Pennine Lines w/c 2 October 2023
|| Patchy rain || Average temps, breezy ||
Mecca - The Mid-life Crisis || Climber: Char Williams
|| Focus On... ||
Mecca
October is upon us, although I sit here finishing off this email on a usually warm and humid day, with Peak limestone condensing and good gritstone conditions feeling very distant. So forgive me if I refrain from getting too excited.
Back at the beginning of September I prophesied a month of frustrating in-between-ness, caught between the limestone season and with the grit being not quite there yet. On the grit side of things this turned out to be accurate, although a decent month for trad climbing if you could dodge the showers. But as it happens the showery weather ended up being OK for limestone bouldering in the end, and for one reason or another I ended up spending a lot of time at Raven Tor.
I am not a habitual projecteer, and I’ll normally avoid repeatedly going to the same place again and again in quick succession. It’s too easy to slip into seigeing things, it gets boring, there’s a risk that the act of going climbing itself slips into some sort of routine. Try the same problem/route, do the same drive to the crag, eat the same breakfast, pack the pads in the car in the same way. Bring the same rock shoes. Same pair of shorts. Park in the same spot. Do the same warmups. Routine = work = the grind of modern life. Presentism; ’just turning up’. I’ve done enough of that over the years and it isn’t what appeals to me about climbing.
Having said that, there’s also something to be said for sensing when the prevailing winds are blowing in your direction and allowing yourself to be carried along on the breeze. This is true of Raven Tor as much as anywhere. Make hay while the sun shines etc etc. When things align and it goes your way, sometimes you’ve got to go with it - and sense when it’s time to move on. The Tor is such a punishing venue when things aren’t firing on all cylinders, in which case I can’t bear to be there.
Mecca in 2005, before kneepads were invented || Climber: Rich Heap
Speaking of moving on, I went back and re-watched Char’s short film from a few years back about the story behind Mecca. For anyone needing a history lesson, Martin ‘Basher’ Atkinson made the first ascent in 1988 on the day before he emigrated to Switzerland. This story has been well embedded in Peak climbing folklore for years and it’s well covered in the film and worth revisiting. I’ve always found this at face value to be a frankly staggering tale. The thought of having to turn up and succeed on a long-term project at your last possible available opportunity makes me feel sick just thinking about the stress levels involved.
But then you watch the film and it turns out Basher in fact had, on paper at least, probably the worst possible preparation for the route that day. He had a huge bouldering session at the crag for hours, then got on the route as an afterthought at someone else’s suggestion, presumably already fairly tired and having mentally consigned it to the near-miss pile. And he of course did it and the rest is history.
It’s a sort of life-affirming parable really; how climbing time and time again refuses to be reduced to simple numbers and predictable outcomes. I mean, he should not have done that route. No coach today would advise that approach. No training plan would be written to advocate that. No sports science manual would tell you to actively give up and stack the odds against yourself as a strategy. Climbing once again allows weird unpredictable stuff to happen and as always we’re richer for it.
The final couple of moves of Mecca || Climber: Frances Bensley
But when I think about the pressure involved, maybe Basher’s tactics here were an accidental stroke of genius. Maybe it totally removed the weight of expectation and hence just climb. How many of us can honestly say we’re able to just forget about everything and give a full undistracted 100% on demand free of psychological baggage? It’s probably the single hardest part of climbing to master, and for plenty of us the single biggest limiting factor. After all, any idiot can get strong. Similarly I’m convinced that sometime’s it’s actually better to try a route or problem when the conditions aren’t quite right, for that very reason - it removes the pressure. If it’s not perfect you’re not expected to do it. So if you do well then that’s a success, you’ve done that - you can’t chalk it up to good nick, no, you must be climbing well.
Now I’m not saying this works for everyone, and I’m not expecting a call from Ondra tomorrow seeking my services having sacked his entire coaching squad, but I reckon there’s something in it. I know I can often feel like I’m crumbling under the weight of self-imposed pressure if I drop on the one cool dry January day each year to be trying a project. I hate that. Even worse if other people are out and having the best day they’ve ever had. Give me a slightly sub-par evening in April any day, or maybe just the wrong breakfast or the wrong rockshoes. Or failing that just accept a job offer abroad. Give it a try.
|| SUPPORTED BY ||
|| Recently Through the lens ||
Shared spaces - a smoky, dull but busy day at Stanage
|| Fresh Prints ||
A couple of Wyming Brook shots new to the Print Shop this week - to remind you what we're missing this autumn while the valley is closed for tree felling.
