James McHaffie climbing 'Dawes Rides a Shovel Head' onsight. Raven Crag, Langdale

When we saw the following film at the Kendal Film Festival in November, we were blown away by the excellent stories unified & produced by Land & Sky Media. It’s the first film to feature at the festival from Land & Sky Media and it was received with a very warm welcome. It’s been a long time coming, but we managed to get hold of Dom Bush, the main man behind the film and steal a few words from him.

Islands: Traditional Tales of Lakeland Climbing is a three part film which gives an insight into the world of hard traditional ascents in the birthplace of rock climbing, the English Lake District. Featuring fantastic footage of first ascents and hard repeats of routes from E6 (5.12c) to E9 (5.13c) by Wild Country and Red Chili climbers Adam Hocking and James McHaffie, as well Lakes stalwarts Mike Przygrodzki and Stuart Wood, it also includes interviews and commentaries from Lakes legend and Wild Country climber Dave Birkett and the indefatigable Leo Houlding. It’s a sensitive and cinematic documentary film, that represents the Lakes and it’s characters in a simple and poignant way. And with sport climbing and bouldering gaining popularity, this film provides a deep and sometimes comical perspective on the great British trad climbing tradition.

Adam Hocking working 'Return of the King' on East Buttress Scafell

“My hope was to explain, promote and maintain the heritage and tradition within the climbing community in the Lake District, of which I am now a part. To celebrate some of its modern pioneers and their very individual qualities, and to readdress the balance, by placing equal importance on the person, the landscape, and the activity.”

“I would like to thank all the individuals involved in this project, they shaped it just as I did, and I’m very grateful for their contribution. And of course, the sponsors, who have shown their support all the way through, as well as providing valuable bits of kit for this and future projects. Wild Country, Red Chilli, The Epicentre and Alpkit.”

Dom filming Stuart Wood on the first ascent of 'The Big Link', Hodge Close Quarry

There are exciting things afoot, so keep an eye on what’s going on with Land and Sky Media. You can follow on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/landandskymedia

Or keep up to date with content and inspiration on the Land & Sky Media blog – http://landandsky.wordpress.com/

All Photos from Dom Bush & Matt Pycroft

Islands: Traditional Tales of Lakeland Climbing is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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1. Islands Trailer
2. James McHaffie Sends The Big Bang 9a, Lower Pen Trwyn, North Wales
3. Barry-argains: Wild Country Helium Clean Wire Quickdraws 5 pack

These objectives can be anything from doing your first E1, increasing your climbing grade from 7a to 7c or doing a specific route.

Using a Scoring System

Climber with a high ranked score for stamina on Ergometria – Sector Wildside Sella. Picture courtesy of Orange House Photos

To help you design a training program a good place to start is to look at your current ability. Try honestly (if you can’t be honest get a friend to do it for you!) giving yourself a score between 1 to 10 (1 being given to your worst attribute and 10 to your best) for each typical climbing characteristics such as finger strength, explosive power, lock off strength, power endurance, stamina, technique, body fat percentage etc. So for example if you find that you are getting pumped fiddling in wires on a E1 or making those clips on a 6a, but can crimp your way up Font 6c boulder problems, then score yourself a 3 for stamina and a 10 for finger strength.

Then consider your objectives/target routes for this year. Let’s look at two approaches. One where you have specific routes in mind and another where you want to improve your grade to a certain level.

Targeting Specific Routes

For the specific routes, what type of climb are they? Are they long Gordale stamina test pieces or crimpy Peak power endurance routes? How do these routes compare with your key strengths and weaknesses? It may be helpful to score the routes with a similar system that we did for ourselves, with a 10 for the dominant route climbing characteristic and a 1 for the least dominant. Let’s try this with a typical Peak District sport climber wanting to peak for a holiday in Spain. The objective for the holiday is to a do 7b+ steep tufa stamina test piece. The scores may be something like the following:

Typical Tufa Pulling in Spain

Clearly we have a mismatch in the key strength attributes. To achieve success on the route, the climber is going to have to include much more stamina training on overhanging rock and include more bouldering/route work using pinches/slopers with long locks. Building these elements into your training program now will maximise the possibility of success on your chosen route.
Remember that the scoring system is specific to the climber or route concerned. So if a fingery 7a is your maximum grade, then you won’t get up a stamina 8a, by focusing on just your weak elements. You will also need to make gains in your strong areas, however these can be done at a lower level than your weak points.

