I went out on Sunday (having cunningly done Mothers Day for my wife on Saturday…got out of a visit to her mum on Sunday morning and went over to see my mum later on in the day. Reeeee-sult!!! (Well it would be rude to miss an invitation to climb wouldn’t it?!!).It was an interesting day. We went to an area I hadn’t climbed off Swanage which involved an abseil down (which was great fun!). But to get to the majority of the routes involved “bad steps”…which I wouldn’t normally fuss over but after decking out because of wet shoes the other week I was a bit nervy because the traverses over the gaps were across wet rock!! One in particular involved a wee bit of down climbing and then a big stretch with the foot across a 25′ drop down to the crashing sea!! I hold my hand up…I roped up to go across. Then, just to fully rub it in - the climb we’d chosen to start the day was Double Chockstone - which was a nice greasy chimney in the lower section!!! It was good though. Nothing like meeting the fear head on!! I don’t think I’ve lead a climb where I’ve put so much gear in.Getting out of the chimney involved lifting up and over a big chockstone which was the crux of the route. One of the guys who I was out with and climbing on an adjacent route looked across as he was belaying and said to me afterwards that he couldn’t believe how quickly I’d gone up this bit!!! Apparently most people spend ages trying to place a piece of protection before going over the crux…but I just went for it like a bat out of hell right to the top. Well…no wonder…it was lovely and dry…and fab fun. It was the wet bit lower down I didn’t like because of my fall a couple of weeks ago. Which just goes to prove…this climbing thing…sure it’s about technique and strength - but a good 80% of it is the head game!!!After belaying my rope man up I had a spot of lunch and then seconded a VS5a with the guy I mentioned above. The is the hardest climb i’ve done so far and I think I aquitted myself well (albeit with a bit of a struggle over the crux). It was good going up as a second again to remind myself how someone experienced places gear. The climb was called Spreadeagle and it is because at the crux you are quite literally spreadeaged before lifting your feet into a a narrow sloping groove which lift you just high enough to reach another handhold yo lift you up and over. A good climb!! 

Fun is a close companion of fear. It is surprising how sometimes, in one movement of hands and feet, the fear transfigures into the exhilaration of topping out.

It is as if your spirit passes between two different worlds. Within one there is simply the pure absorption of each square metre of rock, metre by metre up the face of the crag or mountain. Within the second, the spirit suddenly flies free as you make yourself safe at the top of the crag and take in the wide panorama of the landscape beneath and around you. That’s when the exhilaration floods your being.

Then your climbing partner arrives over the lip and in their grin you know that they have passed through the same worlds as you. So that, after the exhilaration has ebbed, there is the return to the mundane - the craic with your partner, a cigarette rolled and enjoyed, the dismantling of the belay, coiling of the rope, the descent and the

“God that was fun, which one shall we climb next”.

That’s when you know - facing the fear is part of the fun.