Spring time cragging

Every year or so a few friends write a list of routes. Now these can be any route we choose, however the other people writing their own lists can veto them if they think you're selling yourself short or will complete your list too easily (and of course win the coveted and seemingly unattainable prize money of ~£20). My list last year got off to a good start but a lack of motivation and life events conspired to put me out of the game with only 50% of my list completed.

This year seems to be a better bet. The routes on the list will push me, hence some training over the winter rather than the normal running, and are a little far flung from sheltered South Wales but so far I have had a great time chasing these lines around the crags of the country. Starting with Chullila down at Brean and yesterday getting Propaganda done at Cwmaman. The routes between these two (all 5 of them) have all been ambitions for a while.

The biggest of which was the Assassin down at Gogarth. This route used to intimidate me somewhat, the picture of Lee Roberts in the Ground Up guide making it look "way out there" and above my pay grade at the time when I lived there. Years passed and that ember to climb it and the shadows that scared me were still present but on a glorious weekend in late March I had a brilliant couple of days mincing my way up various routes with good friends both old and new. I finally got on the Assassin. It was amazing, both the climbing and the situation in the middle of Main cliff with the sun on the sea and hunger in my belly adding to the atmosphere of a great day. So here's to more brilliant days this year and the years to come.

Me seconding the Strand as our warm up before heading over to the Main event (© Tom Ripley)

Do the small things well.

"Do the small things well".

I really like this quote having only heard it for the first time on Monday as it can be applied to almost anything or anytime. When you plan or execute a trip, a climb, a run, a piece of work, a video, you need to ensure you do every little thing as well as you can to stack the odds in your favour of a positive or desirable outcome. You want to make sure you do your laces up well before that 30km run; that you have chalk in the bag for that redpoint attempt; that your kit list for a trip is as comprehensive as you can make it. All the little things- the minor decisions and tasks- add up to a sum. And as some cleverer person than me (potentially Steve House) said "We are all the sum of our past decisions".

I want to take this idea forward more, to bring it's ideology back into my life. To make better use of all of my time. To make the little steps so that the bigger ones will be easier to take.

St David or Dewi Sant, was a saint of the Celtic Church. He was a real person, the son of Sandde (Santhe), Prince of Powys and Non, daughter of a Chieftain of Menevia in West Wales. St David is thought to have been born near the present day town of St David's. Today is St.David's Day, the Welsh patron Saint. 

The Lost Years

It's been nearly 4 years since I last put anything on this blog. Looking back I can see why. Not because I haven't done anything but because I didn't feel as if it was worth it. For the last 4 months of 2013 I was in Patagonia and the USA, when I came home I had a full intention of writing down what had gone on but all the excuses came into play life, a girlfriend, work, seeing neglected friends, training etc etc etc. But I don't think this was the real reason, I was ashamed and disappointed in myself. I had dragged my heels, complained, let the little things get in the way of the pure joy of the experience I was living at that moment. I was a fool and let a great opportunity to pass me by. And that is what I now know is the real reason I couldn't put it down.

It's been long enough now and I've started to try and take more control of where my own life goes. I have been in some dark places mentally for large parts of the last 4 years, wondered why to bother; to keep trudging the same path. Not going where I wanted to be going, not living what I believed was the life I should have. But I was unwilling- and to some extent still am- to give what was/is required to get there. I am now starting to get there and take those steps (2 year plan). This isn't a miserable post of self pity; it is a full stop on that period in my life. I am now working full time, my free time to live out the rhetoric I spoke of in my older posts has dwindled to 1 day in 7, maybe an evening or two. Yet despite that in the last 12 months I have climbed harder than ever before, I have run 2 ultra marathons and come in the top 10. I have made new friends and tried to keep good ties with the old.  I have bought a house, a van, a bicycle. I have travelled to new countries, and returned to others. It is scary how life is moving forward at such a pace these days (I definitely sound old and apologise, Im not but might be mentally) it takes events around you for you to realise what is going on and see how far you have come from those youth filled idealistic days.

