It's not lonely on your own. It's just weird ...

So pretty much the first question people have been asking me after I've described my last trip has been:

"You were on your own?!" 

Yes it was a solo trip, but did I head out the with a death wish? Did I think it was going to be dangerous, scary or hard? To be be perfectly honest the answer to all these questions was emphatically no - I went out fitter than I've ever been, more competent than I've ever been and more prepared than I've ever been.

The problem was I was naive; the level of fitness required, the technical difficulty of the climbing (whilst not 'hard' it was outside of my comfort range to solo, particularly the down climbing elements) and I went out there with a very clear mental image of what to expect and when all of a sudden it wasn't what I had pictured, I had to react quickly to accept the reality alone, which isn't something I've had to do under pressure, much before.

All in all, it's the psychological milestones that have meant the most to me; finding I could manage the mindset change and that I had the ability to relax and adapt rather than panic and flounder, that I could still focus on task and prioritise when far out of my comfort zone was not just a relief but I genuinely felt impressed (and a little surprised) by myself.

Now enough of that Business School style jargon, here's another psychological experience I found curious whilst I was away, it's not going to be well worded, in fact I apologise in advance because the language is going to be coarse, but I have to tell it how it is ...

So, on one of the early abseils the rope shifted whilst I was descending, since the rope was resting behind a protrusion rather than a good horn of rock, this was alarming and could easily have been disastrous and for a fraction of a second I panicked and thought I was going to fall.

At this point my bowels loosened and I calmly accepted the fact that, yes, I had shat myself.

Given the severity of the situation, however, I didn't linger on this thought and continued my descent down the rope, hit terra firma, coiled my rope and got moving again. I think this day ended up about 14 hours long and I finally decided to settle in a snow slope, I dug out a trench (grave) to lay my sleeping bag in - so I wouldn't roll down the bank - and prepped water and food.

At this point I was quite accepting of the fact that I was very much the only person on the 'hills', as Omar my muleteer had said as he left me, "No-one ever comes up here". As such personal hygiene, self-consciousness and the like had crept down to a level very close to zero - I had a couple of wet wipes but I didn't see the point of wiping off the blood, sweat and dust; there was only going to be more the next day. However I did remember the abseil incident and here is when I realised quite how crazy, how Lord of the Flies, I had gotten ...

Standing there in the middle of the snowy cwm, I took my boots off, pulled my trousers down and then proceeded to take my boxer shorts off. Stark bollock naked I then proceeded - and I have no idea why - to hold them up high above my head to the sun, to inspect them and with genuine surprise I mused out loud:

"Oh wicked. I didn't shit myself."

With that that I pulled them back on, climbed into my sleeping bag and went to sleep; happy in the knowledge that there was one less complication to deal with.

The whole inspection was so blasé, so matter of fact and so natural at the time; now it seems absolute farce - how did that ever become reasonable behaviour?!

Nobody ever comes up here ...

"I am leaving now. You are all alone, nobody ever comes up here."

And with those words Omar, my muleteer to Tizi Tagharat, departed; leaving me at 3400m on a wide ledge looking down over the long, remote valley that we had just trudged up that day, not passing a single person. I was indeed alone and would be for the next three days.

Hunted at 3600m

So I'm slowly getting around to talking about my Morocco trip in sentences longer than one word - for the first few days, all I could muster when asked about it, was to say, "Awesome."

One of my odder recollections was the second night on route at 3600 metres up, all alone.

In my delirious and more than a little bit mental state, I got thoroughly miffed as I set up camp - that is, scooped out a sleeping bag sized trench in the snow to stop myself rolling back down into the cwm I'd drudged up.

Someone shot me with a BB gun ...

I couldn't believe it, at 3800m someone was hunting me with a pellet gun. I looked around every where for them, even going as far as to start shouting, "Oi, stop it!" ...

Then, eventually, I realised it was hailing.

Back alive, just!

Such an awesome time got above 4000m didn't see a person for 3 days in the mountains, sleeping in the snow.

Will check in with more info soon but first up here's me above Imlil, my home from home!

Morocco and The High Atlas - April 2013

So night before leaving, all packed.

11.30am train booked and as usual far more kit than expected! Nerves still-ish at the moment, we'll see how long that that lasts ... Hopefully at least onto the plane this time!

(Last time on the train out of Reading to Gatwick the stomach butterflies turned into birds of prey and I felt very iffy, I'd love to say it was just travel sickness but no, I was apprehensive!)

Right just charging camera batteries, tidying up and eating ice cream.

EEK!

Best bit of the day?

Saturday Luke and I decided to make the most of the very favourable looking weather forecast for the Brecon Beacons and Pen y Fan horseshoe specifically. The forecast didn't do the day justice it was awesome - ludicrously warm (we both got sunburnt foolishly) but still with a load of snow and stomping down into the shade onto the steeper aspects I was glad to have bought an axe - going down felt iffy, going up felt strenuous!

Stopping for lunch was great watching the people come and go; some young, some old, some naturally outdoorsy, some very much not; all very much enjoying the day.

The best bit though for me was a young boy probably nine or ten with his dad and uncle tentatively preparing to go down the slope of Pen y Fan, his uncle trying to alleviate his worry about slipping, saying they would get to slide, the boy not looking convinced. Being within earshot of them, I thought I would help a little and shouted down:

"Have fun!! This is the best bit to slide down!!!" 

The boy was visibly delighted and looks up, "Is it?!" to which I nodded vigorously with a smile to assure him*. He then dashed down to his uncle and as they began their rapid, glissading descent the uncle turned around and gave me a massive grin himself and a big thumbs up to say thanks for giving him the motivation - with that off they raced down the hill! 

Whilst I could never be a teacher, getting kids to remember dull stuff that they don't want to learn; I do hope one day to be an instructor and getting kids doing things that they don't initially realise they want to do - playing outdoors is essential for everyone, young and old I reckon :-)

* Fact of the matter is, I've never been up or down that slope, but well it looked like a superb sliding slope ;-)

It's fun in the snow but just as much fun away!

So I'm taking liberties with chronology here to avoid a relentless spew of Ice Climbing posts, but there's another one coming!

Tuesday last week however, saw me catching up with my dad and nan. They were coming back to Wotton to drop nan home and since it's not too far away, I arranged to meet up with them, have lunch and then join my dad on one his Geocaching adventures ...

So Geocaching, I'm not sure about in it's day-to-day state - follow GPS co-ordinates to tubs and sign your name, good excuse to get out for a walk somewhere new and all that, but I don't really need an excuse for that. However, sometimes they get exciting! In the past, I've helped them abseil down Kentish chalk cliffs and the odd tree climb, these are far more fun; this time however exceeded all expectations my own and dad's. This time we were to go underground!



But first we had to get in and the co-ordinates didn't lead to the most obvious of entries ... In fact, Keith later said if I hadn't have been there, he may well have written this entrance off!



Once in it soon got a lot wider and and comfortably higher, the tunnels were water tunnels made way back and you could still see the pickaxe marks in the ceiling - all in all a very strange and timeless place to wander and despite the thigh deep water throughout it was al surprisingly warm, in fact probably warmer than outside in the windchilling breeze.



So back to the mission at hand and after carefully following the directions we arrived ... at a dead end. It seemed after all that the cache was missing! Well all wasn't quite as it seemed as all of a sudden it revealed itself, guarded by a small, plastic Japanese figure; Keith got to work and DrDnMe (and son) got added to the roster of Geocachers who had braved the depths!



Probably one of the best days I've spent with dad in a long time - okay so more to the point, one of not enough days spent with dad in a long time.

Here's to him retiring next year and us getting out more!