Too much information, by Stevie confused Haston.

Apparently you can only process 120 bites of info a second-well! Is that a lot I wondered as I flicked to the vid of an indonesian family and their bought on higher purchase rickshaw being eaten by a record breaking vegan snake! Seriously there's just too much info, the other day when Ondra climbed the first 9c there were other things put up for our delectation, some scantily clad of no import type of titilition  stuff, shit 9c was enough!
I cannot keep up any more, and don't know if I even want too, 9c and Freerider soloed are enough for me, just tell me what these guys eat, how they train, that's enough for me.
Editors need lots of stuff otherwise they don't have a job, they need their nationalism, they need their page three tits, whether they are boy tits, girl tits, or undecided tits!

 New Bouldering area ,its the bomb! Well its very old-apparently its over a few thousand years old according to a local I talked to, and its also far from being the Bomb!

I guess the Piolet d'Or will be up for nomination soon, neither the 9c, or Freerider will be up for anything, because they don't require an axe! 

 good problems here, its also just very nice.

Apparently there is more than 100,000 words flicking past me in a very short time, as I read that I wondered at the people with small vocabularies! I wasn't being cruel, just wondered. There is a safety device in humans that when too much is going on they loose interest, or start arguing, I had a friend at  school, a dear close family member, who when things got too much would dribble, mathematics did this very quickly-the same feeling hits me when I click on to BritainFirstClimbing@com.

    lie down my son, sit down starts are so passé.

Bouldering is so interesting, and so trivial at the same time, without the writing about it, the photos about it, the mags and internet would be liberated of gigamegazigystar dust bites of space where we could have long worded bigly sentences about snow plodding up unpronounceable mountains in countries which will soon have no snow on them due to global warming, and thus will be eligible for new ascents! 

laughing when you should be crying!

Slipping and sliding to un understanding of climbing as I get old, is 8b hard I wonder? Is 60 years old? 60 years old when I was young was one foot, one lung, and half a liver in the grave. Is there a mag out there that takes me more than 5 mins to read? Ah, the answer to that is yes, a copy of the America mag Ascent was given to me, and is brilliant, it's about 5 cappuccinos long! My happiness was rather subdued when I realised I have already read most of the articles before, still what a fab issue!  The View from Dead Horse Point is one article, I notice the 9c route had Silence as its name, when we can write as well as those before perhaps mags will come back! What do you not think, or did you click on to Twerking in Tumbridge Wells (Bumbridge?) after the first sentence of this blog and a quick perusal of the photos?
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Improving your climbing, by Stevie above average Haston.

If you wake up in the morning, and the first thing you do is download a vid of a giant snake in Indonesia eating an entire family, and the rickshaw they live on-well- I don't think you will have the concentration level to improve your climbing, or your life for that matter.

 This arch is no longer there, so its hard to "cease the day"Carpe diem indeed.

Today I will not look at my liberal mates Face Book pages deriding the Orange Buffoon saying he will flatten another country with his fat ego! No I will not look at the papers owned by rich loonies, instead I will do a bit of Yoga, if you don't like the word Yoga because it's too Fru Fru, substitute Pilates, or stretching,  or Kick boxing, or even Navy Seal Training warm ups, I don't care, just don't start playing Grand theft Auto while eating an american sugar coated poison burger!
Good habits maketh man, or in this case a climber, or a physically prepared person. Try a 20 min run, stretch your legs and lungs!

pick a nice spot and do some exercise.

Why am I training? Because I don't want to be sick, because I don't want to be infirm, because I don't want to be average, or heaven forbid below average. Instead of wasting your time, spend it profitably. At the risk of sounding like the old granddad athlete I am, write something on the Fridge, like I want to be fit, and strong enough to do X. I am writing it on the drinks cabinet!

 Explore your possibilities, the good possibilities, not the nacho covered in chemical cheese possibilities.

New routes, new places, new levels of fitness, or for me regaining some finger strength. Carpe Diem indeed, I was thinking about time, and how it runs out yesterday, I was hovering above a sunken ship at 30 meters depth, and I could hear time ticking. You should listen to time ticking every day, do something for your self, by yourself, run, do pull ups in the park- just stay away from Jerry Springer day Time TV life style living, get your body a life!

Free Climbing is not Free! by Stevie not Free Haston.

You know the term Free Climbing, but have you ever paused to think, is it free? Or how free, freeish perhaps? Free Diving, is not exactly Free unless your a lotus eater living by the sea. Terms of endearment, or willy waving terms to big up the protagonist? Freedom was a big massive word when I was young, its still the biggest word in my vocabulary, but the meaning seems lost to me now.

 3 years ago, stretchy rope, inattentive belayed, work the next day!

Four years ago I pulled out of a big race, my knee collapsed, I had been up in the first twenty places for bits, I had trained for nearly a year and wanted to place fairly high, the injury was certainly free!

 Free?