If you have specific information about the route then you are at even more of an advantage. At this time of the year you need to be looking at replicating the types of moves found on the route within your training program. For example if the hard sections of the route are primarily small layaways, then create a systems type model using layaways or boulder problems with layaway holds.
If you have access to your own training board then you can be even more creative and build a replica of the types of moves found on your project.

Targeting a Specific Grade

There are two approaches to improving your climbing grade. The first is to use a balanced training program to improve all your climbing attributes. The second way is to focus your training effort improving specific attributes which will allow you to skip a number of grades.

Creating a Balanced Training Approach

This is the slowest way to improve your climbing grade but does result in a more balanced climber and one who is capable of operating across all the different route types within their grade.
To achieve this it’s important to develop a training program that has a mixture of all the different climbing attributes. The program must be specifically tailored to place strong emphasis on the weak areas. Remember to still train your strong areas, otherwise you will find yourself in a position where you just become good at your previous weak elements!

Focusing on Specific Attributes

Focusing on your strengths – a fingery, power endurance route in France

When looking at your score you may have one or two attributes that are particularly strong. For example you may be one of those lucky people who have naturally strong fingers, but have to put in a lot of work to make gains in stamina.
So why not focus on these strong attributes and select your routes carefully so you play to these strengths. Using this approach it’s certainly possible to jump your grade from 7a to 8a, with a good winters training. However the resulting climber will be fairly specialised in a certain style of climbing and the number of routes they can do at the new grade will be limited. You may well find yourself in a position where on some types of routes, that focus heavily on your weak points, that you still climb at your old grade.
To correct this at some point you will need to spend time focusing on the lower scoring attributes, before you will be comfortable at this new grade.

Over the next few months we will look at different training techniques to help you achieve your climbing goals and show how these can be incorporated into your training programs.

We will also provide our readers with advice on how they can best achieve their climbing objectives. Please post your comments at the bottom of this article and our contributors (including myself) will offer guidance on how you can improve your climbing.

Turbo Charged New Year’s Training Resolutions is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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In recent years this trend has continued, with visits from Team America in 2009 and Japanese wonder-kid Toru Nakajima popping over, both showing us that we’re not the only people that can climb on Our hallowed grit stone. Through to the World-beating Czech, Adam Ondra turnng up on our doorstep earlier this year, proving that our sport climbing IS pretty good after all … it’s fair to say that the scene here on the humble shores of Blighty is most definitely a far cry away from the washed-up image that is all too often depicted.

As if to further prove my point; now comes the turn of the Australian bouldering sensation, Chris Webb-Parsons. Chris has relocated to England for a short spell to test his mettle on some of our finest boulders and also to train for the Bouldering World Cup in 2012, basing himself in the Peak District, he has certainly picked the place to do it.

Webb Parsons, who was actually born in England, has climbed routes up to f8c+ (Aus 34), bouldered up to font8c+ (V16) and also won the Australian Bouldering Championships back in 2007. The fact that a world-class athlete such as this has chosen to move here shows that we truly do have some of the best climbing & training facilities on offer.

Since relocating a couple of months ago, Chris has already been busy at work and has managed to send two font8b’s Keen Roof at Raven Tor and Serenity, a classic Mike Adams problem on a limestone roof deep in the Peak District.

Below is a video from Black Diamond made by Outcrop Films, of Chris bouldering on’t'grit and also training at a particular wall in Sheffield. Recognise it? You should do.

Enjoy:

-

Chris is sponsored by: Black Diamond, Moon Climbing & Australian Industrial Rope Access

Video: Webb-Parsons Comes to UK is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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“The joy of climbing is a private thing between me and climbing…Our relationship is complicated” Andy Kirkpatrick

The US magazine Climbing once described Andy Kirkpatrick as a climber with a “strange penchant for the long, the cold and the difficult”, with a reputation “for seeking out routes where the danger is real, and the return is questionable, pushing himself on some of the hardest walls and faces in the Alps and beyond, sometimes with partners and sometimes alone.”

