Archive: March 2018

Since becoming the first blind person to climb The Old Man of Hoy in 2013, I have not been idle – and have continued to climb at every opportunity.

At home in London, I’ve had the pleasure and support of training at The Castle – the best indoor climbing centre I have ever used. And, recently I’ve been lucky enough to work with the amazing Louis Parkinson of Catalyst Climbing.  Under his guidance I have gone up a grade in a matter of weeks!

Outdoors I’ve bagged The Old Man of Stoer and various other, mostly coastal, climbs in Dorset, East and West Scotland and Sardinia. But one climb has eluded me…

Am Buachaille is one of Scotland’s ‘Big Three’ sea stacks. In fact no less a mountaineer than Hamish MacInnes describes it as ‘the most serious of the big three’’.

It’s a glorious spearhead of Torridan sandstone rising 65 metres (213 feet) vertically out of The Atlantic at the Southern tip of Sandwood Bay, in the far North-West of Scotland.

The first ascent of Am Buachaille was made in 1968 by one of my great heroes, Tom Patey, with John Cleare and Ian Clough.  Patey was something of a sea stack specialist, putting up first ascents of most of the Scottish ones worth climbing, including the others in ‘the big three’ – The Old Man of Stoer and the big brother of them all, The Old Man of Hoy.  He died in May 1970, abseiling off The Maiden, in Sutherland Bay.

The original route is graded HVS, with a 5b crux, and gets a 1-star rating. UKC also lists another four routes, ranging from a 3-star VS 4C to an E2 5b.

But the grade is not the major challenge of this project…at least not for me.  Just getting there involves a ten-mile yomp over land dotted with bogs and lochans.  Next there’s a 200-foot descent down the cliff to the toe of the headland, then ‘a short swim’ (according to UKC) of up to 30 metres depending on how low low tide is.  After that my climbing partner Matthew and I will have about 90-minutes to complete the climb and get back to shore before the tide cuts us off.  At high tide neither the swim nor a Tyrolean is an option.  And much as I like Matthew I don’t particularly fancy spending the night with him, bivvying above The Atlantic!

At this point non-climbers often ask why I want to make my life so difficult; couldn’t I find something less ‘out there’ to do?  If they think I’m mad they must regard Matthew as certifiable for encouraging and accompanying me. So why do we do it?

Well, in the case of Am Buachaille I must admit there is an element of unfinished business. Having climbeded Hoy and Stoer I want to complete the set.

However my, and Matthew’s, desire to undertake this project runs deeper than that.  It’s far more about challenging peoples’ perceptions of blindness.  If my return to climbing has taught me anything, it is to focus on what I can achieve rather than seeing only what I have lost.

Sight loss need be no barrier to adventure. But I’m not blind to the additional challenges it presents, which is why we are proposing to tackle Am Buachaille in a unique and novel way: making it an extreme blind triathlon.

Since I find the walk-in one of the most exhausting and hazardous parts of any climb (even when it’s not boggy) we plan to cover the 10 miles to the headland on a mountain bike tandem.

I’ve got one from when I and two friends rode the 100-mile length (and 10,000-feet of hill climbs) of The South Downs Way.  Practically the whole route was off-road and on the downhill stretches we reached speeds of up to 50mph.  It took two days, with my companions taking turns piloting the tandem or riding ahead to open gates and warn on-coming ramblers!

Matthew will pilot it to the cliff edge, then guide me down to and across the channel to the base of Am Buachaille.  We are both year-round wild swimmers (no wetsuits!) and take part in events like The Big Chill Swim in Lake Windermere, in February!

With the mountain biking and the swim done, we’ll merely need to complete the climb…against the clock.

That’s the plan, but so far the logistics have held us back.  Just getting our kit up there from London is a nightmare; you can’t transport a tandem on a train and there’s no airport nearby.  We couldn’t justify the time or money necessary to give us a decent chance of success.  But then my boss at RNIB Connect Radio sent me a link to The Holman Prize.

Launched in 2017 by the San Francisco LightHouse For The Blind to ‘support the emerging adventurousness and can-do spirit of blind and low vision people worldwide…the Prize provides financial backing for three individuals to explore the world and push their limits…to savor the richness of a world that is so often thought of as inaccessible to the blind.’

The Prize begins with a challenge: blind applicants must submit a first-round pitch in the form of a 90-second YouTube video. So here it is… I hope you enjoy it!

If you do like it, then please ‘like’ it on YouTube.  The video with the most YouTube ‘likes’ automatically goes through to the next round, in which semi-finalists submit a detailed written proposal.  So, feel free to forward it to your friends and family too! It could change how people see blindness.