Free Ride was the upmarket term for what I had always done, which was to ski off piste in the mountains! Suddenly every Nob, and his Dog was doing it! The gear certainly got nicer! It came at a cost of course, the authorities started to shut things, and put barriers up, saying danger and other obvious stuff!

 Chicks for free?

There's lots of songs about Free, strangely they all seem to cost money. Where's my interesting life, where's my interesting wife, wheres my fast car? The sea was full of plastic today, the southern wind kept all the carbage pressed on the southern coast, more plastic than fish.

 Free Lunch, or poison?

I dearly want to go back to Dresden Sandstone, in the old days I would have hitch hiked and dossed down in caves, and it would've cost me nothing but time! Today most places don't allow hitch hiking, or it's kept to a minimum, and you can't stay in caves in Dresden, it's verboten!

 7c, six bolts, about 130 foot, free becomes a relative term.

The above climb is fast receding, I won't have the level soon, old age will forbid it, or the social police will drag me away as being to old to risk my life. A friend posted a photo of an early attempt at Salathe wall just before Todd and Pianna did it, he didn't, he had other things to do, his life was not free. In reality Freedom is way too big a word for humans. It's a term that can only apply to animals, not social and confined humans.  

Big fish, was free, now dead.

Free, not really, already caught it was dying at 18 meters depth! Trapped in line it drowned, I couldnt free it, perhaps I,ll eat it, or feed it to the stray cats. The stray cats are free, they breed, and most die, some live a short while, and breed before they die, some climb the tree they are born under, but they don't have a word for Free climbing, they beg for food as there arnt the free animal resources in the village to sustain them. Am I like one of these stray cats I wondered today? Like them, I have no concept of freedom. I felt free for a few hours climbing over rocks and swimming this morning, but then I do not go back to my cave, I go back to my apartment, and clean my expensive carbon fins, and classify my day into words. Maybe I,ll drink several beers…… and fall off my balcony…shades of ….a friend… who once new freedom… and couldn't cope with the chains of being ordinary.

Gozo is going, by Stevie gone Haston.

Gozo just featured in the German mag Klettern, it is not a bad spread. Words by me, some photos not by me, or by my dearest, poverty does not allow for a good photo machine at the moment! Double shot (admittedly very good) was by some yanks, Americans only contribution recently were a few dangerous, now rusty bolts. To be fair, the Canadian Sonny Trotter, added a few sweet deep water solos a decade ago, but he is Canadian!

 In Charlottesville America they want to tear down some ex slavers statues, meanwhile in the UK we honour one dollop of a human nasty racist with being on the £5 note, mind you it will soon be worth 5 shillings!

Gozo just got some rain, and we saw a few more German climbers, if you want a few more climbs, donate to my fund for more routes, access, and safety. The new guide book to the climbing here might have the deepwater soloing in it, what do you think? I hesitated to have it in, and finally didn't because our deep water stuff here can be very high! Lots of good stuff goes over 15 meters, topping out can be very high!

 Ray Charles visited me recently.

 the route portrayed here on this page is 40 meets and lots of bolts, they should be of Titanium. The route just to the right is easier 6a, not in the present guide book, and 43 meters, even more bolts! Expensive!

Gozo is still very beautiful, routes etc, but now that some of the summer tourists are going its breathing again...

It's raining today, first for months and months, winter is coming, and I need to do at least 20 new routes! 

Saw a Sea Horse the other day, Verner a diving instructor noticed us free diving and very kindly signalled to us, and we went down, and saw it, just mind you, their cammo is amazing, thanks Verner! The world does not go around because of money, it is pushed and heaved around by people doing good things, and showing me Sea Horses.  

The Art of Freedom review by Stevie Haston.

Hello fellow bookworms, have you been doing pull ups for your eyes? Have you read anything lately? Attach safety belts, and recline, read this book. 

 Never judge a book by its cover! Since when in our busy lives did we ever obey that great commandment!

So I have reread this book already, and I reread Bernadette's other necessary book Freedom Climbers, why? Well it's necessary reading, it's compulsory reading in fact, I mean it. With out reference we just float around, begging to be rescued from the morass of the sea! In this clumsy reference, the morass refers to climbing mags, and the blurb that climbers put out about themselves, long past is the time when our ascents spoke for themselves. An example might be an interview of the first Soloist of Freerider, and on the cover is an anonymous blode bimbette-does this seem right to you?   

 Mr Kurtyka who are you sir? Does a himalayist have any relevance in the world of rock climbing-please answer.

