I'm a woman

I'm a woman
Photos copyright Laurence Gouault
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Tuesday 8 January 2013

Classic climbs, fine times. By Stevie Haston.





30 years ago I did the first ascent of a route called Comes the Dervish, and within a short while it became one of the great climbs of North Wales. I f you think I am boasting, I suppose you could be right, but I have been lucky and been a dedicated climber. The other day I was watching Jeff and Laurence trying Negresse Verte and new it was another gem. 

Laurence doesn’t do much nowadays because of her yoga work, but there she was tearing her self to bits trying to fight a bursting pump. Likewise Jeff, slowly crushing, until the pump crushed him like a walnut. Negresse Verte is a great route, it's mine, but it is yours, it's great.

Last night I had some bad news, I lost an article for a mag and therefore I will be poor the next month, but I’ll think about Negresse Verte while I eat cheap crackers and feel warm inside.
There are so many great routes in the world and you have to smile when you remember them, they are in weird corners of the world like Riglos Spain, Colorado, and now a few in Gozo.


I was looking at some stone inlay work yesterday and marveling at the richness of the work, it was in a beautiful church. After a while it just faded, because I recalled all the fossils and weird colours on the new start to King of Kings, its just something only Dali could have come up with, but without the spark and span of a climber it lays hidden under the human world, in the Under world. Some climbs are just stupendous, some are simply divine, some stun you, I seem to have been walking around stunned for around forty years, no wonder no one understands me, but I have to say it, if you haven’t done Fiesta del Biceps, you are not rich, your life is poor, and bro you ain’t as rich as me!