The word 'adventure' has just gotten overused. For me, adventure is when everything goes wrong. That's when the adventure starts.
Yvon Chouinard
We climbed Tollie Groove today, I don’t think you’ll know it. I’m not saying that in an arsey way like “you haven’t had quinoa?” (its a tropical disease), It’s just a weird wee route that has two stars awarded to it for some reason, on the North West buttress of Sgurr Dearg in the Cuillin mountains. We had a bit of an epic climbing it, largely due to route choice, in more ways than one. It was a lovely day and we spent several hours of it shivering on the wrong side of the mountain on albeit very roomy ledges enjoying views over a sun drenched Skye, wishing we were not existing in shadow. Once we emerged onto the beautiful sunny west ridge of Sgurr Dearg, escaped the confines of my climbing shoes and sun bathed some warmth into my toes. I felt happy. It had been a bit of an adventure. That horrifying hand traverse - the reason that i was now gently bleeding all over Andrew’s rope; the fridge sized block teetering on a precarious ledge that we had anchored ourselves to (and when I say fridge I mean one of those posh ones that makes ice) were now just a distant memory which like my feet I was in the process of massaging into a warm glow. It got me thinking about Pete MacPherson, a talented Scottish winter climber who stayed with us for a bit in our house. I’d often wake up to hear him banging his head on our celling doing pull ups. One morning I was leaving early to go climb a route on the Bealach na ba - Chioch Nose on A Chioch, a super classic multi pitch route which takes an easy yet impressive and exposed line up a huge sandstone arete. Pete was reminiscing about climbing it with a chap called Donnie, who had made him tackle it in leather boots, rather than in climbing shoes, a pair of which had most definitely been in my bag. He left me with some nice advice that morning which I try not to forget, “when you’re doing these routes” he said “ you have to do them with the mindset of the pioneer” because it’s when you’re thinking, will this go? where do I go? can I go up or will I have to retreat of try another tactic? that stuff gets interesting. And that is the thing, the sense of forging into the unknown, the unpredictable outcome. That’s when the adventure starts.