Best Wishes for 2014

Posted on 2013-12-30 - filed under news

Massacre a la Tronconneuse 6b

One of the priviliges of a perfect winter day in the Verdon - Freezing in the shade, incredible in the sun - and not a soul to be seen for miles. A beautiful end to a pretty special year.

From a climbing perspective its been really satisfying to finish off and send my Ceuse project from last year the 8a+ 'Femme Blanche', and here in the Verdon to re-discover 'El Topo'(8a) a 14 pitch mini big wall that I tried 5 years ago but never completed with a ground up ascent.  It could be this year's objective in the Verdon.

However, enough of me, 2013 is a year that firmly belongs to my wife Kate. A self confessed perpetual student, she this year
realized a long held dream of completing her thesis after 5 years of academic research and was awarded a Phd from the university
of Reading in England. It has been a long and often turbulent process that I've seen from a close perspective and which has
often parallelled the mixture of passion, excitement, obsession, frustration, despair and sheer personal isolation associated
with a difficult climbing or mountaineering objective. No matter how strong or talented in one's peer group, it is a process
that exposes all one's weaknesses, physically and mentally. As in climbing it was often neccessary to walk away from time to time from the objective (the Thesis) in order for the mind and body to adapt enough to move forward.
This identity forming (and life changing) process has tested her focus and endurance to the limit but as they say,

'Challenges create Strengths'.

Here with Kate on 'Massacre a la Tronconneuse', a 3 pitch 6b gem in a quiet corner of the Gorge high above the river and very exposed!

End of year greetings and best wishes for 2014.