All happening

Happy Christmas everyone. It’s been all happening for me - ups and downs. First up I have been in the foundation stages of next years training, putting in four or five hours a day on my board, doing my moves and exercises. My body feels great apart from a core stabiliser muscle in my trunk which is causing some pain and concern.  More on this later. As much as this could get in the way of immediate performances on cliffs, it’s letting me get on with the much needed work of preparing my body for next year’s objectives. 

For the last couple of years I’ve been quite focused on short term objectives, hence not doing any hard routes, just lots of ‘easy’ ones. Not easy of course, just easy enough to do in a couple of days. Two E10s, three E9s and a good few E8s this year. I’m ready for a big one or two routes again. And that means short term sacrifice.

I’ve made several changes to my training, which are going great so far. I’m excited for next year. After training I’ve also been doing a ton of reading about training and about injury rehabilitation as I continue to work hard on my book Rock ‘Til You Drop. It’s fascinating. There is so much to learn. But I must admit it’s been hard to sleep. I’ve got the information coming out of my ears by the time I go to bed. Usually 3am at the moment.

On our way home from Christmas in Glasgow, we briefly became accident statistics. After sticking below 40mph all the way from Glasgow in sleet and snow in Claire’s 4x4, a ridiculous stretch of black ice took control of the car on Rannoch Moor. I managed about 5 anti-steers back and forth, keeping the car facing ‘forward’ (roughly) for about 200 or more yards. But it was useless and I had time to apologise to Claire and receive her acceptance as we spun a few more times and were finally deposited in the ditch. A winch and a couple of hundred quid later, we drove home, at jogging pace. Thanks to the lads who tried to help us get the car out under our own steam. I have your snow shovel. Drop me a line and I can send it back.

Risk & Ethics of Adventure: EMFF Oct 24th

At this year’s Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival I’m speaking at a debate on the Ethics of Adventure. Sunday 24th October, 2pm, details on the EMFF site here.

Of course there are many ethical aspects to adventure and adventure sport, and which we discuss I’m sure will depend on what you guys want to talk about on the day. I guess the most discussed of all is of course the issue of risk. I’m never sure whether it’s because I’ve studied, written and talked about the subject for years now, or whether I rub noses with it a lot, or whether I’m getting older. But when I observe attitudes to risk in some others or society in general, I get quite riled. I’m a passive sort of chap and that doesn’t happen easily. 

It strikes me that the general attitudes to risk and which risks are acceptable are not in my society has got progressively more messed up in my lifetime. My sport of climbing has been a welcome sanctuary of sense a lot of the time! It seems that people are content to take huge risks with life, limb or lifestyle without giving much thought (or none at all), yet are aghast at others risk taking that is proportionally far smaller, or balanced against much greater reward.

I’m being a little provocative here of course. I know that it’s a question of perception. A lot of our grave errors in risk awareness and management aren’t really our fault. We’re not hardwired to cope with the sorts of risks of modern life, and the corrupting influences of the media compound this to a quite staggering level. 

So more on this on the 24th… See you there maybe for a lively chat.

A MacLeod near miss

The west highlands almost lost two of it’s MacLeod’s to the A86 on Saturday morning after Claire wrapped her nice Audi around a tree. I was sitting in the passenger seat and believe it or not I was happy it was a direct head on hit on the tree, because if not it would have been over a retaining wall with a probably terminal drop on the other side.

A very wet road, a little too much speed for the bend, and a little touch of the brakes on the cusp of the bend were the combination of causes. The back of the car slid, followed by wild veering and steering, and the next thing we saw in the windscreen was a large tree.

We had a split second to either tense or relax in preparation for the big smash.

It felt a little surreal stepping out of a completely re-shaped car, with only a sore neck and the odd scuff between us. The split second after the impact of turning to Claire to see if she was still with me was not something I’ll forget in a hurry. Thankfully she was looking back at me and immediately agreeable to getting out of the car.

Apologies to my climbing masterclass students who had a bit of a wait for me to arrive and a slightly frazzled coach once I finally did.

Kudos to Mr Gardner for being on the money that there are often more pressing things worth worrying about than falling off rock climbs, terrorists and nasty flu viruses.

Safer, safe and ‘less dangerous’

Claire after her skydive yesterday. Not looking too scared

I was just listening to Amartya Sen explaining on radio about his ideas about justice in the world, and his way of looking at this aspect of humanity struck me as just as relevant in another.

His thesis in the world of justice is that we should think in a more pragmatic, and less idealist way in order to achieve the best possible outcome for people. Specifically he has the idea that we pour a huge amount of energy trying to solve completely particular injustices, with the intended outcome being to make them 100% ‘just’. But, he says, the ideal of a perfectly just scenario often remains out of reach. Instead, if we first seek out the biggest and deepest injustices, and measure success against their starting points, rather than against the ideal finishing point of perfect justice, we will end up increasing overall justice by a larger amount. So the focus on scrubbing out the last remains of stubborn injustice becomes not just a black hole for our resources, but a distraction from deeper injustice elsewhere.

It struck me that this parallels closely recent arguments about risk in life and society. Economics right now is teaching popular society a lot about the importance of risk. Namely that pursuing the ideal of eliminating risk is actually harmful to economies, just as very risky and unstable situations are. Similarly, a statistical perspective minus the blinkers of a ratings driven media such as this book on the risks we face highlights some of the ridiculous situations we find ourselves in when we attempt to eliminate tiny risks (such as terrorism) and allow these to completely distract us from huge risks elsewhere.

Amartya’s idea projected onto risk makes a lot of sense to me and to me reflects closely the decision making process I’ve aspired to in the risky climbing I do. Other climbing bloggers thoughts recently (such as Dougald and Will’s) have reminded us well that believing in complete safety in climbing will always prove a fallacy. So it’s important to try not to be distracted by making tiny risks tinier, if larger ones lie ignored in the background (and they often do in my opinion).

A common example that often worries me when listening to other climbers discourse on safety is a fascination with the fine details of climbing equipment systems. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever, so long as it’s seen in context of the whole picture of climbing safety, which is often isn’t. The trouble is that our safety systems relating to climbing equipment are only one link in a chain of factors that determine how much risk we face when climbing.

The ‘soft’ skills (I hate the term but can’t immediately think of a replacement) of our tactics, decision making and movement skill on rock, ice or mountains are the other, larger part, and they often suffer relative ignorance.

A more specific example; Out of the climbers I know who onsight E6 or harder, I can't think of any who aren’t expert at downclimbing (out of trouble). Why? Quite simply, having this skill allows you to go with far less danger where it would be hideously dangerous to rely solely on ‘up’ climbing ability and safety equipment. In contrast, the trad climber’s I know who’ve suffered a series of confidence destroying serious falls are more often than not poor at climbing down out of scary situations. I’ve had a million climbers ask me all sorts of weird and wonderful questions about the fine points of equipment, and strategies for it’s use, and it often shocks them when I don’t always know an answer. But I can’t recall ever being asked about downclimbing.

Important things are often at the mercy of things less important. Looking for dangerous things to make less dangerous will often be more successful than looking for anything to make perfectly safe.