Er, hi. I'm a climber, of sorts. I started rock climbing at 13, and I'm turning 26 this year. I haven't really accomplished MUCH with my life, but I've fallen off a lot of climbs and finished one or two.
I don't really know what I did before I was a climber. I was a kid really I suppose. I was pretty fat, and weak too. Fatter, I suppose I should say.
When I was 13, there was a religious education trip to a remote island in the Outer Hebrides. It was a small Christian community, with a building for school kids to stay in.
Having nothing better to do at the time, I went, despite the very real risk of being repeatedly bum-raped by priests.
There was two large rocky hill like things at either end of the island, both reasonably steep. I climbed both of them, and I was hooked.
The views were gorgeous. I enjoyed the solitude, the silence and the exposed feeling of being up there.
Halfway up the first climb, I decided when I got home I'm join the school's climbing club. We had an indoor rock wall at the school, I'd never been as it didn't really interest me climbing a small piece of plastic.
Each week I'd go into the hot, sweaty wall, changed into shorts and t shirt, put on an ill-fitting, cheap and uncomfortable harness, then manage one greasy plastic climb.
That happened until I joined an after school club. It was too hot in there, greasy, the ropes were crap, but it was all I could get then. Two long years I climbed there, and that was all I was climbing, except my weekly college outing where I'd get maybe two or three piss-easy climbs in. I still can't believe how long I toughed it out at that indoor wall.
The years passed in a blur of heavy metal, drinking and climbing. I found myself at outdoor recreation college, and in the mountains and sea cliffs.... And I'm still here, still climbing, after all this time.
No comments:
Post a Comment