slidy grass. I run out of rope on a 20 metre pitch because I simply cannot believe that the belay is where it is. I avoid gear placements which seem pointless i.e. all of them, and the rope drag is so intense I feel like an arrow about to be fired across the valley.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The last two pitches are the obvious crux. Rob sets out up what looks like friendly enough rock. The rock is indeed friendly, but the quarter inch of slug slime on top isn't. Rob climbs while laughing ironically, then sets up a belay swearing manically. When I get to the belay, I find he has got halfway up the chimney and burrowed into the sodden wet mattress of moss that has been happily growing on nothing stable. He has unearthed a decent stance, but doesn't look happy about it. He should, as tying into the gear has clearly prevented him from sinking into the mountainside to a bitterly ironic death by drowning on a sheer mountainside.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is only one problem. The chimney he is in is so slimed up that we have no chance of getting up it. If the way up here was slippy, the way out is positively soap-like. The chimney to the left looks better, the rock is clean with visible holds, and a clear way up to the summit cairn, where, for once, there might be some appreciative and attractive female hikers to appreciate our clearly heroic efforts. The only problem with this chimney is that we are not in it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I can get there, but it means a nightmare traverse - over more slime- and running our ropes over a razor-sharp fin of rock which is serrated like a saw. If I fall, the chance of the rope cutting and dropping me down the mountain seems unacceptably high. I step out of Wet Chimney, and across towards Dry Chimney in the best possible place, but it is still not good. I am milking an undercut jam formal I am worth, while my boots rest on footholds angled like lifeboat launching ramps. I try and improve my feet - keep moving, look for improvements however small, but trying to accurately place my feet wearing mountain boots is as difficult and pointless as balancing the tip of a canoe on a marble.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I reach across for what should be a good jug, but isn't. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">As I move, the cleats skitter, and I cling on with iron fingers to the hand holds.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">I skitter my feet and pedal them against the wet glass, this is desperate, desperate.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">My feet go, and for a moment I am holding myself locked off, my fingers and my core desperately locked solid.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">I get half a foot back on, and it is enough to move one hand up, snatching onto hold as grippable as a dinner plate.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">I look down, don’t even notice the drop and find a vague change in angel which is enough to paste the side of my foot on.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">Its not enough.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica;">But my fingers don’t care and go for another hold and I am moving up, the rope drags at my waste, trying to pull me back and off.</span><span style="font-size: 11px;"> </span></span><br />
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I look at what I am standing on. It is a huge shelf, where an obelisk of rock has fissured and separated from the mountain, filled with rubble. Normally, I would get out of there without hesitation, but I need some time to get my head back and my breathing rate down. I have been gibbering nonsense as well, which is bit embarrassing. Or would be if anyone were to hear it. There's only Rob and he's about to find out why. </div>
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‘Where are you Pete? Wave an arm’. I am back in human contact, which is what I need. I calm down and head up, and WITHIN A MINUTE the experience has changed from harrowing to deeply satisfying and pleasant. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Rob follows up with an audible sucking sound -</span><i style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">sshhhloooop - </i><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">as the bog releases him, then straight up to the summit.</span></div>
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We head out home across the tops, glowing with a happy sense of still being alive and being able to do this kind of stuff for fun. Yes, I will be doing another Lakeland Revival Route next year, I have already started looking forward to it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJOxXjqXEiATNPV48RfQzNHuYsI4g1V6ZGKBGuZnfterjYObJhPe4LTkrXF1gbOVRuK3a-ekr-80OUhH8wh_hlRp-W37qT0zCfBhVKZybMqCqUsX3bCSHObmTkwqBsN9Ly5sjaV8-fmFhJ/s1600/DSC01294.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJOxXjqXEiATNPV48RfQzNHuYsI4g1V6ZGKBGuZnfterjYObJhPe4LTkrXF1gbOVRuK3a-ekr-80OUhH8wh_hlRp-W37qT0zCfBhVKZybMqCqUsX3bCSHObmTkwqBsN9Ly5sjaV8-fmFhJ/s640/DSC01294.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oblivious to the views, we pack up.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-32859580525470654742017-07-14T06:09:00.000-07:002017-07-14T06:09:30.046-07:00Solos, Run-outs and Lids<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Solos, Run-outs and Lids.</span></h2>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The lad is friendly enough and looks like not a bad climber, though not awesome, definitely climber not punter. At the moment I am virtually writhing in rage with him though, because he is soloing in front of my eight-year-old son; who tells me he thinks its cool.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I tell Ellis I can name hundreds of good climbers who died soloing, and reel of some names. Ellis says 'that's three. Who else?' It is an hour later I finally think of John Bachar, bollocks, normally my memory for death is so good.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, not that I am all holier-than-thou with soloing. No, I don't do it, but roped climbing trad definitely involves times when you could potentially deck out if you fluff it, especially as my style is evolving into a run-it-out-don't-pump-out style. This is in part because of my encounters with Scottish winter, in which it is not an advantage to be hunting round for buried gear placements wile the temperature drops and the day approaches dusk.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnJDA2unXpnqFUyGffq4LYvafonH-H3gewZ8iNLcmdMqbFsWRYNIEkXbITN6BXvEXPWnUU_psgFFGFs-oH3AYoJ9GrOkiOghkRqNCNPprAYmhyDr7fO5kwRb_DqjWiTGW_7s9Tm7LbAzf/s1600/IMG_0636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnJDA2unXpnqFUyGffq4LYvafonH-H3gewZ8iNLcmdMqbFsWRYNIEkXbITN6BXvEXPWnUU_psgFFGFs-oH3AYoJ9GrOkiOghkRqNCNPprAYmhyDr7fO5kwRb_DqjWiTGW_7s9Tm7LbAzf/s320/IMG_0636.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The point of Scottish Winter? Photos as clickbait.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Soloing produces a reaction in people because the lack of a rope and harness indicate, as clear as you like, that the person visibly cannot depend on the backup of gear. If I run it out, taking serious risks by skipping gear, you cannot tell unless you know the route and can assess how I've climbed it. Soloing is quickly identifiable as more risky, and it is this that has led to a lot of videos about it, often featuring Alex Honnold, or people who want to be him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Soloing seems to produce more of a mental effect as well, a more </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">profound</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> experience. It certainly looked that way when me and Tom watched the soloist try his foot one way and then another on the crux, then back to the first way again. Just watching was terrifying, then he made the move and spent only seconds shaking out before keeping going. He was on a slab, and sheer tactics suggest - take a bit longer before you go, but having already done that route, I did know he was onto easier ground, moves no harder than v.diff.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">People climbing the top end of trad can have the ability to climb very fucking hard indeed because they know they can take the falls onto gear - <a href="http://enormocast.com/episode-48-hazel-findlay-being-blonde-bold-and-resolute/">Hazel Findlay springs to mind, especially her interview with the Enormocast</a>. This is not the dominant, slightly wussy mainstream British culture, where we have a hundred year old culture of disapproving trad-blokes with socks up to the knee declaring 'The Leader MUST NOT fall.' As if this would be a moral failing on a par with giving in to the temptation of masturbation on a lazy afternoon, or cowardice in battle, rather than a failure of grip, stamina or technique (masturbation could only aid these attributes).</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTd1cHyuA19ak90RNTOFQ-bMl3do8u9aT2XWrzx0aveqvcqP79FmonzHG-ShaSgnSPO0C0F6rp2zJy9lgrZXRvD14q9GqSx932VTh5dFrB7x53YU8n-HWKU57gghUILQ6DGJ0pP1sZggAN/s1600/stoned.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTd1cHyuA19ak90RNTOFQ-bMl3do8u9aT2XWrzx0aveqvcqP79FmonzHG-ShaSgnSPO0C0F6rp2zJy9lgrZXRvD14q9GqSx932VTh5dFrB7x53YU8n-HWKU57gghUILQ6DGJ0pP1sZggAN/s320/stoned.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Safety first: lid, gear and bomber anchors, <br />even when clearly incredibly high.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Soloing embraces this risk limiting ethos. You really cannot fall without obvious risk of death or serious injury, so the frame of mind must be that you cannot allow the possibility of falling to arise. Some soloists won't wear a helmet, as this accepts a possibility of a fall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unlike the bloke parked in the middle of his middle-aged group of crag-rats, who are chatting by the end of the crag. His female companion asks him where his helmet is.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">BLOKE: I've forgotten it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Woman: Naughty Boy</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">BLOKE (huffily) : I didn't realise you were a school teacher [this said in a tone implying that nothing could be worse]</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Bloke is on the defensive, and badly. Everyone else at the crag has a lid on and he plainly feels threatened. Its his own guilt, the woman he is talking to doesn't actually seem to bothered</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">BLOKE: Anyway, I saw a car accident once where everyone was wearing a seat-belt. If that car had burst into flames they all would have been dead. I was first on the scene, and I had a hell of a job getting them out, if that car had burst into flames, they would all have burnt.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He clearly feels that this proves his point that he should not have to wear a helmet AS IT IS CLEARLY MORE DANGEROUS TO WEAR A HELMET due to a car crash he saw years ago involving seatbelt. I wish 'Eh?' was a two syllable word, just so I could put 'fucking in the middle of it, but I will have to settle for 'E-fucking-h?'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, fair enough, if he had had the nuts to say 'I choose not to, despite being aware of the risk and statistics' I think that would have been fair enough. Or 'I have assessed the risk at this part of Stanage, and as it is not Horseshoe Quarry or the fucking Alps I do not believe there will be any risk of falling rock', again fair enough.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As it is, this asinine, illogical, and plain invented bullshit makes him the biggest dickhead at the crag. So much so, that I go an make friends with the soloist, who after all, has accepted the risks he runs. He might be lying to himself about his own mortality, but he isn't pretending its safer.</span><br />
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-11972292440119090002017-05-21T07:34:00.003-07:002017-05-21T07:34:43.685-07:00The Annual Slate Trip<h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The Annual </b><span style="font-kerning: none; text-decoration: line-through;"><b>Slate</b></span><b> Wales Trip.</b></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is not the message but the medium. The readership of this blog - according to my primitive statistical analysis - likes to read humorous lists with pictures of Scottish Winter OR Humorous accounts of my mates nearly dying.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Here you are then! </b></span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Essential background: each year, the Norwich club heads out to Wales to climb on slate. We spend a week doing this, but officially market it as Wales Week to avoid unduly biasing the membership about preferred rock type.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirgwoWLXPgLo9ECgpA-6lO1KM13RtKBtx0OJy7N3H1tfx8rMSZTXcS_2XCInKiqmt7VMV6ae1UEHVciwCeqqWBVrf1I8x0gC8MfccnMSME4Zdf9Atrt2ik6QysDeFhmiDljEVKq-deoa-N/s1600/DSC01165.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirgwoWLXPgLo9ECgpA-6lO1KM13RtKBtx0OJy7N3H1tfx8rMSZTXcS_2XCInKiqmt7VMV6ae1UEHVciwCeqqWBVrf1I8x0gC8MfccnMSME4Zdf9Atrt2ik6QysDeFhmiDljEVKq-deoa-N/s320/DSC01165.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Come on. Sedimentary rocks are for losers.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. Despite the week being clearly Slate Week, some of the members go to crags with a more igneous character to them; Carreg Wastad (it is with some difficulty I have managed to stop my overly-helpful computer from correcting this to Carreg Wasted), Tremadog, Ideal Slabs or Milestone Buttress. Everyone claims to have had a good time, but this cannot be so, as it is not The Slate.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. I create a monster when I insist that Garry does not harm two spider's webs - and by implication the spiders who have made them - at the base of a warm up climb. This makes the route slightly harder, but through the week I am confronted by spider's web after spider's web. By the end, I am putting my hand through them guiltily, and try and tell myself it is the cycle of life anyway. Should I have got stuck: completely stuck on a climb, they would have been welcome to feast on my dehydrating corpse. Deal!