With Nicholas and Lara on Hen Mountain

Yesterday I took Lara (10) and Nicholas (8) up to Hen Mountain, the first rock-climbing either of them have done in ages.

My goal was to climb the Boulder Route (grade Diff.) on the Tower, which due to its length has to be done in at least two pitches. Because both of them are too small to belay me, I was soloing, and then roping up one tied in the middle of the rope and the other on the end. Nicholas got really scared on the first pitch - granite can be very intimidating; in fact I remember being terrified on the Lions Head granite crag at much the same age. So I lowered him down and finished the climb with Lara, who did really well. I broke it up into three pitches, because I wanted to be close to help her climb up over the boulder at half-height - a very long reach involved for a little girl. I was actually glad at that point that I didn't have both of them on the route, so it all worked out for the best.

This is Lara emerging at the top of the climb up the final slab.

Then we went round the back of the Tower, and climbed an easier route up the ridge.

Doan do that again

It seems winter has finally released its grip, and allowed Spring to take a practical hold, rather than just a nominal one. After not having heard from Mark in a while, a text appeared out of the blue last Wednesday, and today we headed over to the Ott mountain track and up to Doan, a rather lonely peak over-looking both the Silent Valley reservoir and Lough Shannagh. This photo is looking down from the southern side of Doan to the Silent Valley and the Irish Sea beyond ("where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea"):

There are only a handful of routes on Doan, and not all of the best quality. Further, they seem very hard for the grades given. I suppose this could be because both of us haven't climbed rock in a while, but we've both been training and are fairly fit - ah feck it, it's just typical Mournes climbing, and climbing granite always was and always will be a weird experience, no matter how much of it you may do.

This is Mark trying to remember how to interpret the Mournes route book:

We started off on "Practice Crack", an easy, short, blocky route that we climbed in our walking boots. Great, now for a face graded Severe (3c). Should be a doddle. Heh. A dodgy wire placement just above the belay and committing moves on rounded holds - "3c" my well rounded ass. So, with typical Irish logic, we moved on to something harder, not that we had much choice, due to the limited scope available.

This climb was actually quite pleasant, and very well protected, for the first 25 of its approximately 30 metres. The top is bloody scary, certainly harder than 4a, and I'm glad Mark led it. Oh, and it goes by the rather uninspiring name of "Fag End". Here's Mark smiling for the camera before getting really scared just a few feet higher:

This seems a fairly remote part of the Mournes, but walking back down afterwards we had to dodge what seemed like about a thousand runners taking part in a fell-running event. One of them was a climber we recognised, we've seen him up at Fairhead before. "You should rather go to Lower Cove", he said, "much better climbing there." Well we've been to Lower Cove a few times, and he's dead right.

The views from the summit of Doan are lovely. This is looking across to Slieve Binnian:

And down to Lough Shannagh:

And your's truly:

Doan is lovely, but when I come back it'll be for the walk and the scenery, not the climbing.

Bobby Woods

I am deeply saddened by the death of my friend and former work colleague, Bobby Woods, on Thursday 08 April 2010. Bobby was climbing with two friends in the Left-Face area of Table Mountain, and it seems he pulled down a massive loose block. Mercifully, from the sounds of things death was instant, and he did not suffer.

I'm not going to write an obituary here. I honestly think Bob would be annoyed with me if I did. He was a huge inspiration to so many people, and one of our finest all-round mountaineers. His achievements, both in business and climbing, speak for themselves and will remain as a tribute to his life. What I will say are a few things about his effect on my own life, in particular in relation to climbing. We were roughly the same age, and I knew him from about 1984 or so; we would often meet on the mountain somewhere. I didn't get to know him well until 1995, when I was sent to Johannesburg to start a branch of Toprope, the rope access company he owned with Daniel Bottomley. We spent a lot of time together that year, and when he subsequently left Toprope I often employed him as a private contractor. In 1996 we were the first people to perform rope access work in the boilers of Eskom's many coal-fired power stations, during maintenance outages. It made sense, somehow, for us to end up working together on a fledgling venture in Pretoria in 1997. We choked on a lot of boiler dust for a long time, shared a house initially (during which time my and Nadia's first child was born), oversaw the construction of a climbing centre and rope access training facility, fought with the bank, schmoozed with clients, and had great fun. That was Bob's philosophy, work hard, play hard.

He was also the person who encouraged me to get up off my fat arse and get back into climbing. As a climber, you couldn't not be infected by his enthusiasm. We went sport-climbing at Waterval-Boven and Harrismith, and also climbing in the Drakensberg. I also climbed the North-West Frontal on Du Toit's Peak with him during his preparation for the successful second attempt at his awesome "3-peaks" solo challenge (he wanted to check that the rock was dry all the way up, as this is what had thwarted him the first time around). What was a long tough day for me was something he later accomplished as one of three climbs on the same day!

Shortly after this Bob and Kaolin moved down to Randburg, and Nadia and I moved into the house at the climbing centre that they had lived in. Our youngest, Nicholas, was born there (a midwife-assisted home birth), in the same oversize bath-tub where their daughter Lilu had been born the previous year.

I'll miss you Bobby, and so will many others. Rest in peace.