I think it’s fair to suggest that Andy Kirkpatrick is at the forefront of extreme alpinism and mountaineering as we know it. Not only this, Kirkpatrick  is a wonderfully talented speaker and author, touring around the world regaling his tales to crowds of people with his humour injected presentations.

As you will know from our recently featured Cold Wars review, Cold Wars is the second in a series of autobiographical style books from the man himself.

So far it has received widespread critical acclaim and is being hailed as one of the finest pieces of mountain literature to hit the shelves, ever.

One such review is that of John Horscroft. Below are a collection of his observations and evaluations:

“His prose may verge on the miserabalist at times but, for those who prefer a bit of meat on the bare bones of a climbing tale, this amounts to a feast.”

“…Kirkpatrick allows us to see into his troubled mind with punishing clarity in an almost unprecedented fashion. He illuminates the barely suppressed fury of the professional climber…”

Visual Collective, based in Manchester have worked with Andy to put together a short video about the book and some of the motives and feelings behind why Andy does the things he does.

I’ll say no more … enjoy:

About Andy Kirkpatrick:

Brought up on a council estate in one of Britain’s flattest cities, Hull-born Andy suffered from severe dyslexia which went undiagnosed until he was 19. One of his greatest strengths is his ability to talk about his life and his climbs in a way that is totally accessible to the non-climber and allows the audience to experience the risk and tension of big wall climbing. Andy is sponsored by Patagonia, Petzl, OR & La Sportiva. If you get minute, check out Andy’s excellent web site.

About Visual Collective:

Visual Collective is a multimedia production studio. They manage commercial and documentary video & photography projects that engage, enrich and inspire. Based close to Manchester city centre; right at the heart of the city’s creative industries they encompass over 10 years of experience in visual story telling and project management and are rated as a RAR+ Recommended Agency. The VC team has a wide range of talent and expertise; with roots in the video, photojournalism and design industries. They have come together under a single vision to create compelling content that harnesses the power of multi-platform media.

COLD WARS – Video Profile is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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It was only my second visit to the RGS and I still marvel at the history and atmosphere contained within its walls. The bar is situated in the map room and it is difficult not to be overawed by the knowledge that surrounds you. 150 years ago great men stood in this room and laid their plans for the great expeditions of the British Empire. In one corner Livingstone hangs shoulder to shoulder with Captain Scott. In another corner hangs a portrait of Sir John Hunt, leader of the 1953 Everest expedition, brooding over a large model of Everest itself, and all around are drawers filled with the maps these men pored over and themselves created.

Sir Chris spoke first, explaining how the Nordwand had been a constant presence in his formative years as a climber, rearing its face every so often to tempt him. He spoke with great humour and, to be honest, some dodgy accents, on his early attempts with the great Hamish MacInnes and the brusque but utterly dependable Don Whillans. He spoke of his terror at finding himself bivvying below the Difficult Crack with MacInnes while still a schoolboy and he spoke with great eloquence of his and Whillans’ involvement in the rescue of Brian Nally following the death of Barry Brewster on the second ice field, the interview with Brian Nally following the rescue is heartrending.
Finally in 1962 Sir Chris made the first British ascent with Ian Clough, but even this victory was tinged with sadness after two climbers following Clough and Bonnington were swept to their deaths by falling rocks. The final chapter of Sir Chris’s talk was given over to telling the story of John Harlin and his team’s attempt to climb the Nordwand by a direct route. Harlin’s initial plan was to climb the route Alpine style, however this changed to siege tactics when it was discovered that they were competing with a German team. As has been documented many times John Harlin fell to his death when a fixed rope parted. Sir Chris was one of the first to Harlin’s body. It is his emotion when reliving this, the pain obviously still so real and raw, his voice faltering and tears falling that will stay with me. His presentation was modestly delivered, illustrated with a few photographs and no fuss; his tale of triumph and tragedy needed little else.