</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oliver Twist wouldn't have moaned.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. Jason is making porridge for Jub. He does nothing wrong, adding the porridge and milk to a bowl and placing in the microwave for the correct time. The microwave focusses its powers onto a single point within the oaty mix and flash boils a single enormous bubble which belches the porridge out of the bowl like a volcano blooping magma. Jason, undeterred has another go - exactly the same thing happens.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. Garry and I head into the Big Hole to do Supermassive Black Hole. I have dogged this before (i.e. climbese for rested on the rope) and want to get it clean. Garry is helpful and encouraging, ultimately making me have one more go, and do it, when I am about to give up. When I 'suggest' he might like to do some of the leads, he grins evilly and says 'No, mate. This is yooouuuurrrr day..."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. Henry 'Slate' Smith, 1 year old son of Garry and Alice is a gorgeous little gem of a boy, who totters around the precipices and teetering piles of scree under the watchful eye of Mum and Dad. He learns how to crimp, that falling is natural and not to be feared, that Pete (me) swears too much unless it is nighttime when it will be Mummy who is swearing, and that climbers are friendly. Everyone we meet visibly approves of the little lad being brought along - too right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. Lee makes us all laugh with Henry's Sweep toy, doing a spirited monologue about murdering people. 'What's that Sweep? Only fifteen years? Yes I know. And you'd have a Phd by the time you get released?" After a few minutes it all gets a bit too convincing, the consensus is that Becky, Lee's Girlfriend, may have a lot to cope with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At the very top of a multi-pitch trad route, Roger drops a nut down a crack while trying to build a belay.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It falls within the crack and lodges just out of reach.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not being quitters, the team tape together two nut keys and attempt to fish it out.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They nearly reach it, tickling the wire at the very top, but not quite hooking it. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This slight movement is enough to dislodge it and vroooop! it tinkles down the crack to the centre of the earth… </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">7. Wioleta takes the whipper of the trip falling off Bisch Basch Bosch at the second bolt. She narrowly avoids clattering off a massive ledge, falling about six or seven metres. Without sweat or complaint she heads back up immediately to finish the route. I am the belayer and it is the biggest fall I've held. Jo's tumble off Christmas Curry at Tremadog does not compare, although to be fair, it is a fall onto trad gear rather than a nice stainless steel bolt...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">8. Much needed rest days involve traipsing around the different levels of the quarriess, exhausting </span>ourselves<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> moving vertically between other people's belays. These rest days often leave us more physically wrecked than before. We start to hope for rain, then when it rains are grumpy. This is possibly all you need to know about human nature.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">19. Steve cooks delicious food. He is the only climber - ever - to bring truffle oil and his own spices on climbing trips. His pestle and mortar has wear marks testifying to the number of curries produced, and several of us use the grinding of spices as strength training.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The reality of climbing trips: faff and packing.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">10. Tim gets excited when he finds a guidebook written by his father included in a book about guidebooks. Truly, a guidebook written listing other guidebooks fills the last great meta-niche of all time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">11. James -the Club Chairman- had to cancel coming on the trip. This is because his plans for his forthcoming wedding are going smoothly, but the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">restoration</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> of the Mark 1 Landrover needed to take him to church is not. He phones up mid-week and instructs Roger to stop telling him how nice the weather is in Wales.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me redpointing Mister Blister, should have had it</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By the end of the week we are all as satisfied as our personalities will allow, bearing in mind that for some climbers improvement and achievement are fleeting goals. As I have pointed out previously in a blog post so old none of you will have read it - climbsis not like mars bars which eventually fill one up. They are like heroin, each one leaves you more deeply addicted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On the last morning I say goodbye to Lee and Becky. They are off on a van around Europe for a year, driving, climbing and living the van life. I will miss them, although, in fairness they live in Sheffield normally so I will see them as much as I normally do. As I walk up the steps away from Vivian Quarry, I wonder if Henry's Sweep toy has gone home with Henry and not with Lee. I suppress a moment of worry...</span><br />
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-40365045308355352022017-05-16T08:13:00.000-07:002017-05-16T08:13:14.597-07:00Burglar Bill's Tea-Time<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 30px; line-height: normal;">
<b>Burglar Bill’s Tea-Time</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7G53lJWgTGP46gChAZlRIT78UIHtGZkoZaEBzlnQE2LMjcdtYomlEMeWQid7IeJIYocSwCNxXRsS1REj_BNow0sBY5Idub4xQuEh1NdlH-Og6_SuVr6tAAGSECTxpFnvrQxnYh8TTBDmM/s1600/IMG_0857.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7G53lJWgTGP46gChAZlRIT78UIHtGZkoZaEBzlnQE2LMjcdtYomlEMeWQid7IeJIYocSwCNxXRsS1REj_BNow0sBY5Idub4xQuEh1NdlH-Og6_SuVr6tAAGSECTxpFnvrQxnYh8TTBDmM/s320/IMG_0857.JPG" width="235" /></a><b>One of the attractions of climbing must be its utter pointlessness. John Redhead famously said that if you were climbing something in order to get to the top you were wasting your time. Johnny Dawes observed that ‘No handed climbing is a pointless activity. Just like climbing’.</b></div>
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<b>Well I beg to differ. There is one highly specific set of circumstances in which a trained ability to climb is an essential skill. </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Club member Violeta and I have headed back after a rewarding/tiring day in which I belay her up a series of more and more difficult climbs at higher and higher levels in the quarries. This culminates in her climbing a long, difficult and atmospheric route in the quarries by four o’clock. The week’s climbing has been tiring, so we kick it in the nuts and head back to the hut for a cup of tea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The crisis looms as we approach the Klub Hut. Neither of us has a key, as between the twelve club members we have separated across the hillside and throughout the quarries. And the hut, originally built to store gunpowder for mining the quarries, has two foot thick walls and a massive steel door- securely locked by an expensive brand of lock whose logo is a muscleman whose legs and groin turn into a key. Who thinks this shit up?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx5dc0IWaERMSQpIZF9By1MEa6JL0YyOvTpTfAAl7YL_5tvkSCohJCRRR5UWr77oH761SX66HumFQDfWx_GVIxBBlD4gJE30nEIaFbRc8T2r6fAVvjfnHrsJlP2QKl1NyONP-yWtjSBT0E/s1600/IMG_0855.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx5dc0IWaERMSQpIZF9By1MEa6JL0YyOvTpTfAAl7YL_5tvkSCohJCRRR5UWr77oH761SX66HumFQDfWx_GVIxBBlD4gJE30nEIaFbRc8T2r6fAVvjfnHrsJlP2QKl1NyONP-yWtjSBT0E/s320/IMG_0855.JPG" width="235" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Now, despite our consciousness of security, due to residing in the (rural) crime capital of Norfolk, we have left some windows open round the back. The Ladies bathroom has a staunch concrete window frame, clearly pincheable and is about four feet of the ground, but the window opening is not big enough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">No. It must be the dormitory window. I size it up and reckon it will go. Reading the route, I note a thick two inch ledge, numerous footholds in the course of slate supporting this, then a possible mantle up a blank face of slate tiled wall. I’m going to need my shoes for this, but lest we forget, I am a climber who has been climbing, so have them to hand.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">First attempt, barely get of the ground before crashing back into a bramble-tangle. Like velcro barbed wire it is.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYJ89jRk67U5Ehtid9romWdwDZmkRP68rwwrjLkJPN9P_j5wrmqHsTXZS1z2gmmo5v4N-xG2aHCgTnu3_IBERXfe1mPemIQ2gPc17cZPuSw4KoQvvi2UaYV4ACQnjS0XQDInuMn8695uy/s1600/IMG_0860.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjYJ89jRk67U5Ehtid9romWdwDZmkRP68rwwrjLkJPN9P_j5wrmqHsTXZS1z2gmmo5v4N-xG2aHCgTnu3_IBERXfe1mPemIQ2gPc17cZPuSw4KoQvvi2UaYV4ACQnjS0XQDInuMn8695uy/s320/IMG_0860.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTF12kyYFgMB6usaFFY7B0oJ0vMOR9VVn4JPqYBgonQ4eRnV11eGAaUbqb249aJjrsDS0K_ZZgPMRB4kvBhmu2hVhEswGVdVo_13yb3c3cywDzyopkuv3P3Fg7OqJl_zvXU1GH7K9PzitK/s1600/IMG_0850.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTF12kyYFgMB6usaFFY7B0oJ0vMOR9VVn4JPqYBgonQ4eRnV11eGAaUbqb249aJjrsDS0K_ZZgPMRB4kvBhmu2hVhEswGVdVo_13yb3c3cywDzyopkuv3P3Fg7OqJl_zvXU1GH7K9PzitK/s320/IMG_0850.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Second attempt goes better, I rock up onto the ledge. Its balancey, and relies on a crucial pinch of code four lead flashing. Past the feet , mantle up and I am in the window niche. Getting through the open window is not as simple as might otherwise be, as there is a system of metal bars which partially block access. But I choose the middle and leading in with one shoulder, then working my other shoulder in. Shoulders in: no part of my body is wider, so all that remains is a face forward snake-like wriggle across the window frame, arms pressed out as if doing a plank. I scrape my genitals across the wooden bar, then my thighs, knees, shins. It is the least enjoyable part of an otherwise exceptional climb with unique moves.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhogT1WElIAiQvEh0v2cUTcZ4phFhKUTGukEwFXk8FHMPYpjjifeF8gPn03A3txMkfy84JKkjUQIXVrVhknsPEjtYsaF_7anGXahgTJncH4D1cz5UbeQ8vFT3Zsk6AohqptqODS0d-Yo972/s1600/IMG_0852.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhogT1WElIAiQvEh0v2cUTcZ4phFhKUTGukEwFXk8FHMPYpjjifeF8gPn03A3txMkfy84JKkjUQIXVrVhknsPEjtYsaF_7anGXahgTJncH4D1cz5UbeQ8vFT3Zsk6AohqptqODS0d-Yo972/s320/IMG_0852.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I claim first ascent ( if anyone has previously climbed this route - I don’t care) and name it Burglar Bill’s Tea Time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">No point eh? Without all those hours climbing, learning balance and building strength I could not have overcome the problem of being locked out. I think we will conveniently overlook the point that if I hadn’t been there for a climbing holiday, then I wouldn’t have needed to break in. But you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise what is the point of anything?</span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-37690811001808460402017-04-21T01:58:00.001-07:002017-04-21T01:58:26.846-07:00Breaking News<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Breaking News</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here we go, this year's election has been called. Apparently the neverendum was so popular, following the blockbuster of the general election the year before (or whenever it was), that this time we are going to combine the Brexit vote WITH the general election! Wow!</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am so far into not giving a fuck. Its like that moment when you feel the strength go out of your muscles, even the next easy move is beyond you. I just do not have the micro-nutrients within my muscles to be able to flex once more for the next hold.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not one of the parties fits the bill. Even those that I am more traditionally predisposed to blow it in some major way: Labour - fight themselves harder than anyone else; the Lib Dems lest we forget joined the coalition; SNP - have Nicola Sturgeon who I am sick to the tits of with her fucking mandate; the Tories I could never, never vote for because of their smugness, history and sheer self-interested expedient evil. Even the Greens, who on paper are the best fit for me, would potentially ban my beloved diesel-engined Bongo because of some trifling air pollution concerns. A classic example of every moderate environmentalist's dilemma!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fuck the fucking lot of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That goes for the internet petitions too. Change.org, 38 degrees, whatever those green ones are for the official Houses of Commons stuff. I used to think it was alright until you realise they will petition for any-fucking thing, and claim loads of credit for Osbourne quitting one of his jobs, micro-beads getting banned or Wednesday following shortly after a Tuesday.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So instead of moaning, here is my manifesto. This is the climbers manifesto, and if you don't agree with it, write your own.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. Access legislation same as Scotland's. Imagine it! being able to walk anywhere that isn't round someone's house and doesn't have crops on it. Instead, we get the internal policemen in your head wondering when someone is going to shout at you. Or - worse - a middle-class Englishwoman passive-aggressively informing you of some hazard she has just invented. Like if you're wild-camping with your son in Thetford forest, you need to beware of the deer-stalking in the forest.- because apparently that's how they stalk deer, they randomly shoot into a tent in case a 10 point buck is sleeping there.