Kurtyka and his mates forged some of my own climbing, and not necessarily in the big mountains either.This groups influence was profound and still lingers on. Perhaps today the Visigoths that we all were are now absorbed Roman citizens, and dont care about fighting cold high mountains, but I will soldier on dreaming.
Mountains are big things, they are symbolic barriers, and heavens, and the abodes of the gods, mere mortals must lay at their feet and worship. Well not quite, you can be rich today and be telliported to the summit on oxygen, and other drugs by one of the great rip off, and support nasty regimes incoperated, or you can be a Kurtyka or indeed his oppo, Kukuszka. Your choice.

 this photo is the rebirth of great climbing for me! John Porter, and the great Alex Machintyre and Voyek. from the book this photo by John Porter sums up climbing for me, a few lads joined together in an unknown land, sorting the diet out, secretly wondering if they will live and love again.

A pet hate of mine is nationalism, and climbing writing is full of it, a weird thing as climbers themselves as a group are way above this slimy emotion for the most part. Anyway why do we adore the Polish climbers to this day? Well this book of McDonald goes much of the way in explaining why. They were brave, they were bold, they were visionary, and they were over there in the himalaya doing it, not just talking about it.

bbbbb

Bernadette McDonald has done a great service to us all with this book from the peculiarly secretive Kurtyka, a man who has often hid himself from the lime light, and refused those baubles that lesser climbers crave, and grovel for-medals for mountains!This book is a must read, and it brought chills down my spine as I somehow felt the air thinning, and the chill entering my safe bedroom, as I read of the ascent of Gasherbrun 4, this ascent more than any others seems to prick every climbers bubble of self worth, and it shines above. Why? Well read the book. But your a sports climber you say, we are all sports climbers compared to Kurtyka, and Kukuszka, and Alex,  et al, we are just deluded and in love with our own image. Modern magazines do not differentiate between a blonde bimmbette, and Alex the Soloer of Freerider, so how can they talk of the privations of running out of food,  or loosing your way. As I talk of loosing the way at altitude, you must read the book for the glimpse into the relationship between Kukuszka, and Kurtyka, it's an essential Mephistophelian tale, you can bung Messener in to the mix too, just to add to the flavour. I will perforce explain as you might otherwise loose the thread- the essential selling out of climbing in the collection of Peaks, as Messner and Kukuszka did was alien to Voytek.

I will leave you there with question or statement, selling out, it's the modern way, is it the way?

Art of Freedom by Bernadette McDonald, the ice and times of Voytek Kurtyka, published by Vertebrate press.

   

Continuity in Cornwall by Stevie stuck Haston.

An invitation to voyage came through the Cornwall Climbing Club, so I went and did a lecture for them!
I wanted t see Cornwall again, touch granite, and stare into the Atlantic, and feel 50% of my Viking genes throbbing.

 Kurt Albert, he has gone climbing somewhere else..

The lecture went well, it always does, although subdued by copious quantities of beer, Laurence Gouaults photos spoke for themselves. From Snowboarding high Himalayan Peaks, to small rocks, my little life sparkles, sometimes.   

 Bernd Arnold…. he is still climbing on this sweet planet.

Fly by plane, train to Penzance, car to a cottage by the sea, a girl called Sarah picked me up-she looked vaguely familiar. Sure enough we knew each other through the magic of North Wales…ah North Wales sea cliffs… what could be more fabulous…well Corwall perhaps.

 Gabriel Regan and I, still pulling down.

So I met old "oppos", Chriss Ripple Grifiths, Eggy, and then Gabe! If you don't know who Gabe is you haven't done anything on Grit, Gabe is Grit. He was pure distileds inspiration, bold and gifted, he was the leader of our little tribe centred around dossing in the Woodshed, and on Windy Ledge at Stoney Middleton way back in the Peak district dark ages. 

 Gabe watching his daughter climb on Trean Beach.

Climbing is not just a collection of numbers, although we speak of 9c grade sport climbs, and 8000 meter peaks, climbing is more, it is grit in the soul, it is the Atlantic wind blowing my hair on an early ascent of America on Carn Gowler cliff with big 40 foot waves!

 Trean people…..
notably my old "oppo" Eggy -on the left.

A young man called Voytek had kindly put chalk on all the boulders at the beach with his oppo (name please), their kindness allowed us (40 people) to enjoy this great bouldering area with soft sand lubricated with beer. Community can be a continuous thing, an organic thing, stretching across continents, oceans and peoples! I am fairly proud to be part of the climbing tribe!

 the rain came…so what… it came late.

I didn't want to leave, I'll probably go back, after all a few classic climbs escaped my grasp in the South West of Abdominal Albion. 

Gozo as I arrived home, sparking a bit, fluttering its eye lashes at me..

Well thats it folks. Bye, energy for blogs is being hampered by living. A big up to Ripple, and Eggy, and Gabe, a big up to the small community of climbers in Cornwall, a big up to the sea, and the three dolphins and the seal I saw in the 17° water. A really big Fuck U to Ryan Air  that kept me waiting, and where as usual horrible. I,ll just leave with a short political comment, Bristol did not have the crazy amounts of Pawn Shops when I went through it all those years ago! The UK has Pawn Shops, Food Banks, and CCT cameras, England is not dying as the Water boys once sang, but being sold off.