1st climbing experience: Dordoigne, France, on a school trip with my primary school. It was sport climbing if I remember correctly and I think I only went up once because there were like 20 classmates right behind me waiting for their turn. Uneventful, didn't really do much for me at such a young age. Wanted to go and shoot arrows.
Though, really, my first climbing experiences would've been much earlier and frankly I would've been climbing for many years prior and after that event. Really, when you're a kid, climbing is as natural as knocking on neighbours doors and running away. Walls, trees, fences, rocks, drainpipes, side of buildings, in and out of windows. It's just, as a kid, the obstacle was never the wall or the tree, the obstacle was whether you got into trouble for it or not. The thing on my mind would've been plausible deniability, not whether my hands could hold, if my fingers were strong enough, or what to do once I got up whatever I was climbing.
2nd climbing experience: NZ - I was staying in a hostel called the Green Monkey (Sunny Nelson) and I was bunking with a few people that went climbing some evenings. They seemed like a good bunch and one night they asked me if I wanted to tag along. The walls were high and I did some sport climbing and learned how to belay with a grigri. This time I enjoyed it quite a lot, because it put my strength to the test more than anything else. I asked why there was small wall with holds, and got a pretty offhand response that it was bouldering - a type of climbing that requires no ropes. I didn't see the point in it at the time and thought it was a sort of easy way out of REAL climbing. The type of climbing you do with ROPES and METAL CLASPS and HARNESSES. You know, the dangerous Cliffhanger type climbing that will get you killed if you're not totally skilful and amazing and strong. The person who was "teaching" me said I was a natural. I actually got quite a buzz out of that but then thought, pessimistically, that she probably tells everyone that to give them a sense of achievement and more confidence.
3rd climbing experience: My hippy cousin Rebecca (hi if you read this, lookin' forward to permaculture thing in the park) and her babydaddy David are climbers of about 3 (±2) years now. They invited me along to David's birthday where they had rented out the Don Whillans Memorial hut in the peak district. I said yes because, after coming back from Australia/NZ I had a bit of a traveling/outdoorsy/photography bug that would lend itself perfectly to the north of England, a place I had never been to before. It wasn't because I wanted to climb all that much. That long weekend in the peaks is the point in which climbing turned from something I had done a bit of in the past to something I wanted to do a lot more of in the future. The scenery was epic (I get a bit patriotic when I see green, rolling hills of England. Bring me my spear of burning gold etc) and the weather wasn't terrible and I was outdoors doing something a bit dangerous. Rebecca is an instructor so she put up a top rope while I and other waited down at the bottom. This was a little bit tedious because the wait is so long, and eventually when I did the climb I found it quite easy (Rebecca (Rebel, as I call her) knew we were all beginners so found an easy climb, I'm not some climbing savant or anything) I had fun, don't get me wrong, but I didn't know of any other type of climbing. Anyway, this is all getting far too fucking long, so basically one day we did bouldering as a group on gritstone and I was hooked. I got back from that weekend, signed up to The Arches climbing wall in London Bridge, got myself a pair of rock shoes and a chalk bag and I've been climbing there at least twice a week since.
Climbing experience 4: Last week I went to motherfucking FONTAINEBLEAU with Rebecca and David. They had it planned for ages and I just rocked up with them. I've been climbing less then 2 months and I've been to The Roaches and to Fontainebleau. I count myself very fortunate that I got the opportunity to go to such amazing places so early on, and I think it has set me up for many future years of epicness.
So yeah, back to the title. In the Don Whillans Memorial Hut, there is a plaque erected there by Don's wife. I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was along the lines of "To Don, a True Man of Grit" - The type of stone up in the roaches is Gritstone et voila, I want to be a man grit too. So this blog is going to document my METEORIC RISE TO CLIMBING FAME (probably not) and I'm going to fill it with anything and everything to do with my climbing experiences. I want it to be informative, interesting and hopefully funny in some places. I want anyone who reads up about climbing and wants to start it themselves to stumble across this blog and enjoy reading it from a real beginners point of view, instead of being written by a pro looking back and trying to remember what they didn't know back then. I've got a few weeks to catch up on obviously, but that shouldn't be too hard. Stuff I have learned already is still fresh on my brain.
So, to anyone that stumbles across this - really, really sorry about the wall of text. You don't have to read it, it's not exactly important, but then this is my blog so screw you for being bored.
Here goes.. I'm off to find the grit.
Rick
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