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scottish Access Law. Also, Clickbait.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. Don't fuck the environment up. Its not red tape to want pollution controls - as long as I keep the Bongo though. By the way: I fully support renewables and cannot get away with people moaning that wind turbines are eyesores. If you don't want wind turbines on hills, you better have changed all your lightbulbs for LED ones and got a+++ appliances all round. If you've built your own straw bale house - whinge away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. NHS. Yes please. Public Services generally. That includes Mountain Rescue still being free. Wankers who think we should have insurance- thus enriching insurance companies even further- can fuck off. That goes for bicycle insurance too. Just fuck off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. I like foreigners; they are cool. I want to be able to travel, and I want people from foreign countries to be able to come and receive the same hospitality as they've shown me. Especially if they are into climbing. I want a load of Basques, Yanks, Slovenians and Iranians over here, now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. That includes refugees too. </span><span style="font-family: "\22 arial\22 " , "\22 helvetica\22 " , sans-serif;">I feel sorry for refugees. They only want the chance to slave away for piss-poor wages in order to prop up the gold-plated pensions of a load of old cunts who don't want them to actually have to live here. In quest of a better life than being raped or macheted by some coked-up teenager who is being told God wants him to do it. Or drowning when your inflatable boat capsizes because we cut the Coast Guard budget in the Med. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. Golf-courses. They can go. They represent all that is wrong with an deeply unequal misogynistic, environmentally-bumming society. Look at Donald Trump's golf course in Moray (the SNP invited him in), bulldozed over a Site of Special Scientific Interest. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Turned out to be prescient that did.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There we go. Anyone who wants my vote better promise me all that. Its a good job none of these sorry lot will, because I would be genuinely disappointed when a) they didn't do any of it post election- inevitable, or b) they genuinely enacted all of it, in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">such</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a stupid way that even I would relish imprisonment in a brick womb.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll be off climbing now. At least I've got a week booked in May with no telly to have to shout at.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oh hold on, just before I disappear for a week- there is one group- only one -who have politically raised any interest for me at all. Meet the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/AltUSNationalParkService/">Alt National Park</a>, they're all over Facebook at the moment. So, who would have thought that Park Rangers might be the most radical group in America. Certainly no one who has watched Valley Uprising where they all had intolerant moustaches and silly hats and hassled the peace-loving climbers and their hot girlfriends. But here we are!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Coolest logo since the anarchy sign.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sadly, they are also in America, but have a flick through their Facebook posts - they don't like Trump cutting parks budgets, aren't keen on deregulating industries' ability to pour pollution where it likes because its cheaper, but also put out longish but sensibly reasoned posts with cool graphics. Can we start doing that over here please?</span></div>
Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-57772817224699649172017-04-14T03:18:00.002-07:002017-04-14T03:18:28.348-07:00Crossover Training<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Crossover Training</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assuming that by now everyone has grasped that I live in Norfolk miles away from any rock whatsoever, I have a family and other commitments such as pretending to work, and yet I want to climb as hard as I possibly can. At the moment, this means trying to push my grade up to a certain level both indoors, but most importantly on the slate.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, it seems that there are two distinct strategies. One would be to strictly audit my time, and allocate what there is available to a clearly structured and periodised climbing plans.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other strategy is to try and find a load of activities that I can pretend in some way mimic the- highly specific- activity of climbing, in order to make some kind of improvement in weird areas such as knot tying, which might equate to a 1% increase in performance due to, say, getting less pumped on a clip.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Strategy 1 - the plan - is sensible and a proven route to improvement. Guess which one I have plumped for!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Have a look at my previous post about <a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/how-i-maximise-my-training-potential.html">maximising my training gains</a>, which outlines the philosophy and also some basic exercises. It's more in the same vein.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. You need to find some jams.</span></h4>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Excruciating... but solid</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hand jamming is an important addition to your repertoire of moves. Fair go, it doesn't come up in bouldering that much, but if you want to d classic Joe Brown routes on the trad, because you're so fucking gnarly... then you've got to jam. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Classic example: The File at Higgar Tor. VS. V fucking S, but if you can't hand jam its impossible. I know this for a fact.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To jam that well, you need a theoretical understanding of the opposing kinetic forces. Also, a high pain threshold and the experience to know that what feels as insecure as sinking an ice-axe into milk is actually bomber.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Round here: its trees. Look for parallel tree stems which are about a hands width apart. This is going to hurt...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is one of those funny mental things like seeing fish in a river. You're mate says 'look at those fish in the river, you say 'what fish?' cause there aren't any. Then you see one! Then you see the lot of them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hand-jam in practise and suddenly! the existence of jams leaps out at you! You can rest on them! You can climb on them! The climbing cognoscenti - unimpressed by heel-hooks and knee-bars any more - will cheer as you do one on an indoor boulder problem!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Tiptoe everywhere.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Using footwork is an essential part of climbing, often neglected by beginners and males with huge gorilla like shoulders and completely un-worn shoe soles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By tiptoeing round the house, you will increase proprioception. Proprioception is an important term which you should use at any opportunity. It means the process by which the brain recognises and learns physical movement within the body. The brain, being essentially a lazy lump of electric fat, doesn't pay attention to the ins and outs of which muscle is being switched on. Once its learnt how to move your limbs, which it had to do twice : first when you were a toddler; then when you were a teenager. From then on, it is simply the boss of your body: shouting 'you lot! get on with it' at its most experienced workers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But unfamiliar movements are in fact unfamiliar. By tiptoeing round the place, as if the one-year-old is having a nap and you daren't wake her, you are learning to engage your toes and therefore take weight off your arms. This has unbelievable application to overhangs.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Route-reading</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Conscious and deliberate planning of your climb will give enormous benefits, but not easily. Its a pretty unnatural skill, and trying to remember sequences of moves can only be improved by deliberate practise.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The striking arete of no. 27. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Therefore, you need to plan how you would climb the front of your house. This is fun, especially if you pretend you are a ninja planning to off the Shogun's unfaithful wife. Look for slightly uneven bricks that might make a sketchy toe-hold, big tile window ledges which are in fact </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">bomber jugs, and features such as aretes (corners) and chimneys (door ways). Note areas of objective risk, such as electrical cables which you will want to avoid. Plastic drainpipes are best regarded as unstable choss, not to be trusted.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">By working out how you would climb it: and you will want to do this in some detail; you will start to build the neural pathways which will help you plan how to climb an actual route.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whether you actually climb the front of your own house is up to you, wait til the partner is out would be my advice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you've worked out every possible route up the front of your own house, apply it to other buildings. Don't get caught out, if you climb remote electricity sub-stations deep in the woods, remember that even these are occasionally visited by maintenance engineers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Follow these simple tips and you are sure to etc.etc. But if it goes wrong, I don't want to know. As a climber you have to take personal responsibility for your own actions, which is my way, as a writer, of ducking personal responsibility. Cheers!</span></h4>
Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-38160405829053446452017-04-07T01:46:00.000-07:002017-04-07T01:46:45.685-07:00Personality Types<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Personality Types</span></h2>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Me, I've got a semi-obsessive personality. I like to portray it as "oh I just really enjoy climbing" but its not really, its like a heroin addict, who with one third of his brain is ALWAYS thinking of where to get his next hit. And like some heroin addicts, I live in Drysville, where the local cops have been busting dealers, and the local Chemist has got new bars and a security system so new no one knows what the default passcode is. That is Norfolk, no rock, and only a few indoor shooting galleries, albeit, some excellent ones, shared with other total addicts.</span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, I need to scratch my itch, time to smoke some prescription painkillers! </span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've been listening the </span><a href="http://enormocast.com/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Enormocast</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> a lot. For those not in the know, it is a climbing podcast done by Chris Kalous (who?) from the US. He's interviewed hundreds of climbers, most of them Americans, including Cheyne Lemp (who?), Boone Speed (who?) and Noah Kaufman (who?). Also, lesser knowns like Paul Robinson, Tommy Caldwell and Hazel Findlay.</span></h4>