After a brief interval where the great Doug Scott auctioned various pieces of Eiger memorabilia with expert comic timing, it was the turn of Ueli Steck to speak. Ueli isn’t a huge guy and dressed in a black t-shirt he seemed to blend into the stage but his quiet manner and soft spoken, dry, sharp wit hide an athlete of immense power and skill. He joked to start with that the only reason he makes the incredible speed ascents, for which he is rightly famous, is that his wife likes him home for lunch. He makes light of the training and commitment involved and then explains that he’d like to show us some “nice” pictures and so we sit enthralled by videos of his various ascents to a pounding rock soundtrack (I wonder if it’s the first time a guitar solo has been heard in those hallowed halls?). We travel with him to the Nordwand where he seemingly effortlessly runs up 70 and 80 degree faces punching his axes into the ice like a boxer before sprinting along the ridge to the summit, then on to an onsight climb of the Colton-Macintyre route on the Grandes Jorasses and up the north face of the Matterhorn, all three faces in around seven hours of climbing, before he whisks us off to the Himalaya and his stupendous 10.5 hour ascent of Shishapangma. He brings us back to earth with the revelation that less than a month after Shishapangma he reached the third step at 8600m on Everest only to turn back as “no mountain is worth losing fingers or toes for…” Good sense indeed. Steck is an incredible climber truly deserving of the epithet “The Swiss Machine”.

The evening ended with a Q&A session and finally an array of Nordwand summiteers lined up on the stage, but what still, and will always stick with me is the emotion attached by Sir Chris Bonnington to the awesome and terrible North face of the Eiger.

The Eiger – Triumph and Tragedy, and an Evening at the RGS is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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At 40 years old, being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes is not the best news for anyone to receive. Put yourself in the boots of a professional expedition mountaineer; spending days, weeks and maybe months at a time away from civilisation… receiving this news would surely signal the end of such an extreme career?

Jerry Gore, now 50, received this exact diagnosis from his doctors on January 31st 2001. His pancreas was failing and he would be dependent on insulin injections for the rest of his life.

Ten years on, back to the present. Jerry has set himself a challenge: An 8000m peak (Lhotse), mixed M8 in winter & french 8a sport climbing all in 12 months.

One of the most inspirational figures in our sport right now, Jerry demonstrates exactly how to stare adversity in the face, laugh, and then push on, even harder.

As if all this weren’t enough on a climbers CV, he crossed the Iceland Icecap in 1977 (aged 16), summitted Mont Blanc at 17 and climbed the 7000-meter giant, Manaslu North, in the Himalayas at 22. In short, Jerry Gore is a beast.
Not only an amazing talent in the climbing world, Jerry is also a canny business man. One half of AlpBase.com, Jerry and his wife Jackie, have been organising chalet holidays and mountain courses in the Ecrins Massif since 2003. As owner-operators their time is spent organising quality accommodation & adventure packages for their customers.
With this next challenge in front of him, Jerry is really pushing his physical and mental limits. Will he be up to this ultimate test?

Below is a video of Jerry talking about coping with his diabetes and training for his Super-8 goal. This will eventually be released as a full film…we’ll keep you updated with the details.

From all the team at RCUK, good luck Jerry.

Video courtesy of The Lanterne Rouge Film Co.

A Man On A Mission – Super 8 is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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“Why the hell does Sussex need Search and Rescue? I mean it’s not exactly mountainous is it? It’s just Crawley, Brighton and a few fields after all.”

I expressed this thought to Mrs. W as we started shopping and she said “Well why don’t you go and ask what its all about” I’m pretty sure she’s regretted saying that ever since….. I went back and spoke to one of the chaps who did a damn fine job of persuading me that getting up at two in the morning to go and bash about in the woods in the rain was fun and off I went with a leaflet and the web address in my pocket.

At home I did a little more research and it turns out that the majority of counties in the UK have a search and rescue team of some sort whether it be a Mountain Rescue team or as in the case of Sussex and many others a Lowland team. The Lowland teams are governed by an organization called ALSAR (Association of Lowland Search and Rescue) and they in turn by the UKSAR Group chaired by the department of transport which includes all the recognised search and rescue practitioners, Police, Military and Volunteer. (Can anyone call themselves a Search and Rescue team? Yes, they can, however will anyone use them? Probably not.) These volunteer teams are set up in conjunction with the local Constabulary and can only be called out by them, other teams have evolved out of different backgrounds, SEBEV (South East Berkshire Emergency Volunteers) have grown from what was a Cold War organisation, the original purpose of which was to provide aid in the event of a Soviet attack, hence their headquarters is in a fallout shelter, with the diminishing of that particular threat they have diversified into Search and Rescue.

