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Give 'Im Enough Rope

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January 2016. The Scottish International Winter Meet. Perhaps just to make the international visitors appreciate the fickle nature of Scottish winter climbing, the first few days of the gathering were either too warm, too rainy or both. Rather than take our gear for a walk in the wet, windy hills, we went drytooling in the guts of Newtyle Quarry and rock climbing on the shores of the North Sea. Then a morning dawned with clear skies and below-freezing temperatures. A thousand and one teams drove up the road to the Aviemore ski area and stomped across half-frozen bogs to to the Northern Corries.  A thick layer of hoar frost grew on the walls of Coire an Lochain. As I understood the quirky ethics of Scottish winter climbing, this was considered a good thing. Coming from the cold, dry Canadian Rockies, I was more used to waiting after a storm until wind and gravity had cleared the rock of snow, but hey, when in Rome, do as the locals do. My introduction to Scottish mixed climbing was The
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The Hand of God

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1982. On April 2, Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (aka Las Malvinas), and the next day South Georgia, British islands that Argentina considered its rightful territory. Just three days later, Britain dispatched an expeditionary force to take back what had been a British colony for over a century. In the end, British aircraft carriers and Harrier jets prevailed, and after nearly a thousand people died, the islands returned to British control. History doesn't record if the king penguins and elephant seals inhabiting South Georgia were consulted about which country they'd like to live in. Given how humans have treated other species from time immemorial, it seems unlikely. *** 1986. On June 22, Argentina and England were playing in the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City. The match was still goalless when, a few minutes into the second half, Diego Maradona leapt for the ball that had been cleared towards the English goalie. However, instead
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The Fame Monster

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"I don't want to write about climbing; I don't want talk about it; I don't want to photograph it; I don't want to think about it; all I want to do is do it." - Chuck Pratt . I can't remember when I first came across Pratt's quote but it's stuck ever since. Pratt, after penning his classic essay  The View From Dead Horse Point , never published another piece of climbing writing. Unlike Pratt, I continue to be guilty of occasionally spewing about climbing, from slideshows to this blog. Still, with each passing year and with the buzz around climbing growing ever louder, I find his sentiment more and more appealing. There was a time I used to record each climb I did: when I did it, with whom, how long it took and other like details. At some point I stopped this practice: once an experience was in the past, there seemed little point in recording it. Yet climbing for the moment, letting go of climbs as soon as you've done them, can shade into selfish
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A slice of the unknown

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I step from a luxurious belay ledge onto a steep, prickly slab. The slab is undercut just beneath my feet: a rock dropped from here might hit the distant orange spot of my pack at the base of the wall. I clip a bolt. Wait, what, a bolt? By this point Alik and I expected to be traveling across untouched rock. Five years earlier Alik, Ian and Nino climbed three pitches of the line we're attempting, but we've already passed their highpoint. It seemed unlikely that anyone else should've wandered up to this obscure face, overshadowed by the bigger, better known north faces of Ha Ling Peak to the north and Mount Lawrence Grassi to the south. And yet a bolted anchor four pitches up makes it clear we're not the first people up here. The slings on the anchor suggest the mystery climbers rappelled off, but then the bolt I've just clipped hints they might also have finished the route. We don't know. I shuffle further left, stuff a cam under an overlap, and turn my attentio
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Strange days

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"Strange days have found us Strange days have tracked us down They're going to destroy Our casual joys" -The Doors, "Strange Days" It was the middle of March. I had a weekday free. After a long spell of touchy avalanche conditions, when the hazard had oscillated between Considerable and High, snow stability was finally improving. With the time having just switched to Daylight Saving and equinox almost upon us, it was staying light until eight. It was time to start going bigger. The evening before, a friend and I exchanged the usual flurry of texts. Where should we go? Stanley? Storm? Some more obscure cliff? But then came second thoughts, and none related to climbing. Should we drive out separately and meet at the trailhead, to avoid sitting next to each another in the car? And even though avalanche hazard was low and going to Stanley or Storm isn't alpine climbing, were we absolutely certain nothing would happen that would have us pressing
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Better lucky than good

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It was the usual evening-before text exchange: "What do you want to climb tomorrow?" "I'm not sure... How about Route X?" Both Mate Man and I had done the route in question before. In fact, over the years I'd climbed it when it was fat, skinny and downright mixed. However, just because you've visited a place already doesn't make it any less beautiful. I always liked the way the ice on Route X started out in a twisting canyon before rearing up to a vertical pillar, shining in the sun high above the valley floor. As I threw some quickdraws, screws and, just in case, a few pins into the pack, the only thing that gave me pause was the forecast for high winds. Route X sits below a sizeable bowl, and as I drifted off to sleep, I thought of the fresh snow from the last few days blowing around and settling into a slab. Then again, we could just glass the mountain from road and decide in the morning... *** From the parking lot, the bo
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Little Fluffy Clouds

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Take 1. From a distance, the ice blobs looked inviting; the featureless rock between them, less so. I wonder if we're wasting our time, I thought, as Seth and I ploughed a ski track through facetted snow, the straps of packs loaded down with ropes, cams, pins – and drill – pulling at our shoulders. Given enough time and bolts you can get up anything, but we didn't want what Steve DeMaio called a science project. We wanted a line, something we could walk up to and (mostly) just climb. Unfortunately, the limestone, shining grey and yellow in the morning light, looked depressingly blank. But another one of Steve’s sayings was that you’ve just got to rub your nose in it. And sure enough, as we got closer, switchbacking up the slope below the cliff through patches of kinnikinnick and drifts of wind-crusted snow, as if by magic cracks and corners appeared. Seth quickly dispatched the first pitch, a curtain of sun-baked ice, and I started up the second. A horizontal shuffle a
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