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<br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTsxsZQBHHGHfB-fhzhB0mTO3fo-Ccluv0kW-8aRPySS9Axil4S6gX6Mu1bcyvceEWxIdXOwWBLxORnCTvEPCCp-y_JRdQMPmUqDncTfPeCRZYyDMCxfniuVE37LNCH3MMYtmHtAjj2w8v/s1600/1491672_10206269712890359_319382878325608879_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTsxsZQBHHGHfB-fhzhB0mTO3fo-Ccluv0kW-8aRPySS9Axil4S6gX6Mu1bcyvceEWxIdXOwWBLxORnCTvEPCCp-y_JRdQMPmUqDncTfPeCRZYyDMCxfniuVE37LNCH3MMYtmHtAjj2w8v/s640/1491672_10206269712890359_319382878325608879_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You lot only read blogs with winter pictures on<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You can forget your stereotypes of dumb yanks too. Chris Kalusz is intelligent, witty, has a sexy voice and gets huge amounts of value out of his guests, who without fail give an entertaining and insightful interview. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Even if you don't like climbing, you get a taste of people's lives, why would you not be interested in Stacy Bare (who?)? Drugs analogies aside, Bare actually was addicted to cocaine after coming out of the army and he (yep, despite the name) variously learned how to clear landmines ('slowly and carefully') and discovered climbing which then saved his life by giving him a focus etc. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the best bits of the interview, was Chris Kalous pointing out the importance of other people towards 'your' climbing. For the self-obsessed, this is news! surely its just you and the rock? and gravity? Friends are camming devices, you must have at least some verbal contact with your belayer, but by and large it is easy to view yourself as the only person doing it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">You'll hear a lot of bollocks about what human nature actually is: especially from Cunt-Politicians, who tell you human nature demands whatever level of market freedom or state intervention best serves their vested interests. Human nature is competitive, freedom-loving, averse to foreigners, inherently violent, rational, emotional, not to be trusted - What-Fucking-Ever. I'm not Andy Kirkpatrick so we'll leave this alone...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Human nature is really the product of what the people around us say and how they behave. Not 'think', because they probably don't know why they do shit, and they definitely won't be honest about it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So, here is a list. The more of these you can identify from your circle of friends, the more likely this is to be accurate. But make no mistake, this is far from being double-blind control group peer reviewed fact. Which is why you may be reading rather than studying it.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfZYkvmPm5poyQ2MWq6_S8Jtar5afhenEturmzqqXJaDpZxSGXsz2FjblS9Rn-V7kY-mZPdvfAu6NNteMZgSMu21Az7JxjZc_8E-aUu988miycvB9_SOss_yCygrUemYCXiEnjYUvBV1T/s1600/17191246_10154597264903843_5051928483403264255_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWfZYkvmPm5poyQ2MWq6_S8Jtar5afhenEturmzqqXJaDpZxSGXsz2FjblS9Rn-V7kY-mZPdvfAu6NNteMZgSMu21Az7JxjZc_8E-aUu988miycvB9_SOss_yCygrUemYCXiEnjYUvBV1T/s400/17191246_10154597264903843_5051928483403264255_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Complex interplay of personality types.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. Guru: someone on a much higher level of climbing than you, who decides you are worth hanging out with anyway. Will help you attain greater levels of climbing well-being (achievement) and eventual reincarnation as a rope.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. Student: someone on an even lower level of competence than yourself, who you take under your wing because it gratifies your ego to do so, they may also be genuinely worth hanging out with. By explaining how they could climb better, you are forced to mentally understand what it is you are wittering on about so will accidentally find some performance gain.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. The Heel-snapper: another newer climber who has inexplicably decided you are worth competing with. Will hop on a climb you have just dropped and flash it then grin at you. Use your hatred to hold on harder to crimps.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. The Technically Competent Wuss: Climbs well below what they could achieve because they don't dare leave the safety of the bomb-shelter. Technical brilliance in an often extremely static style. Do not allow feelings of superiority to develop into contempt, and be aware that if they ever get any self-hypnosis, you will be left in the dust. Follow their gear placements with the utmost attention- if you place gear like them, you will never, never get hurt.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. Mascot: someone who starts out shit -proper shit- then improves a lot, although not so much as to be a threat. Such a lovely person that you are genuinely happy for them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. The Negative Guru: an incredible climber who is happy to give advice. However, their insights about how to improve are a bit squeaky. With a sickening lurch you will realise that they haven't a clue, lets hope you realise this before you start on their campus problem which will only further retard your already underdeveloped footwork.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">7. The Warrior: someone not as good as you in the gym, but far, far more experienced outside and consequently far harder. Good to hang around with, and a realistic position to retire into once your days of talented climbing untainted by fear are over.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8. Upstart: An unbelievably talented young person who can burn off 98% of the people at your local wall. Do fucking not get into a competition with them inside your own head, as you will never beat them. Unless they lose interest, which they have a 98% chance of doing. The 2% who don't will star on videos in the future, and you can brag about knowing them when they first get started i.e. when they could only onsight f7b+ indoors.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9. Captain Macho: someone you write off as a cock due to the strength and a-technicality of their climbing style, easily spotted as will have his shirt off to expose a massive tattoo. Turns out to be quite a good bloke when you eventually talk to him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">10. Prickly Pear: someone who gets a bit fucking narky if you climb better than them, or start to display some climbing knowledge in conversation. If you really dent their ego they will lash out with an ostentatious verbal display of how good they are/who they have climbed with/where they route-set. Pity them, they are truly insecure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">11. The Rival. Someone just as good as you, just as motivated, who you will be friends with, but also get intensely competitive with. Managing this relationship, and achieving a level of equilibrium is a major emotional challenge. If you ever lose these feelings of competitiveness and inadequacy - Rejoice! for you are either a better human being, or they have 'won'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There you go. Make of this what you will, and remember! this is all inside your head. Treat people as friends rather than personality types. I just wrote this to make you smile, not live your life by.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSLqXvcfeRcLQm22v5oua9nDuOTeQi0mdhakl9vy5kYBos1V7PF-gNA-upSp_cTunUhUnzvoJ6okc4Qk8MdfELNJ5WKVHoegmAR7AZvNGWfwULryEuNl69LBqAle1aG8J2vWIfy8XdB0fj/s1600/12801603_10208847612937342_5418854225942294770_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSLqXvcfeRcLQm22v5oua9nDuOTeQi0mdhakl9vy5kYBos1V7PF-gNA-upSp_cTunUhUnzvoJ6okc4Qk8MdfELNJ5WKVHoegmAR7AZvNGWfwULryEuNl69LBqAle1aG8J2vWIfy8XdB0fj/s320/12801603_10208847612937342_5418854225942294770_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Find people you can be a knobhead with, and call them 'friends'.</td></tr>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-80610595684113017842017-03-31T11:28:00.003-07:002017-03-31T11:49:25.338-07:00Competition. Part 1 Probably<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Competition (Part 1 probably)</span></h2>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'It would be worth it just for the bragging rights. "Just back from a day rigging for Big Walls with Andy K-P, yah, yah,"' I say, normal crack for climbers being what wild ideas they have got to get past the other half in the next few months. It is much like a professional gambler - you can't win every race, but you have to keep your percentages up to stay in profit.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'Wait a minute! YOU say YOU aren't interested in bragging rights! YOU don't like competition, remember?'</span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Shit. Its one of those moments, horribly exposed and high above protection, when you have a moment of clarity and suddenly see the word for how it might really be... </span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hating and loathing competition of any form started for me as a child, because I was shit at sports. Occasionally, I would find something I was unnaturally good at, like skipping, but as a boy growing up in Liverpool in the '80s, you had to automatically love football and be amazing at it. I fucking wasn't.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then I moved to Durham. In Durham, in the '90s, you had to automatically love football and be amazing at it. Sound familiar? There I was, in my all-white PE kit, being run into the ground by man-sized thirteen year olds looking for a quick kill. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(I went to </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framwellgate_School_Durham" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Framwellgate Moor Comprehensive School:</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the list of notable former pupils has five names on it, four of them are footballers, one of whom was notably a co-defendent of Woodgate and Bowyer in their infamous 'racist assault trial'. The list unaccountably also fails to mention a local lad convicted of murder - surely that counts as notable?)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I was Thirteen I was in a school sports day - my house Hawk were doing badly. I remember suddenly thinking 'What has any of this got to do with me?' The results were other people's, who had no connection to me other than we had been grouped together in some insane dickhead's attempt to emulate a private school in pit village County Durham. <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_W09Dy9ku93i3fr6WH0EbKbFTjaWykHTpUoZ324fzTMWm265tnKDpuBfkc3i_8rK1kPAbBcx5b3rg-tmWf4wa-npSl-O4EbCCkImxA7kePsc4B9zmCDbmfn3Ek3lZ-BkWj51lftebbU-v/s1600/DSC00223.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_W09Dy9ku93i3fr6WH0EbKbFTjaWykHTpUoZ324fzTMWm265tnKDpuBfkc3i_8rK1kPAbBcx5b3rg-tmWf4wa-npSl-O4EbCCkImxA7kePsc4B9zmCDbmfn3Ek3lZ-BkWj51lftebbU-v/s320/DSC00223.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fuck! She's beating me! Must climb faster...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This set me off on a thoughtful path. Achievements meant nothing in comparison. If I ran a certain distance in a certain time, that was surely independent of someone running next to me who might be quicker or slower. After that moment of insight, formal competition meant nothing -absolutely nothing- to me, attempts to learn the names of football players faded within seconds, not just the weird foreign names either.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When I came to climbing, I liked it because no one had to lose for me to win, I just had to achieve something, and anyone else could too</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. Climbing has been becoming more competition orientated, has been for decades, but this is coming more prominent with inclusion in the Olympics. There can be a competitive atmosphere at some climbing walls, it might be pretty informal, but you can tell when someone gets on a climb to burn you off.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But you can sidestep any competitive aspect because climbing is such a broad church. Not much room for competition below the top levels of alpinism or <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5961254488536327848#editor/target=post;postID=8131969015389191493;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=3;src=postname">Scottish Winter</a>, because the stakes are so high, adding a layer of competition would surely ratchet up the 'normal' level of crippling tension beyond any serious functionality. Plus, it is easy! Then, when you get back home, you can lord it over the bouldering types with your thousand-yard stare because you can't handle the moves, but they can't handle the danger.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPMaawvWTrpHkaLDwRt1Zja4PDmx-IAa6qSDjvFx3zBirX-vT9KSHOeXb8be7JHcHr6soR7mZ5RSHwv_fmfkTZZj7InCTfi9wqQmcrsbkrLDK5APwG7gk9KYoxc8EjyMTdzkV0Zk3F-Sk0/s1600/IMG_0634.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPMaawvWTrpHkaLDwRt1Zja4PDmx-IAa6qSDjvFx3zBirX-vT9KSHOeXb8be7JHcHr6soR7mZ5RSHwv_fmfkTZZj7InCTfi9wqQmcrsbkrLDK5APwG7gk9KYoxc8EjyMTdzkV0Zk3F-Sk0/s400/IMG_0634.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Beating this guy though!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrffVxgyMG7iVWEDWFlrZAG4K0tNAYLbgHircJalcybDn0HA_FcQXudiTQXmRYLZgzoi7HQH1tcBYMkKvROAsVnsFav-SF8jmON_DSVxvWBNWN709CM7gOLfGD2ko6s6fPvRornaMjyCCg/s1600/IMG_0636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrffVxgyMG7iVWEDWFlrZAG4K0tNAYLbgHircJalcybDn0HA_FcQXudiTQXmRYLZgzoi7HQH1tcBYMkKvROAsVnsFav-SF8jmON_DSVxvWBNWN709CM7gOLfGD2ko6s6fPvRornaMjyCCg/s200/IMG_0636.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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Until he puts a spurt on, and he's nearly there... </div>