SusSAR were formed in 2002, others, like Surrey Search and Rescue (SurSAR) are more recent additions to the SAR family having only formed in 2010.

So a couple of months after my encounter with SusSAR in Sainsbury’s and having filled in an expression of interest form I found myself at a new members evening at the Black Lion in Patcham just north of Brighton suffering what can only be described as death by PowerPoint at the hands of the then chairman, where a lot of questions including the “why?” were answered. It turns out that Sussex is one the most heavily wooded counties in the UK,

“So what?” you might think, “surely the infra-red camera on the police helicopter can see through trees?”

Well, yes it can but it relies on the thing it’s looking for being hotter than the surrounding stuff, which is fine when the thing you’re looking for is a hot, sweaty criminal who is legging it from the old bill, but when the object of the search is a sixty year old grandmother who went out for a windy walk on the downs six hours ago and hasn’t come home for tea then there’s a fair chance that her external body temperature is pretty close to the ambient temperature of her surroundings and to search for her you going to need people, as many as you can get and they are going to need to know what they are doing when it comes to searching, and that means training.

“Hang on! Training? Aren’t you all just walking in a line across a field prodding the ground with sticks, I’ve seen it on the news, you don’t need any training for that!”

Ah yes, the walking in a line with sticks thing, that’s all well and good if you’re looking for the carving knife that Mrs. X used to dispatch the dastardly Mr. Y who I’m sure was very deserving of her ministrations but if its that bloke who went out ten hours ago on his mountain bike and hasn’t come back for breakfast that you’re searching for, then its about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Mainly because it isn’t quick enough but also it just doesn’t cover enough ground. As I have since found out on various training evenings and weekends, the science of search is mind-boggling and relies, rather coldly, on statistics and the acceptance that we simply aren’t going to find everyone we go out looking for. However the tactics and skills we are taught and use give us the best probability of finding the majority of missing persons, or in SAR parlance Mispers. So you wont see us marching in lines across fields.

If you do see us, you’ll see us in teams of four moving quickly across the landscape, searching sectors that have been set out by our search controllers working with Police Search Advisors taking into account the statistics gathered over years of searches and the landscape we’re in. You may see us working with other teams (Lowland Search Dogs – Sussex, SurSAR, Hantsar) as we all help each other and train together. We’re able to do this successfully because we’re all trained to the same syllabus. You may even hear us laughing and joking as we go, because, believe it or not, we’re probably enjoying what we are doing. I hasten to add that this in no way reflects our attitude

So, who are SusSAR? Well, we are from all walks of life, everyone from students to the retired, teachers to engineers, cops to farm secretaries. We have one thing in common, we’re volunteers. Why, you may ask, do we volunteer to get woken in the middle of the night, don rustly nylon clothing, drive half way across the county and tramp around in the woods for hours? A couple of reasons – there’s the stock answer – “Because I want to help and give something back to the community” – then there’s the answer I gave when asked why at the new starters evening – “Cos it’s a great excuse to buy Gucci outdoor kit”. There are those that join for the perceived glory, they don’t last long, and there are those that see it as a different hobby.

No matter what the reason for joining, we all learn very quickly that what SusSAR do is bloody hard work. Not only are we committing ourselves to the hours of searching, there is also the fundraising aspect. SusSAR is entirely funded by donations; we receive no central funding whatsoever. Consequently many of our Saturdays are given up to standing outside supermarkets with collecting tins, of acting as marshals for events where the organisers then make a donation, or standing on stalls at country fairs to raise awareness of the team. It costs about £12000 a year to keep the team on the road, everything from fuel for our search support vehicle to uniform for the troops.

When I joined I didn’t know what to expect, there was a great deal of stress put on fitting in with the team, which I found a little overpowering to start with, I soon came to realise the importance of teamwork when its pitch dark and you’re in the middle of nowhere 60 miles from home. Now nearly two years down the line I’m proud to say that I’m a fully operational member of the team, I’ve made good friends and intend to carry on learning, I’m doing a mountain bike searching course in a few weeks time and searching.

