Life in the Vertical » risk-taking

Old Man of Hoy: Come join me

Mark Reeves — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:38:21 +0000

A couple of years ago I set out from Llanberis and made a pilgrimage that was for me one of the best short trips of my life. Having quested half way round the world in search of classic rock climbing, I have ticked some of the worlds best rock climbs. The Old Man of Hoy is one of the few routes that has managed to remain in my favourite routes of all time.

The first time I climbed it was quite by accident, as I was working one day with a paddler, and we both had 4 days off. A mission to drive up and climb it was hatch over a cup of tea, and tat 7pm we headed off north. By 9pm the next day we were stood on the top of the Old Man of Hoy. We were extremely lucky with the weather, and on our way back ticked off the Old Man of Stoer. Above is a video of the trip.

I have just recieved a text from a friend who is keen to head up there this summer, we have set the dates, and a small team of my best friends, those people you see in my photos, are heading up. I have checked with them and they are happy to have a couple of people along on the trip to enjoy this summit of a lifetime. The dates are 8th to 12th June, if you are interested the route climbs up a 200m high sandstone sea stack, the crux is an traverse into an E1 off-width crack, as such you need to be very happy on that grade and I will want to know the routes you have lead/seconded recently as a form of vetting. I am sorry but this is a route of a serious nature.

The cost will be £600 per person, and several of these days may well be sat around waiting for the weather. We can arrange to pick you up anywhere between North Wales and The North-East tip of Scotland. Accomodation will be in either the bunkhouse, tent or Bothy (The tent might be useful if we climb the route quickly and need to head south rock climbing through Scotland!), and you will enjoy my great homecooking.

This is a climbing trip where you will be guided up routes rather than an instructional or coaching course.

Why we climb: Research Study

Mark Reeves — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:22:29 +0000

I was looking on the interweb and saw that Matt BArlow from University of Wales, Bangor is continuing his research into the motivations of participation in sport. Matt’s studies have a bias to ‘high-risk’ sports. He needs participants for his study which is an online questionaire. There is a great deal of research into why people climb, much of coming from his supervisor Tim Woodman, I gave an overview a long time back.

If you’d like to participate in his research then the link is here, and he will donate £1 to charity for everyone who completes the survey, one of the the charities you can choose is the Mountain Rescsue Council for England and Wales, so not only do you help him but Mountain Rescue as well.

Why are climber so miserable?

Mark Reeves — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:26:00 +0000

A growing body of evidence is pointing to climbers and any participants who engage in high risk sports to be statistically likely to have a greater level of depression or anxiety than those who don’t engage in risk based sports. So its official climbers are more miserable than your average joe bloggs.

One of the theory’s is that people who engage in risk taking sports do so to divert there own attention away from their anxiety and depression. In what has been describe a emotional self-regulation. So when you haven’t been climbing or risking life and limb in some other way for a while, you might find yourself getting more and more miserable.

For an overview of why people engage in risk taking activities try this article.