A week ago I went out with some friends, we drank, some smoked, others took drugs. We stayed out late, chatted drivel and watched the sun rise and our eyelids close. As the hours moved on the conversation inevitably turned to our childhood and then where we are now. Little nuances in conversation concerned me, they worried me. Worried for my friends, for my generation. We went to a decent state comprehensive, got a good set of grades, worked hard in college, went to university and got decent results. We got decent jobs and paid into bank accounts to get on the housing ladder as the rents were so high we couldn't eat at the end of the month. But my friends- the same people who followed these steps much like I have- are lost. They are drinking a bottle of vodka on their own on a Friday night because they don't know what else to do. They take cocaine on their lunch break just to splinter the monotony of the working week. What has happened to us. And yet as I look around bars, coffee shops, music gigs, the same look of loneliness and abandon that has settled in my friends eyes, is in other's. But my friends aren't alone, they aren't abandoned but the sentiment of being lonely amongst a crowd is building. We are becoming a generation of lost boys with no future and no understanding of how to escape the cycle without help: economic help.

This blog is going to be my way of communicating a path through this system and my attempts to get myself out of it. I am not rich, I am not poor. I work hard but never get enough done. I want to be something better than I currently am, and will try my hardest not to be disappointed in myself again.

I came 8th in the Gower Ultra (50miles in 9hours something)

Fitzroy under incredible clouds.

Dave on the top pitch of Yellow Wall ( I went back and did both pitches of this great route yesterday).

Lost Boys

One Summer

How do you describe the most enjoyable and varied 6 weeks you’ve probably ever had. On the last night sat around the brew pan chatting we tried to think of a single bad thing that had happened during our time travelling across France. Not one came to our minds.

We’d spent 4 weeks in Chamonix climbing some brilliant alpine rock routes, suffering a fair amount (mostly due to my sleeping bag being rated to 11degC when it was –2degC) and living in the woods near Snells field just outside the town centre.

 Catching the coach in late July I had no idea what we would get upto. Would I enjoy it all, would I shit myself and get too intimidated by the scale and the reputations of the classic routes I so wanted to do. But I needn’t have worried, yes there were times when I shat myself, times when all I wanted to do was go cragging on a British mountain crag or sea cliff then go to a pub and eat chips and drink beer. But there were other moments where it all came together. The Grand Capucin day, linking 2 really cool routes and then doing it all lift-to-lift made for a knackering but brilliant day out. Seeing the image of the Gervasutti Pillar in my own eyes not just in the Rebuffat book. Doing the Frendo rock section in 3 hours (the ice was very shitty and I had bendy boots on so that took a long time and lots of pain, see the picture below).

Then the set-back of getting upto the Eccles Bivvi Hut in late August to do the Freney Pillar but after following others advice we only had one rope. You needed 2 this year. But despite this we walked back down, still friends, still alive and still keen for one more route. We picked Frendo as it would be something that we could race up in theory and be back down quickly so as to catch a lift with another friend to Font and then home!

 All in all this summer trip to the Alps was amazing, thinking back to all the things I’ve seen and done. Alpine routes, swimming in Lake Annecy, watching clouds vanish above me in blue evening skies, watching the light fade on the faces of massive rock spires, seeing a tree fall down (with no one pushing it), travelling across France in a classic English gentlemans transit van, climbing on sandstone blocs in Font and visiting Paris for the first time (ran across the Arc d’Triumph roundabout!). Life felt good, and we lived for the moment.

 Below is a selection of pictures Tom Livingstone and Rob Richardson took (my camera drowned in Annecy Lake) that I hope sum up our trip and the fun we had this one summer.

“Life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings. About fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings” – Frank Turner

 

Summit of the Grand Capucin - A Grand Day Out

 

The Dream Team in Font (the pool made us wear Budgie smugglers - we looked like paedo's)

 

Moving Right on shitty ice at the top of the Frendo spur

 

Straddling Papillon Arete - First Route of the Season

 

Last Alpine Camp of the season - Beautiful

 

Im not sure what we were looking at but it sums up the partnership - Pessimistic vs. Eternal Optimist

 

Climbing near the top of La Marchand de Sables

 

Gervasutti Pillar - Birthday Route!