We SAR types have a saying “The Misper comes first.”  That is the ethos that runs through everything we do, our training, the decisions (sometimes difficult) that we make, the fundraising we do and the lives we lead.

Can you do anything to help? Yes is the simple answer. You can join up – Here’s a list of lowland teams, or a list of Mountain teams, if you ever see us standing outside your local supermarket with a collecting tin drop a quid in the pot or you could undertake a sponsored event for us, a friend of SusSAR has just run the Barns Green Half Marathon on our behalf and we have two fabulous ladies running the Brighton Marathon for us next April, if you have any ideas, get in touch through our website.

You Can Join a Search and Rescue Team Even if You don’t Live Near Mountains is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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The video below shows the Cumbrian Stone Mason putting his biceps to good use and sending the longstanding winter project Without Rime or Reason at the internationally renowned bouldering venue … The Bowderstone.

The video, shot in HD and with incredible editing, documents the ascent perfectly. The soundtrack, provided by another uber-strong beast of the old school (whom shall remain anonymous for now) creates just the right atmosphere & for me, increases the quality of the footage ten fold.

I guess this goes to show that the forty something Rock Legend still has it in him to consider himself firmly placed amongst the elite climbers of Our world.

Congratulations Dave, you have really pulled it out the bag this time.

Birkett Opens Winter Line on Bowderstone?! is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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Tommy unleashing himself & throwing for the eight foot dyno

“I climb for the long, difficult journeys that have little chance of success but teach me the most. I climb to be in the environment that makes me feel like anything is possible. I climb to push myself to the limit of my physical and mental abilities, so that I can discover what I am made of. But mostly I climb because it lights a fire inside.” Tommy Caldwell

Tommy Caldwell, Yosemite extraordinaire & big wall connoiseur is back on his Mescalito project on El Capitan, Yosemite.

The Mescalito project takes an un-freed line on the biggest, blankest sector of El Cap; The Dawn Wall. Years in the making Tommy & his climbing partner Kevin Jorgeson have been working incredibly hard on unlocking the secrets and intricacies of Mescalito, a tough A2/A3 aid route. One such secret is the infamous, eight foot sideways dyno (and yes…you did read that correctly). Unfortunately, it is this dyno that has seen Jorgeson leave Yosemite recently to receive treatment on a season-ending ankle injury.

True to form, undeterred, regardless of the fact that the odds begin to stack up against him, Tommy is up there now with his wife, Beth (nee. Rodden) who herself is no stranger to hard climbing. Beth became the worlds youngest women to onsight 5.14a (f8b+) at just 18 years old in 1998. Rather than being on the sharp end this time, Beth is on belay duty whilst Tommy works hard on putting an end to the saga & leaving the ultimate mark on what is possibly the most famous & coveted big wall in the world.

The hand drawn topo put together by Tommy & Kevin

An update from Tommy on Sunday confirmed that he is on a full redpoint attempt and in two days had freed all of the pitched up to pitch 9. On Monday he made a further update whilst making the most of a well earned rest day.

Below is footage of Tommy & Kevin making early attempts a couple of seasons back. I think you will get the idea pretty quickly…they haven’t dubbed this ‘the hardest route on El Cap’ for nothing:

On behalf of the whole RCUK team: Come on Tommy, crush this thing once and for all!

Mescalito goes free…? is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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Me with a client in Scotland (that's me on the right)

A door to another world; an epiphany; a light turned on – I’ve used all the cliches over the years. But however it’s described my light-bulb moment was being taken climbing with the scouts when I was 12. For someone who’d never had anything in particular to focus on climbing was the full package – adventure, glamour, inclusivity and the physical and mental challenge I’d failed to find with traditional team sports.

Soon my world was widened by tales of adventures in remote places even if, as a teenager from Cheshire, my initial explorations were rather closer to home. My circle of climbing friends gradually grew and, as birthday presents widened our gear selection, we persuaded parents to take us further afield.  We’d get dropped off on Saturday and Sunday mornings at crags like Windgather or Froggatt and be picked up in the evenings.  What happened in between was in the lap of the gods. On sunny days we’d fill every moment but we also had a lot of time in the rain huddled under plastic sheets waiting hours for the parent cavalry.  We had our epics and we had our mellow days but we loved it all. In those formative years I developed a long term relationship with both wild places and my friends. We missed a lot of what other teenagers did but we were driven, we challenged each other and we were our own self-contained support network. It’s only when I look back years later that I realise how special those times were.

