Climbing

Climbing has been a large part of my life for over twenty years now, fell walking about ten years longer. So, surprise, surprise it forms the largest part of this site.

I began climbing as a sport in 1980 though I had done some rock climbs intermittently over the years at school. There is even a picture of me aged two climbing rocks on the family farm! So climbing does seem to have been in the blood though quite whose blood I got mine from is open to debate as no-one else in my family has had the urge to climb, either in previous generations or the current one.

I have never pigeon-holed myself as to the type of climbing that I have undertaken though true Big Walls in the style of those on El Capitain in Yosemite Valley remains one area where my experience is sadly lacking and until the advent of bouldering mats, bouldering was not something I regularly undertook and the constant (for me) dropping onto hard earth did not do my knees any favours. Neither were they done any favours when I was run-over in April 1995!

The following lists the articles that I have had published in British climbing magazines. The list is not great as I have usually attempted to try something different from the "I did this route then I did that route" type of article and this has not always gone down well with editors :-(.

• A Dogs' Life A satirical look at the climbing scene at Malham Cove in the mid to late 1980's. Published in Climber 1994.
• The Wild West Published to coincide with the FRCC guide to Pillar and Gable which lie in the west of the English Lake District. Published in Climber in October 1991.
• A cold night A tale based on true events (they happened to me) on a trip to K7 in the Pakistan Karakorum. Never published.
• Dolomites An account of my first trip to the Dolomites in northern Italy. Published in Climber in August 1996.
• Bowfell An account of ascents of classic and new routes on Bowfell. Published in Climber and Hillwalker in January 1991.

Top Ten

The list to last a lifetime! These are the ten climbs, well nine climbs and a run, that I desire to do before I give up climbing. They represent a wide variety of climbing styles but most are slightly more committing than a stroll in the park! Most are alpine in nature though a rock climb does sneak in there!

To date I have done six out of the ten but hope to have a couple more done in the next year or so. The remaining two are beginning to look like a dream :-(

On the bright side it means I have to keep climbing!

Click here for the list.