 

We spent a week in font and this is my favourite picture - my white tshirt still shows up

 

Transit travel across France - we got bored at one traffic jam so surfed on the roof for a bit

 

A woodland Paradise - Moss included

 

Snickers and a Candle - one way to wake up at 3am on your birthday! - we look fucked already!

 

 

Sid the watermelon 22-24 Aug 2012 - he gave us stomach cramps so we threw him in the river

 

Domesticity or my lack of.

Over the past 10days ive been house sitting for a friend, with this house comes 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 horses and a snake. Its not your average domestic setting but it does represent the standard. Now up until now I assumed I wasn't the kind of person to enjoy normal life with 2.5 kids cats, dogs, house plants and neighbours, and i was right. Its been a good learning experience, I definitely don't want to do all this in the near future! Since my relationship broke down with my now ex-girlfriend, I've been able to go climbing, take pictures, go running and listen to music. But my god its good to be able to have a simple life. So the plans for the next few years (a good 5 or 6) is to try and maintain this simple life, maybe introduce some responsibility towards the end but nothing as hard-core as kids, mortgage and pets. Our generation can't do what the previous ages have tried, we don't live in a world with an economy to support us buying houses and still living a life worth living.

And so we come to the crux, a life worth living. We all could try and jump on the property ladder, pay our wage to the banks and have a 'settled' existence. But that is not something I can see me doing or something I would be proud of doing if i looked back on my life on my death bed. I want to hobble into the light of death, with new knees, hips and a mind full of memories of stuff I have achieved in my life and people I have met. None of this try and preserve myself for old age, fuck that. Old people should be fucked, they should have lived a full life! (This sums it up).

Annyyywwaaayy, my cameras coming out of the cupboard soon so hopefully ill be posting some good pictures of my travels and a life lived, not endured.

Edit Note: After writing this post i came across this article which claims that many people being born now will live until they are 100. Is it just me or is this a bit disturbing. We often see our relatives getting a bit old and decrepit at the age of 75 onwards. Our medicine may be improving so that people survive longer, but it does seem that after the age of 80 people are just surviving, there aren't many elderly people who are rocking the boat. They seem to be just there. Now I'm not proposing euthanasia, that would be ridiculous! But would more people reaching 100 be a good thing? For me I don't want to live that long, becoming a burden on my family and most probably the only one of my friends left alive. No friends and subject to mind-numbing day time TV, no thanks.  Going out with a bang, yes please.

Keen for life....

As im back 'learning' and have injured my A2 ring finger tendon i tend to spend a lot of time trauling the interweb for things to distract me. Things on twitter do a nice job of this and this morning, whilst waiting for my mate to turn up to go cragging i read this poem.

I found it on Vince Andersons twitter (absolute lege!) and its about how in life you have to go the whole hog and to succeed you will sacrafice, but it'll be worth it in the end. Sorry the poems quite long but its worth reading it all.

Roll The Dice (Charles Bukowski)

If you're going to try, go all the way,
Otherwise don't even start.
If you're going to try, go all the way.
This could mean losing girlfriends,
Wives, relatives, jobs and maybe your mind.

Go all the way,
It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
It could mean freezing on a park bench.
It could mean jail.
It could mean derision, mockery, isolation.

Isolation is the gift.
All the others are a test of your endurance.
Of how much you really want to do it.
And you'll do it.
And it will be better than anything else you can imagine.

If your going to try,
Go all the way.
There is no other feeling like that.
You will be alone with the Gods.
And the nights will flame with fire.

Do it, do it, do it, do it.

All the way.
All the way.
You will ride life straight to perfect laughter.
Its the only good fight there is.

I hope despite the way the poem is, it speaks to a few of you out there that are trying to live everyday. Dont give in, you will get there, and any doubters will be left in your wake. Love life and do something with every day that will take you closer to your ultimate goal.