As my group of climbing mates grew we also, ironically, became more exclusive. We’d meet at lunchtimes in school or at each other’s houses to share epic tales from climbing magazines and sometimes our own epic tales. We’d also pour over guidebooks to make over ambitious plans for the coming weekend.  Things got easier as our age increased and we were able to travel under our own steam.  Soon we were hitching to outlying Peak District crags, Snowdonia or the Lake District. The Peak still gave the best opportunities for the least amount of effort and we regularly dossed in the Stanage caves or at Stoney Middleton. Our food was what we could blag from our home kitchens and we carried climbing gear in our school bags so we could get on the road as soon as the end of day bell rang. The challenge was to be the first to Stoney with the fire lit.

All this leisure time didn’t leave much time for school work and it came as no surprise, despite being a great disappointment to my parents, when I left school with minimal qualifications. I couldn’t care less as climbing was my only agenda.  Now I had freedom and soon I was leading a life similar to what Yvon Chouinard termed the ‘dirtbag climbers’. Hitching the motorway network was my pathway to Snowdonia summers, Scottish winters and the Peak for the in betweens.  The seasons dictated the rhythm.  Occasionally the need for money raised its head but a short stint in climbing shops or outdoor centres sorted it.

It was an idyllic life but in the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t sustainable long term.  Many of the original gritstone dirtbags had pulled it together and were sitting pretty on apprenticeships or having the times of their lives at university. A few times I leafed through university prospectuses’ but there was always new blood to swell the dirtbag ranks.

At some point we realised we were allowed off this island. The BMC Chamonix coach service (sadly no longer running) was our Trojan horse and the woods near Montenvers our new home away from home. The Cheshire plains boys should have eased in gradually but day 2 of alpine season 1 saw us up at the Gouter Hut ready to summit Mont Blanc. We got up and back somehow but after that calmed down and started a proper alpine apprenticeship.  One foreign trip then led to another and we clocked up the visa stamps. No continent was off the radar but every trip had the key features of cheap camping, a great scene and quality climbing. Arapiles was a great example – free camping, really welcoming local climbers and the chance to earn your potatoes and swedes at the local organic farm.  There’s even a bit of rock to climb there too!

After one disastrous expedition left me owing more than I’d earned in the last few years I reluctantly decided I better back up my climbing activities with some sustainable employment. Several friends had become teachers and, with 12 weeks of holiday, they seemed to have a good blend of work and play.  Thankfully it worked for me too and soon a new pattern emerged. My bigger trips were dictated by the next school holiday and I still raced out of school every day with my school bag – only now it got thrown in the back of the van to blast up to the weekend’s climbing venue.

My headteacher was a wise person who could see untapped potential in me that I failed to see in myself.  She planted the seed of a climbing club and, with only one climber on the staff, asked for volunteers. Soon my little team of ten year olds were visiting local climbing walls and crags and no one was more surprised than me at the impact it had. Teachers started pointing out the children’s attitude change in class and I saw the biggest attitude change in myself. Maybe if I just tweaked the focus of this teaching thing I’d find a job I had a true passion for.   Maybe giving people climbing as a means of self-exploration and discovery would allow me to learn more about myself.
Becoming a mountaineering instructor is a reassuringly rigorous process. Soon my wall was dotted with planning schedules and logbook pages full of climbs. My weekend escapes were spent stacking up client teaching days and learning new skills. Through the eyes of others I was seeing the mountain environment in a completely different way and it felt great. I never went to my degree graduation because it interfered with a climbing trip to Pembroke but it didn’t matter – my ‘real’ graduation happened the day the pass stamp was put in my mountaineering instructor logbook.

People say climbing with beginners every day must erode my own passion but don’t you believe it.  Every time I can inspire or educate others about this sport that has given me so much it just reaffirms how much I love every single thing about it.

A Life Less Ordinary – One Man’s Journey to a Career on Rock is a post from: Rock Climbing UK, an online UK climbing magazine, written BY UK climbers FOR UK climbers.

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