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My self-esteem shrivels like my tiny cold cock.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All the time without worrying about why a comparison needs to be made at all. Maybe, just maybe, the truth is you are so competitive that you CANNOT STAND even the prospect of of being beaten. Not entering a race is the only sure way of remaining undefeated.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mind you, if you are unpicking things to this level, you are dangerously close to reaching enlightenment, and the ultimate universal truth that everything is meaningless. Including your own survival, which would briefly allow you to really push your trad grade. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hmm. All very troubling, so one solution: seek out some interviews with great climbers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Luckily, two land on the mat, just as I am worrying about all this. The first is an interview in <a href="https://www.theprojectmagazine.com/features/2017/2/14/interview-malcolm-smith">The Project Magazine with Malcolm Smith</a>: read it now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second is the interview with <a href="http://enormocast.com/episode-100-tommy-caldwell-adventure-addict/">Tommy Caldwell on the Enormocast</a>. Listen to this now, especially as Chris Kalusz had what my missus describes as 'an extremely sexy voice'. Even I have to agree.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Malcolm Smith has some fantastic insights. As a very introverted chap, he has to live in his own head more than the world, and as such really knows himself. Despite his introversion, Malcolm went out into climbing competitions. These competitions favour the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HighballNorwich/videos/1245131785505899/">extrovert</a> - of which I most definitely am</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, even on my own I am showing off to a crowd of one, who doesn't care and isn't impressed. But for Malcolm they were a nightmare, and he had to go to war to do well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One part stands out: "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.3199999928474426px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">needing to be good is a character flaw, it's ego. Competition and grades are about social status. I don't want to be part of a hierarchy or scene anymore, it's weak. Strength is about doing your thing for you and not seeking approval.</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-family: "abel"; font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0.3199999928474426px;">"</span><br />
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; letter-spacing: 0.3199999928474426px;">His point is clear: needing to compete and do well is weaker than disregarding the opinion of others and doing it for yourself. I would feel validated by his opinion, if it were not for the fact that needing my opinion validated by his is... a bit on the weak side.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3199999928474426px;">Then Tommy Caldwell chimes in. Freeing the Dawn Wall with Kevin Jorgerson was a newsworthy event, hitting national and international news: I first heard their names on the BBC News. Tommy gets motivated by competition, it makes him try harder. But at the same time, he thrives on collaboration, all his friends and family jugging up fixed lines to help him and Kevin get to the top. His attitude is to take a bit of competition and use it to spice up his performance a bit; using it as a handy tool. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.3199999928474426px;">So that's it. Competition is simultaneously weak, but also a useful tool to inspire performance? You will have to decide for yourselves, because I'm none the wiser. I still don't like competition though. I will be using some movement drills and strength training as useful tools instead. </span></span></span><br />
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-54537679778816623222017-03-24T03:43:00.000-07:002017-03-25T10:41:38.692-07:00Walking Through A Wall<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Walking Through A Wall.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a quote for you - bit long, and slightly out of context, because its about base-jumping - but here you go, its from a novel called Zero History by William Gibson, who is a genius. He invented the term 'cyberspace' in, like 1982, before we had the fucking internet. Anyway...</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"He says its like walking through walls. Nobody can, but if you could, he says, it would feel like that. He says the wall is inside, though, and you do have to walk through it."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "I'm afraid of heights."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "So's he. He says. Said. I haven't seen him for a while."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Spot on. </span><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik0ExvsgaXSlwmQZ11pFBdr39Ovlgf2B9A1ekKTmkVmH2Pq0Ze0JhQdyGcXGPRUEyDgb49duPNeUtW9bI1SMJcWIp94NZsr30NGzV_m62edZw-UGMBcerg5u6EDn7i4Y-uZxk7-RKH7CCr/s1600/DSC00145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik0ExvsgaXSlwmQZ11pFBdr39Ovlgf2B9A1ekKTmkVmH2Pq0Ze0JhQdyGcXGPRUEyDgb49duPNeUtW9bI1SMJcWIp94NZsr30NGzV_m62edZw-UGMBcerg5u6EDn7i4Y-uZxk7-RKH7CCr/s400/DSC00145.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When you are bonkers, visualisation <br />
of the impossible is important.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A year or two ago I said in conversation that I wanted to climb 7a to another climber. His response was 'Well, you are basically doing 7a moves already.' If he was right, then how come I wasn't climbing 7a on sport routes? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fear. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a social context, this doesn't bother me. I am the king of inappropriate comments one pint into the evening. I've done this for so long that I never even get a rush of adrenalin when my little voice inside says 'go on, say it'. I also have a pact with a few people: it is unspoken and it concerns the act of deliberately forgetting the worst things I say. Not that I can usually remember anyway, only the shock and disgust on people's faces remains. Thank fuck for Cards vs. Humanity which legitimises all this shit.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In a climbing context: very different, and it reflects my history of climbing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bouldering- firstly- makes you very strong and powerful, so you can take your shirt off while wearing a bobble hat. It can improve your technique, if you deliberately let it, which means doing a huge volume of some highly unenjoyable easy shit while your mates are having a right laugh working stuff at the top of their grade. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These are the plus points, but there are also limitations to bouldering, and the most important of these is height. Obvious. You never climb anything higher than two sheets of plywood on top of each other, and you never think this make a difference until you try routes and consistently run out of steam three clips up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Given I got strong as fuck, and then bothered improving my technique, why don't I climb harder eh? Because its scary without a big bastard spongy motherfucker underneath me to save my ankles. Its scary even with a kernmantle elastic band proven to be able to catch a landrover tied to my waste.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5c1qt3iDpcMOG-oW1gueJLh-j1BcQQPMGqxzIjrMwMy29cv8-E5e_5HwY92SL-qkEoacymjH4ajf1soFcOr1j-J2B97rJMttpYvWItwHmIPZ40J-B7_Et4S856c0vrvVovH8U35X-pBm/s1600/DSC00152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5c1qt3iDpcMOG-oW1gueJLh-j1BcQQPMGqxzIjrMwMy29cv8-E5e_5HwY92SL-qkEoacymjH4ajf1soFcOr1j-J2B97rJMttpYvWItwHmIPZ40J-B7_Et4S856c0vrvVovH8U35X-pBm/s400/DSC00152.JPG" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tenuous move coming up...</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fear is what gives you those very intense moments that are really like a mental enema. When the moment is so intense you can't remember your name- and don't know why you would be asking yourself that-, because nothing else exists apart from the need to reach and grab an extremely marginal crimp, or clip an awkward clip from out of balance on shit slopers. I reckon that has the same effect on the brain </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">as</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> flushing a 'chodhopper filled to the brim with bangers and mash' (in the words of Viz, pertaining to how one would expect to find a motorway services toilet). It clears it all out, and leaves it nicely empty, ready to be filled with more shite.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some of the moments are just as intense, but you actually make the decision to take the fall - safe as houses on a sensibly bolted sport route - and letting go and flying through the air. After a few of those its easier to let go because your brain has a quick check: yep, your arms and fingers are fucked, don't reckon you can do what you need to do to get to safety sooooo .... recommended option, chuck yourself off until your next stable position which is dangling from a rope. Dangling from a rope, mind, not splatted on rocks, which is also a stable position until Mountain Rescue recover your clay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This to your brain becomes an attractive choice, like ordering the Italian BMT every-fucking- time form Subway just in case a Chicken pizzicato doesn't taste nice. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is a trap.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPyCf5SKQQBZaLmbdQ1UDH-5ABN_B2__28Xm0dBC0htOJVJO1KpDKmNXwK6UoLUu5urzwzo6czkKmj1RSmkmyNdO25eKEqiIx0H9_VFmbNzeH89uBqWZ1WAgUPKURO5JvR_xuu8vil-jB/s1600/DSC00150.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvPyCf5SKQQBZaLmbdQ1UDH-5ABN_B2__28Xm0dBC0htOJVJO1KpDKmNXwK6UoLUu5urzwzo6czkKmj1RSmkmyNdO25eKEqiIx0H9_VFmbNzeH89uBqWZ1WAgUPKURO5JvR_xuu8vil-jB/s640/DSC00150.JPG" width="425" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...And he's fucked it. </td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The alternative is to go for the move. Fuck me. It is not easy, but the hard part isn't doing it, its deciding to do it. It IS like walking through a wall. But when you actually make an impossible move, your brain now knows that it can, in fact, sometimes walk through a wall.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Deep eh? Don't like it? I don't care. I can walk through walls me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Extra points if you can name the route I am failing on in the pictures. (Not Lee and Becky, who were there).</b></span><br />
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-81319690153891914932017-03-17T04:09:00.003-07:002017-03-17T04:16:20.287-07:00Lessons from Scottish Winter<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dJaJWaJ3laO7lDwGWVkxF3PIDtRhgILgPcdaReU3P2XnELpeo9z9wiOt7xYopFMdcgi_JAeneVrLvg-BDhtRmJcx06WH6uNFDG5VxMxz4j3aLVb35ze_9ZxN9nKScrVm6whTX_FdM1rb/s1600/17218681_10154398369661463_6782830562403681581_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="72" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dJaJWaJ3laO7lDwGWVkxF3PIDtRhgILgPcdaReU3P2XnELpeo9z9wiOt7xYopFMdcgi_JAeneVrLvg-BDhtRmJcx06WH6uNFDG5VxMxz4j3aLVb35ze_9ZxN9nKScrVm6whTX_FdM1rb/s320/17218681_10154398369661463_6782830562403681581_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It IS worth it. (Photo thanks to Peter Naylor)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Lessons from Scottish Winter</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Climbing, like no other activity I have ever found, has the ability to transcend 'normal' life. The very nature of the heroic struggle of climber against gravity and weather obliterates the normal pervasive culture of consumerism, career and c**tishness: which I call the three c's. The raw fight against factors which do not depend on society's opinions allow some stunning insights into the nature of reality.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here are mine from the recent Highball Scottish Winter Trip.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. Going on a climbing trip and being around other climbers means you are not an secret agent any more. If you surreptitiously try out a crimp on a brick wall, or eye up potential lines on the rock of a road cutting - your mates will notice and take the piss. It is important to revel in this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. The mental aspect of Scottish Winter is crucial. Essentially, you will load yourself with a near crippling anxiety, like winding a spring up to near-breaking point. Unwinding this mental spring provides the momentum to fling you up the route like a fucking arrow. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. If you aren't anxious enough, you may be complacent and will therefore automatically die. Thinking of the prospect of dying through no fault of your own - like literally none- may be enough to ramp up the anxiety to survivable levels. Dwell on the apparent slidy-ness of snow above hundreds of feet of exposure for that 'what the fuck am I doing here' motivation.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg07ZKtiW3dJZMUee4lzAIJo2OV5JUZT2vyaCdkVIPhcQyVKa1emA6q1I3iXbLz5655Mnxks524rN3w_ZLyvxvMAd-lrQYlYGtlm94l_tF6KfBZGZAvXKVFgia6QLFYQC-dwEQgR4epAwrE/s1600/17191923_10154398368761463_4755918436678901062_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg07ZKtiW3dJZMUee4lzAIJo2OV5JUZT2vyaCdkVIPhcQyVKa1emA6q1I3iXbLz5655Mnxks524rN3w_ZLyvxvMAd-lrQYlYGtlm94l_tF6KfBZGZAvXKVFgia6QLFYQC-dwEQgR4epAwrE/s320/17191923_10154398368761463_4755918436678901062_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mike Surtees Goes For It on Tower Ridge (Photo thanks to Peter Naylor)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. If not, you may need to increase the anxiety through artificial means. And ideal 'trick' is to use the Aonach Mor ski-lift, with its strict cut-off deadline at 5.15pm. Having previously done the walk of shame down the mountain bike track will further ratchet this anxiety level up to a point where you may well be climbing three grades harder with a lightning fast turnaround at belays. If the anxiety level is not high enough however, just fail to flake out ropes properly: the resulting faff will produce a near-crippling tension which will work nicely.