I could not hope to climb to the level I do without the training facilities and support provided by The Castle Climbing Centre. For the latest on how my training is going and some great climbing-related articles, check out their blog.

An Arctic wind rakes my face with sleet and threatens to perforate my Parka. It’s so dark that I scuttled back into the house to check it really was 8 a.m.

Unfortunately it was, so now I’m picking my way along pavements strewn with the stripped corpses of outcast Christmas trees; their erstwhile owners displaying a thoughtlessness that only confirms that the season of goodwill to all men is over.

Even the robins are silent.

Tom ambles down Flask Walk to meet me.  He’s perpetually three minutes late as if in sympathy with the buses he campaigns about. By now the last vestiges of my warm bed have deserted me and I’m beginning to question my sanity.

We set off down Well Walk and I can sense Tom is limbering up to give me an update on TfL’s failings on bus safety.  Beneath my woolly hat my woolly brain is still struggling with pavement safety, and last night’s last pint.

Hampstead’s renaissance as a venue for great live music has significantly moistened my plans for a dry January.  Not only has my local boozer been transformed into The Hampstead Lounge & Jazz Club – acquiring a level of sophistication that makes it a magnet for visiting friends and parent get-togethers; but my favourite covers band of all time, Hampstead’s very own Mad Dog Bites, continues to have a Friday night residency at The King Willy. Attendance is practically compulsory for all decent Hampstonians.

The wind feels like it’s trying to push us back along Lime Avenue and there’s melt-water trickling down my neck.  My head has begun to drum out the rhythm of Mad Dog’s closing number last night: Half The World Away: ‘I should like to leave this city / this old town don’t smell too pretty…’   Bloody miserable January!

Something I half-hear Tom say about bus bosses sweeping incident reports under the carpet chimes in my sore head.  It’s over a year since my daughter spent a few hours at The Royal Free after the 46 she was on swerved violently, the driver distracted by his controller repeatedly radioing him. We’ve heard nothing since, except for emails from ambulance chasers.  Tom’s got a point…

But before I can be drawn into bus-talk a raucous cacophony of screeches erupts from the treeline.  The parakeets are in a flap about something.  I wince at the noise. Tom stops mid-sentence.

They always remind me of a gaggle of leery geezer-birds in a Mayfair pub during Euro ’96, screeching over who had the nicest eyes – David Beckham or Teddy Sherringham – and oblivious that they were standing in front of the big screen.

I wonder that the parakeets don’t bugger off somewhere warmer for winter, which puts Tom on diversion.  He tells me that when he first arrived in Hampstead he made the same mistake.

One winter morning he’d come back from a walk and told his young sons he’d seen wild parrots on The Heath.  They didn’t believe him, so next day he’d taken a photo to prove it. Then spotting a pair of gents emerging from the bushes clutching binoculars, and hoping they were birders rather than doggers, he’d shown them his photo and asked for an explanation.

This being Hampstead one of the men turned out to be renowned ornithologist Bill Oddie.  He informed Tom that the noisy green birds were in fact ring-necked parakeets which, as natives of The Himalayas, find English winters quite balmy.

He went on to tell Tom the two tales of how this invasive species came to colonize The Heath.  The first is that they escaped from Shepperton Studios during the filming of John Hustons’ 1951 film The African Queen.

The other is that they are descended from a pair that Jimi Hendrix set free as a gesture of peace and love to his adopted city.  Their electric-green plumage and rose-coloured neck ruff certainly match his groovy colour scheme and this urban myth might explain their fondness for high-volume feedback.

Squawks give way to quacks, telling me that Tom and I have reached the Men’s Pond.  We strip down to our trunks.  The concrete floor in the changing area is so cold it threatens to flay the flesh from our feet.  As we trot down the jetty, the bitter wind blasts our skin with shards of rain; Or maybe it’s trying to snow.

The board says the water temperature is 5 degrees C, so it will be warmer in than out.  Others may prefer to lower themselves gently into the chill but I like to meet it head-on.  For me a swan-dive off the board is the only way to go.

It’s the open water equivalent to an espresso martini – a turbo charged wake-up call to put your worries to one side and enjoy living in the moment.  Afterwards conversation is of what we’re going to do, rather than what life is doing to us.

As Tom and I stroll back, I feel equal to the world again. Balance has been restored and this town don’t smell so bad after all.  It’s home not just to Christmas tree tossers but to plenty of others who do look out for the safety and well-being of those around them – some even acting as my guide-bus to the Pond.

And loud and gaudy as they are, the parakeets bring a touch of vibrancy to the trees at this time of year; and they make me think of Bogart and Hendrix, which puts a smile on my face.  As does diving off the board into living water.

Maybe I should request that Conrad and the other Mad Dogs play out with Reasons to be Cheerful next Friday night…