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Significant events that have changed your climbing 9-Apr-2010 At 11:02:41 AM hero

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Consider Kundera’s comment on life and death in The Art of the Novel: “That life is a trap we’ve always known: we are born without having asked to be, locked in a body we never chose, and destined to die.”

Or the wisdom Silenus gave to Midas, “that the best thing for a man is not to be born, and if born, should die as soon as possible.”

The only things that make life worthwhile are the momentary glimpses of wonderment and beauty (though auschwitz survivor Victor Frankel suggested love) and these I have found often in climbing.

I am a grizzled old climber (Cruze – I wish I could have stayed 32 for ever – it is not old). Many of my peers are dead, or crippled, retired from climbing, or worse, moved to Natimuk.

I have never been a particularly bold climber, but to me it is the risk in climbing that makes it worthwhile. To stare into the void (peek behind the veil of Maya) and to see your unavoidable future. And to come back and sit in the grass at the base of the climb, or in Simey’s café (plug) with a strong coffee and see the wonder in the world. I pity people who do not have this in their lives.