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. Going out with a guide is money well spent, as he uses his skills and expertise to ensure your safety. Also, he is using his anxiety to keep you both safe: as a trained guide he will be much better at hiding this. Signals that reveal he is in fact much more worried than you think: perhaps when he refuses to talk about anything other than the view. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. Being connected together by a rope allows an intimacy unmatched outside of a sexual relationship. If you slip on easy ground while moving together, not just your life but your climbing partner's will flash in front of your eyes. Do not climb with anyone who has had either a significantly more interesting or tediously dull life than your own. Your final two seconds will be a sad and frustrating mismatch.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">7. Twenty year old Ski Club members from Glasgow University are cunts. They would rather party in an obnoxiously self-centred way than actually go skiing. Do not be afraid. When they start shouting and playing guitar at three in the morning, do not lie there waiting for them to stop, give them ten minutes then go out - fully clothed - to send them to bed. There will turn out to be only three of them, they know they are out of line, and the ten thousand yard stare of the true mountaineer will make them slink upstairs with their own shit running down their legs.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">8. When going for the above confrontation, do not - for fuck's sake- get locked out of your own dorm room.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">9. What gear you wear will have no impact on your ability to climb. It will however vastly alter your comfort. Beware! without simultaneously sweating your tits off AND being freezing cold you may not have enough anxiety to survive.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">10. Monitor your sleep closely. Waking eight or nine times in the night is a sign that you are too confident: your brain is therefore subconsciously keeping you sharp by making you tired and tense.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">11. The release of tension at the top of a climb is worth it.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just look at Steve unwind.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">12. The views on a clear day are worth it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">13. Lording a successful week over a) climbing mates who have been on an unsuccessful week, or b) non climbers who think you are fucking superman because of your FaceAche profile picture - is worth it. Do not feel guilty. You are their gladiator, taking the risks they don't have to. Or if it stings sufficiently it will provide enough negative emotion to propel them into the hills at the right time, to create their own anxiety driven achievements.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">14. After one week of crippling tension, any other climbing related activity is a joy and a pleasure. You will never enjoy multi-pitching v.diff in the dry so much. Boulder problems on resin holds become almost orgasmically satisfying, no matter how much you fail to succeed or even progress at Three Wise Monkeys. Sport climbing will now have an irresistible allure of both hard movement but also total safety.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">15. The drive home will be the most dangerous bit as you relax into a familiar activity with a much higher statistical death rate. Ensure climbing podcasts are to hand. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">16. A phase of depression after a climbing trip is normal. Normal life is safe in the extreme, and not having to secure yourself to a rock using a rope just to stand fucking still is extremely difficult to readjust to.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hopefully this blog will inspire you to embrace negative emotion in a positive way. This is perhaps Scottish Winter's Greatest Lesson.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It IS worth it. (Photo thanks to Peter Naylor)</td></tr>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-33098602914600135702016-12-28T15:02:00.002-08:002016-12-28T15:20:19.728-08:00Risk brings death but fulfils life.<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Risk brings death, but fulfils life.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'Is this your dog, mate?'</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is, as well. Ah, poor Stella. How have you gone so still so quickly?</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As I walked up to the cars with their hazards on, I'd pretty much known it would be, and from twenty yards away, there is no doubt. She is just lying there, they have pulled her carefully off the road. The main guy is chatting away to me, telling me everything about it. He's full of adrenalin, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was him who hit her. I'm not really listening. His mate is close to tears, silent.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am not close to tears. I stroke her head, and look at her eyes. She seems like maybe there is still something in there, though she isn't breathing. How long is it before the brain gives up after the heart stops beating? Does she know I'm there, or is she just dead? I am in problem solving mode, but the immediate problem cannot be solved. She <i>is </i>dead. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've got a blanket with me. Ten minutes ago I had picked it up in case I couldn't find her. I would have left it where she last saw us if I couldn't find her by dark, and she could have smelled it, and stayed there and we would have got her the next morning. That's not how it worked out, but it is useful now, I wrap her in it and the adrenalin-man gives me a lift back to my house. His mate sits in the back, the car is fucking tiny, like a Corsa or something, and me and Stella ride in the passenger seat. She is easy to hold, comfy in the blanket, and blood gets on my down jacket, and on my face where I have got her muzzle pressed to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The next set of problems is about dealing with other people's reactions. I phone Nanny and can hear The Boy, upset in the background but at the moment its just because he is worried, not because he knows she is dead. Nanny's voice trembles and I can tell she is crying. Our Lass is not there, she has been woken up from a Boxing Day snooze in front of Dances With Wolves, and has headed out to look for Stella on her own initiative. I phone her, and she is distraught.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I tidy Stella up, and place her in her blankets in our back garden. She doesn't look too bad really, we all give her a cuddle, tell her she is a good dog and bury her in the flowerbed she most enjoyed digging up, with her blanket and toys. No chieftain's dog would have got any better, although I would have liked to included some of her mortal enemies - the local cats, squirrels and birds. Maybe a Muntjac. All of us dig, and all of us cover her over with sandy Breckland earth. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What a disaster. In a few hours, on Boxing day, tragedy has sprung for us, out of the blue. Nothing in world terms, where kids drown in the Med and others will freeze and die of disease this winter. But for us: massive and terrible.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For the next day I am obsessed with smelling blood on my fingers. Its all I can smell. I am like fucking Macbeth. I wash my jacket. Rob, if you're reading this, yours was worse. See <a href="http://flatlandclimber.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/shrapnel-from-near-miss.html">Shrapnel From A Near Miss</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stella loved her life off the lead.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were lucky enough to live right on the edge of Thetford Forest, and did we not exploit it. We had her out there, every day since the earliest possible chance with her vaccines completed. On lead at first, and gradually off it, and how she loved being off it. She would bomb off, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">patrol<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> ahead. We got her recall pretty well sorted early on: not perfect, but she was eager to please and clever, and knew I was the boss. I could whistle, and we let her know what was expected. She might pull a bit on the way out to a walk but she was really good on the way back.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we were passed by four wheel drives we got her to sit, and not bloody chase them while they went by. At first a wheel was just too much like fleeing prey, but not for long, she knew what was expected.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She loved those walks, and she was clever. She knew the difference between me going to take The Boy out to school (she'd jump on the sofa and watch us go from the window, we would wave goodbye as we went up the path) and going for a walk in the woods, and she'd leap up from her doze if she thought that was what was going on. The Boy started to love coming for walks, and bike rides too, she worked her magic on him, and gave him a bit of her love for being out there. Rather than on Minecraft.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Walk? Fuck, yeah.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At night we went out and she would stay closer, still running off ahead, but if we called you would see her eyes light up from our headtorches.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She loved running in the woods, with the prospect of a chase, or some fascinating smells. Or fox-shit to roll in, it wasn't all good. I think it was the freedom, and the joy of the movement. Like climbing for me. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She was rolling her stone in the garden, playing with it in the afternoon of Boxing day, but I could tell she wanted to walk.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So me and Boy took her out. She ran off while we inspected an old motorbike helmet, and didn't come back to the whistle. We walked up where we would normally have gone to leave a scent trail, whistling all the way, but - no sign. We headed back to Nannies, which is where she would have headed back to. I still wasn't too worried. She was used to being off-lead, and she would be back. She was clever enough to try and find her way home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The only flaw in that was that she had to cross that main-road. In the event, that is what happened. She realised me and the Boy weren't around, so she headed back home. She was hit by a car, which must have been doing sixty, the speed limit, and she can't have lasted more than a minute or two after that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">She had gone from having the best thing she enjoyed doing- having a run, through two minutes of pain, and probably unconsciousness, and then nothing, peace. No infirmity. No incontinence. No pain, not in any big terms, nothing that lasted too long. Then back home forever.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I could have kept that dog safe on a lead for years.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The difference would have been that she would have died over a course of twelve years rather than two minutes. Her spirit - a collie's spirit, with its need to hunt and run, and play- would have been squeezed and crushed. She would have got used to it, and she was too low in the pack hierarchy to seriously complain. But she would not have been the same dog. She wouldn't have had the same life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our Lass looks at me and says 'I think she probably chased a car. You weren't there so she saw her chance to finally kill an Audi.' </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That makes me laugh, its could well be true. She would have been killed, in self-defence, by prey that was just too much for her to handle. Too hard, too committing of a route, in bad conditions and with no protection, but nonetheless, something she wanted to take on.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Walking without her is not the same, although actually you would probably still see as much of her as you ever did. She only had eighteen months with us, but it was a brilliant time, and she was in the peak of her life, getting more used to us, settling down and growing up, but losing none of her spark. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I feel so sad about her death, but I just cannot regret the full life and love of freedom that bought her to it.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">Stella, with chewy bone and toy giraffe.<br />
