Well I made it back from Rhyl (notice the correct spelling) after an evening in the company of Andy Cave, author and uber extreme alpine suffer and ex-miner. Now if you haven’t read Andy Cave’s first book Learning to Breathe this slide show was an overview of that book. Having seen Andy talk at LLAMFF earlier in the year I was not looking forward to the talk, as I was worried I was going to see a repeat performance, however in that talk he concentrated on his more recent adventures in alpine rock rather than Himalayan Super Alpinism.
Now I have never got around to reading his first autobiography, instead I had heard a few tales from his climbing partners, a few from the mouth of the man himself at various parties, and of course the climbing media. So it was good to have some more of these tales of growing up in a mining village near Barnsley. As well as his journey from the pit to the peak of mountaineering.
I personally find Andy one of the true greats of British mountaineering, a true believer in real adventure, he tackles sort of routes that whilst a few people may be physically equipped to undertake the challenge, there are perhaps only a handful that can combine that with the mental game of just what Andy has gotten up to.
Andy Cave’s style is something of the wild understatement, a polar opposite to the likes of Andy Kirkpatrick, who can make cutting your toe nails into a tale of epic yet comic distraction. Andy’s Northern charm seems to make the stories a simple happening. I did feel that for a non-climbing audience some of this would go over your heads. “Imagine descending a 900ft mining shaft” or “Imagine yourself high on this mountain”, now i have been underground and high on the side of a mountain, but not nearly as out there as he and his friends have been, so trying to imagine it felt impossible to me!
For me the highlight was the Changabang story, I knew the tale from back when it happened, the death of Brendan Murphy, but had never heard the story from one of its tragic witnesses. Set as it was in this slideshow at the end of a long and adventurous life that had lead to this one point in time in one of the most committing places on Earth. No rescue, no help, alone and a long way to get back to base camp and safety.
This route is world class in terms of difficultly, 12 days out, only having taken 8 days of food, tired, exhausted, already people injured in your party, and only just descending to make a circumnavigation of the mountain, which is the only way to get back to base camp. To put it in perspective they had climbed one of the hardest alpine North Face routes in the world, had to then descend a the south face of the mountain from a col, traverse that face, and then ascend 6000ft to a col on the other side of the face, before descending to base camp. On the descent Brendan was washed over a ice cliff by a huge avalanche, and Andy had been only a few metres away out of the firing line of the flow. It was Touching the Void without the happy ending. Andy deals with it in a very matter or fact way, in fact too matter of fact from time to time, I was waiting for him to get excited or emotional about what he was doing, but he seemed to hide it well, or has probably form a way of mentally protecting himself as he has given this talk many times before.
Basically it was a very enjoyable evening out, nice pictures, great stories, however would I pay £13 to see him again? Probably not to be honest, because I have already seen him(twice), and if it meant going to Rhyl again, I would rather not! However is it worth £13, absolutely if you’d like to hear this man’s very unique and moving story.
Maybe I am hiding my excitement a little or being too matter of fact about it. You should definitely buy his book if you haven’t or aren’t going to see him live, but remember to read between the lines, he is far more hardcore than he makes out. Thanks Andy for a great evening out.
There are only a few dates left of Andy Cave’s Learning to breathe tour details here