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-61419711720549822062016-11-25T06:33:00.000-08:002016-11-25T06:33:02.056-08:00A Possible Future.<h2>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A Possible Future For Climbing.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's quite fun to have a go at predicting the future, especially in satirical list form. Gambling is also predicting the future, but less fun when it costs you money or becomes an addiction.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I read with pleasure Johnny Dawes predictions for the future of climbing in <a href="https://www.thebmc.co.uk/cats/all/summit_magazine">Summit Magazine</a> , his problem is he just isn't cynical enough. Here are mine.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. In the run up to the 2020 Olympics, Britain is looking increasingly chaotic and bleak. A tumbling pound, record unemployment and the highest boredom rate in Europe, an anomalous legal situation which sees Britain both In and Out of Europe, increasing hate crime and dithery increasingly reactionary political parties now nakedly enslaved to the Murdoch press: can the Olympics give Britain a much needed boost?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Initially the answer looks like a no. An obviously biased cycling Olympic committee supported by every other nation in the world bans British cyclists left and right for retroactively applied last minute medication changes; complex new immigration laws strip Team GB of two thirds of their athletes, including Mo Farah; and excruciating embarrassment is felt when one of Britain's sailing teams use their event as cover for a carefully planned escape attempt. Eventually turning up in China where they claim asylum, claiming that they have been threatened with firing squad if they return without medals.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. The climbing event produces Britain's only two medals of the whole competition: Golds in both the males and females Climbing. The media initially ignores the event, but a rising groundswell of public opinion catapults the event into the news. The returning climbers are feted and greeted at the airport by an ugly scrum of politicians from all parties. Other returning athletes are quietly disappeared by UK Border Force Officials, it will be years before any bodies are returned to relatives. Some of the gymnasts will never be found.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4. Public opinion surges in favour of climbing, and politicians get on the band wagon. Nigel Farage says in one interview 'I'd like to think that one day I could climb a V. Diff. That means Very Difficult which I think speaks for itself.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5. Plans to make Britain's outdoors available only to people willing to pay a 'per-step' tariff through their smartphone attract massive protests. Marches have of course been banned under the Criminal Justice Act following the brief civil war in 2019; there are forty arrests. Lawyers defending the protesters successfully argue to a sympathetic judge that they were in fact climbers ascending the 'shallow-angled slab' of Pall Mall and 'topping out' in Trafalgar Square.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6. Nicola Sturgeon begins the ninth legal bid for Scotland to attain Independence. In her opening speech she says 'Munroes are a uniquely Scottish mountain. There are no Munroes in England.' She further claims 'that Scotland is continuing to rise under orographic lift, while England sinks further into the sea.' One day later record floods finally submerge two-thirds of East Anglia under a sea level now three metres higher. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Climbing now enjoys a counter-culture appeal that spreads across classes and ethnicities. It is not uncommon for many of the 18 million Benefit Claim Clients to seek grants to buy rope and cams, which job centre staff now feel it would be unpatriotic - and therefore illegal - to refuse. Statistics show that listing climbing in your CV makes you 18% more likely to be offered a job in the Saturday Night lottery organised by Camelot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. C</span><span style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif;">limbing popularity spreads to the boardroom. White collar workers in the banking sector are now expected to be knowledgeable about Tom Randall's Market Trading Portfolio, and have opinions on shoe rubber composition. Being able to onsight E2 and wearing CAC t-shirts are the 'soft' rand unspoken requirements for being eligible for promotion. Climbing is the new golf.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7. Bear Grylls emerges as the unlikely leader - given his questionable role in the 2019 Civil War - of a political party representing 'British Climbers, British Values and British Grit'. Climbers join and support the party which guarantees outdoor access and tax breaks on polyester, lycra and rubber compounds. Idiot newspaper journalists repeatedly burble 'Can Bear Conquer Westminster the way he Conquered Everest?'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8. By 2028, Bear Grylls is voted Prime Minister for a whole life term. His</span><span style="font-family: '"arial"', '"helvetica"', sans-serif;"> victory speech is a carefully orchestrated spectacular event which involves him soloing up the Westminster Clock Tower then leading the nation in mass-prayer while being lit up by a spotlight. Persistent rumours abound that heavy amounts of holographic projection were employed, and that Grylls was actually in the Member's Bar throughout the broadcast.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">9. A new Monarch of the Realm Act passes through Parliament due to the increasing unsuitability of Prince Charles as Head of State. Chris Bonington is chosen, despite being dead for the last five years. Boffins at Cambridge University recreate his personality from his extensive writings, and the first 'true' artificially intelligent being - Bonington 2.9- is sworn in as head of state. It later emerges that 'packer' intelligence had been inserted from the </span><span style="font-family: "arial", "helvetica", sans-serif;">writings</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> of Pete Boardman, Joe Tasker and Doug Scott, raising tricky legal questions of identity, discussion of which is soon banned.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial", "helvetica", sans-serif;">10. Immigration Laws are formally reversed with the Desirable Persons Act. Over two thousand Sherpas are forcibly abducted from their homes in Nepal and rehoused in Snowdonia. Nationalities with 'Great Mountaineering Cultures' receive automatic entitlement to live in the UK. Slovenians, Slovakians, Russians, Canadians, Austrians, Poles and Norwegians are enticed in by glossy tv promotion and put to work by international guiding agencies. Racism and anti-climber attacks rises.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">11. An unpopular administration at the whim of Grylls' increasingly </span><span style="font-family: "arial", "helvetica", sans-serif;">severe</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> religious mania reacts badly to protests by paddlers, mountain-bikers and base-jumpers. Home Secretary Leo Houlding, widely seen as a moderate voice within the cabinet, is found dead at the bottom of Indian Face. The National Police declare the death an accident, explaining that getting caught in his own ropes by his writs and ankles apparently 'mimicked' someone tying him up. Gaffer tape across his mouth is described as ' consistent' with Houlding using it hold marginal Sky-hooks in place on route.</span><br />
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-51332119501597420072016-11-24T06:45:00.005-08:002016-11-24T06:46:26.181-08:00Make the Best<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Make the Best of It.</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am on the train, on the way to my mate Lee's, when a sequence of dots and noughts is captured by my phone's complicated aerial. Within less than a second the signal has been deciphered by an accretion of lines of code and rendered into text a human can read. It says 'Clutch on the van's gone, sorry, will pick you up when we can.' However, if you apply a slightly different level of coding, the meaning is completely different - 'Your weekend is fucked.'</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, this is not just because a piece of metal has become fatigued over thousands of hours and failed at a critical point i.e. Snake Pass, changing from fifth into fourth, but also because of a huge fuck-off weather system which has run its way up the channel and is now dumping billions of litres of evaporated Atlantic onto Britain, which deserves it. The weather system has clearly taken the Met Office and Britain's Media by surprise as it has not yet acquired an excessively dramatic nickname, like 'The Weather Bomb,' or 'Polar Vortex'. I favour naming it 'The Ruiner.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">IF Lee's van was fucked, but it was nice weather: no problem, climb locally, and as its Sheffield we are in, that means anywhere in the Peaks we can reach by bus. IF the weather was shit and the van operational - equally, no problem, head to wherever isn't wet. The Roaches were looking good. They still are, just we can't get to them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now, whinging about this shit won't help, you've got to cultivate your ability to find something good about the situation. Rainy Saturday morning? Lie in a bit and have a cooked breakfast. Then get a lift to the Peak a bit later and hope nothing is too wet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nothing is too wet, and there's a reason for that. Not the weakly winter sun shining as hard as it can through whispy cloud, but the mighty blasting wind that roars across Curbar, refusing to allow water to stay on the rock. We get a pretty good day in - which as ever includes running into other climbers from Norfolk, not an unusual occurrence. We get in a few decent boulders, I like the look of Art of Japan, but the wind is funnelled through the gap and we are all wrapped up like ninjas. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We are out til past dark headtorching,then head back. Great warmup for the rest of the weekend.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sunday. We try out Sheffield's public transport: out to Burbage after midday. Unbelievably, in the dank we find a few dry climbs, and also one poorly protected one which suddenly gets wet higher up past a break with a marginal cam I have hammered into choss as if it were a piton. I wisely back off, and off we fuck, to find out we have missed the bus, which inexplicably does not return to Sheffield from this side of the road. BUT our luck is not out, there is a vintage bus parked and the conductor says 'don't worry lads, we're running this one for charity, make a donation and we'll get you back.' Mind, if that hadn't been there we would have been pissed and eating steaks at the Fox House, begging the question 'what is good luck?'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Monday is really shit, so we pretend we live in an unusually well appointed multi-roomed snow hole. Lee organises his rack and we watch climbing DVDs for seven hours straight. In the evening we play cards, gin rummy, but bring our climbing ethics and sense of style to the game. Rather than competitively actually trying to 'beat' the other person, each of us instead concentrates on our own hands, trying to develop the most baroque collections of cards - many multiples of runs and sets before getting out can no longer be avoided. I am particularly pleased with a run of the entire suit of clubs - no other cards - while Lee produces a stylish fours-of-a-kind in Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks which can either be set down as the fours OR as the straights, creating a cubic effect. We have been in the house too long.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tuesday morning, and the van is not yet fixed, the weather it is still shit. The Climbing Works is round the corner and Lee says 'we are at least going to do some climbing type movement.' But not anytime soon, as its not fucking open. Through the window we can see Shauna Coxey and Leah Crane filming something. Lee says 'I'm starting to think something doesn't like us.'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After twelve we do get in and climb on plastic for a bit - consolation! plus free cup of tea for walking there, and later in the afternoon The Van Is Fixed! Sixteen hours before Lee must leave the house for work, we bomb out in the van and hit Burbage North again. We find a slab, dry unbelievably, and work our way through three very simple problems before I start seriously working a 6c arete. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To be on the rock is amazing, there is no comparison. Everything becomes very important to your success, like where your arse is, or how you move your hips, how you grip the rock. Sometimes there is a really specific position for your hand to be on, or your foot, and sometimes it feels a bit like a lego brick clicking into position - useless anywhere else, perfect just there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The light fails and it starts to rain. Our head torches light up moss and droplets of water which reflect so much they look as if they are luminescent.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yes, the weekend was not all it might have been, between an unlucky mechanical breakdown and the weather, but we still managed to at least touch rock on three of four days, and we had a laugh doing it (not obvious from this blog). As I take the train home from Sheffield, the sky is beautiful. Bright, crisp and rain free, as a zone of high pressure settles over Britain like a national umbrella. Fuck's sake. </span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-43738021059409278772016-10-07T05:20:00.001-07:002016-10-07T05:20:33.284-07:00Bought and Sold<h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bought and Sold</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh Controversy! So GQ Magazine takes three climbers and some female models described as 'cute friends' by them, and 'wallpaper with tits' by me and does a <a href="http://www.gq.com/story/fall-fashion-rock-climbing-joshua-tree">photoshoot and article</a> about them. Which is vacuous shit. Then Outdoors Research - among others- object to it on the grounds that its pretty sexist, and <a href="http://www.outdoorresearch.com/blog/stories/we-took-falls-crunchiest-designer-clothes-to-watch-ladies-rock-climbing-in">spoofed it with their own</a>, where three decent climbers who are female go climbing with a few cute friends i.e. their male mates trying not to die laughing at the stupid poses they are pulling. Looking at the two articles its hard to tell them apart. </span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the face of it, you might defend GQ on the grounds that they are in some way promoting climbing. Alongside the- vacuous shit - fashion shoot is a - vacuous shit - micro-video in which really shit hot climbers brag about what stuff they've done in list form. Then giggle as they explain you should get into climbing because it will 'get you a fit looking body, and will really shape you up quick'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Then the models weigh in with their 'thoughts' and wang on in husky voices about being 'surrounded by nature' - presumably microbes in the hot tub. So if you've got your fit-looking body through rock climbing, presumably this will be attractive to these really hot women who just want to feel really small next to nature. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the -super-mild and controversy-lite- debate about sexism in climbing fashion shoots, it is easy to object to the fact that GQ didn't use female climbers rather than models, and portray them as sexy hangers on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My objections run deeper than that though, and here they are:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. The prices of the fucking clothes. Normally I would try and write something funny about this, but instead I will simply quote:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Custom Hat, $1400, by Nick Fouquet'</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyS7Ed6khwBDKjCWsxKPpU7WGBiBcDmy50dtexLnhfYZecd6xjE-PxTDcjDSFhHAZwyftFwauYQhADUR6TrPMo54Svgd0-65xsdh5jeXnUxacsUGA9DgLixs5s9LKM-rP6iiM_LnyuZYMz/s1600/abseil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyS7Ed6khwBDKjCWsxKPpU7WGBiBcDmy50dtexLnhfYZecd6xjE-PxTDcjDSFhHAZwyftFwauYQhADUR6TrPMo54Svgd0-65xsdh5jeXnUxacsUGA9DgLixs5s9LKM-rP6iiM_LnyuZYMz/s320/abseil.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fourteen hundred fucking bucks for a fucking custom hat, 'by' someone who's name is pronounced 'Fuck It'.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A quick check on the currency converter shows us that this equates to £1,134.14, post Brexit, and only £999.99 pre-brexit (using a rough mean value of $1.4 to £1 - I really did do the maths on this</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. They've actually chosen talented climbers with serious achievements to get to prostitute themselves in front of the camera. There they are, wearing sweaters that cost four fucking grand, while saying they're just psyched to be there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, because its GQ, I immediately think 'you fucking sell-outs', but I am not sure my objection stands up to rigorous analysis. A few climbers get sponsorship when they can hit a certain grade, and this is leveraged by the amount of media attention you can get, whether this be hits on Vimeo or GQ fashion shoots.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is a whole sliding scale of sponsorship; from free or discounted gear, up to a fully paid-for expedition lifestyle. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At a low level, I feel its a pretty positive thing for the climber: sponsorship means some degree of acknowledgement of work and achievement. It might mean eventually being able to work less- which I am always in favour of; or get away climbing more- which I am in favour of if it is me, or jealous of if its not. It also adds climbing videos into the world as a vehicle for portraying talent: again, thumbs up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But at higher levels, the amount of money create its own ripples and affects behaviour. Climbs have an exchange value, so people at the top need to rigorously question whether they are still following their authentic desire to climb the hardest line, or whether they are creating a commodity for consumption.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This directly conflicts with what I love about climbing, which is that it can provide an experience that can't be bought. Not always, loads of people can book a guide and get dragged up something: at its most extreme this might be Everest. But at its best, it is joyful and pointless and without a price tag. I cannot pay someone to make me do a cool move at the very limit of my ability, although in fairness I might have spent plenty on the training to get there.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the GQ article, the message is subtle, but it is basically about discontent. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Men! </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three climbers have done more than you, they wear better clothes than you, and they hang out with models prettier than any woman you have ever met (who are being paid to be there). What can you do? Train hard, achieve, and eventually get to the point where you may be able to fuck a model? Or buy some shit, like a fucking custom hat, or a sweater for four grand? </span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5961254488536327848.post-42395023742406242016-09-22T06:59:00.003-07:002016-09-22T06:59:41.854-07:00Hull: City of Culture<h3>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hull: City of Culture.</span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hull is now officially the City of Culture. It joins places like Liverpool and Glasgow: shit reputations but actually quite fun to live in. And of course, it aids the great British tradition of making anything funny by using a non-glamourous place-name next to something pompous. The Military History of Slough. Stuff like that.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the Hullites interviewed on the BBC come up with some pretty good reasons Hull should be famous: ending the slave trade, the Housemartins/Beautiful South, starting the English Civil War outside the chip shop on Clarence Street. Inexplicably though, they failed to mention two of Hull's greatest exports: climbers Andy Kirkpatrick and John Redhead.</span></h4>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of the two, Andy Kirkpatrick is the better known. Partly because of his extremely popular stand-up gigs which masquerade as climbing lectures. If you haven't been to one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6PEZ_sOJFU">then watch this</a>. A mime of his mate failing to place gear and doing little squeaks of effort ... I've had to have a tension relieving laugh just thinking of it. His books are worth a pop as well, <a href="http://www.andy-kirkpatrick.com/shop/product/psychovertical">Psychovertical </a>is great, so is Cold Wars. His blog is a mixture of technical detail and advice, excruciatingly honest details of relationships failing, and poorly thought out but strongly held opinions. Its basically like being with your mate in the pub.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Basically, he's a funny bastard who has done some gnarly shit. He specialised in aid climbing, which is a super-niche, unless you get to Yosemite, when it is absolutely crucial. The normal run of things in the UK was that climbers would use a point of aid- just one or two - to get over the hardest bits of climbs where there weren't any holds. So the climber would stand in a loop of rope or a sling and place a bit more gear then get past it and start climbing again. This wasn't softness or inability either, climbers like Joe Brown were not above using a point of aid on hard climbs. Then smart arses would 'free' it, climb it in a 'purer' style i.e. just pulling on the rock.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andy, however, like a few others really specialised in using aid. His climbs - and he describes this well in Psychovertical and Cold Wars- often come down to standing in etriers (daisy chain loops of webbing) which were attached to tiny match-head sized lumps of copper or credit card sized pieces of steel delicately jammed into an uncertain crack, a long twenty-second fall above certain death. More than enough time to really think about what's going to happen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Specialising in this gave Andy a really thorough knowledge of rope work and tricks with knots and gear. I'm looking forward to reading his book of mountaineering tips; hopefully its a mixture of his humour and diagrams of ropes. Win!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In other words, while aid climbing might be seen as inferior in the bullshitty hierarchy of climbing, it is no softer, nor safer. Andy is nails hard, and the more so because he seems usually to climb with a) only himself or b) nutters he doesn't know that well. Makes for great reading and entertaining shows. <a href="http://andy-kirkpatrick.com/blog/view/absolute-truths">His blog</a> also has a lot of genuine insight, told in brutal honesty</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Andy is happy to describe himself as 'Hull's second best climber'. Second to John Redhead.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Redhead is in stark contrast to Andy. He is an artist, and in the late '70s early '80s one of the leading climbers. He did a lot of really hard, cutting edge climbs on Clogwyn D'ur Arddu, Gogarth - and my favourite - On The Slate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The names of John's climbs stand out: Go through a list of the and find out the point at which you are offended: Tormented Ejaculation, Cockblock, Raped by Affection, Menopausal Discharge, Menstrual Gossip. Cystitis by Proxy. Sounds like a Cannibal Corpse Album. Most of his climb names are actually the names of paintings he has done, highly intricate works he gave to his mates and collects up occasionally for a public exhibition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Johnny's climbs are often bold and really technical: his mate Andy Newton told me he could keep a calm head long after anyone else would have frightened themselves off the rock. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Unlike Andy, John</span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> didn't find the same level of media accessibility. This is partly because he did things like publish '...and one for the crow' with the most beautiful climbing photos at the price of £60. It is worth it, but no one's going to find that out because they won't give it the chance. Most climbers would buy an extra cam, or three guidebooks. Shame! There's a stack (three) of them in V12.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KAYBI9Emhs-fNqR73h3TFYdlPnYhHgysoPeGxZ77ZJkLOz6PtufmwspYMbkQpEr5_vrWioI860k45KWFplqhpoxQ9BudaeDznuz4ogwcNxh-TxCVzs9-ujlHn_l8MqDGp5waBOKzm9CF/s1600/DSC00748+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0KAYBI9Emhs-fNqR73h3TFYdlPnYhHgysoPeGxZ77ZJkLOz6PtufmwspYMbkQpEr5_vrWioI860k45KWFplqhpoxQ9BudaeDznuz4ogwcNxh-TxCVzs9-ujlHn_l8MqDGp5waBOKzm9CF/s320/DSC00748+copy.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cover art was never meant to be mainstream</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John's thoughts occasionally emerge from the </span><a href="http://footlesscrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-min=2016-01-01T00:00:00Z&updated-max=2017-01-01T00:00:00Z&max-results=14" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Footless Crow</a><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> blog from time to time, and they are often gems of offence and grumpiness. My favourite is the one where he returns to Llanberis, to find the place changed: 'What the Fuck? Cyclists!' He is his own - uncompromising - person, and you can like him, or fuck off. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So well done Hull, for producing two genius climbers who learnt to climb on the tower blocks and in the local quarries. And shame on the people of Hull for not mentioning them in your street interviews and vox-pops with the BBC! Normal people's priorities defy explanation.</span></div>
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Climber in a Flat Landhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02205249760806647490noreply@blogger.com0