The Bat

Brian Hall, my friend, climbing and business partner in SteepEdge writing about his first film experience recreating the first ascent of The Bat on Ben Nevis. I climbed this famous route on a snatched weekend raid North of the border with an older climbing friend and fell runner from Sheffield, Chas Hird. The weather was perfect and each pitch was demanding enough to feel like the challenge we hoped it would be. Finishing the top pitch in the gloom and rather than face the few hundred feet of Severe climbing to the summit of Carn Dearg, we opted to abseil down Titans Wall. On the second stance, I droppped my belay device and had to do a traditional waist abseil for the first time since I was in Scouts.

Terrifying… Great Memories.

Red in tooth and claw

I had to look twice and then once again before I understood that this wasn’t a broken branch of the tree.

The Guard

Wednesday

“Remember that thou art dust, and to dust though shalt return”

Transom

Listening to David Grubbs’ beautiful album, Rickets and Scurvey on the train. When I was a teenager, my mate Chris brought an album called Skag Heaven by an obscure, independent hardcore band from Kentucky called Squirrel Bait from a (back then) exotic holiday in the USA back to Bramhall, Stockport that we listened to over and over. I still own the cassette that I taped off his bedroom stereo, bought the CD years later and still regularly play it when I need a shot of energy and enthusiasm that only music from that era can provide.

They released a couple of musically interesting and melodic post-punk albums before fragmenting and going on to form, join or directly influence Bastro, Gastr del Sol, Red Krayola, Slint, the Lemonheads, Tortoise, Papa M, King Kong, The Sea and Cake, Will Oldham’s Palace Music and Jim O’Rourke’s solo outings.

David Grubbs went onto record several beautifully crafted solo albums; The Spectrum Between; Rickets and Scurvy and A Guess at the Riddle. Go buy ‘em, or listen online they’re fabulous.

Soundtrack to a train journey North

It’s so cold outside. The canal running alongside the track through Staffordshire is frozen solid. I always worry about dogs when I see iced stretches of water. Listening to Richard Hawley, Bon Iver, Brian Eno, feeling melancholy and stupid.

Friday or is it Tuesday, or Sunday?

It feels much later in the day than the hour that the short hand of the clock is pointing toward. I just need food, wine and a good sleep after hearing someone say that when you fly, it takes a while for your soul to catch up. Mumbo jumbo of course, but perhaps I got on that train down south or drove to Wales too quickly after landing and mine is wandering aimlessly on the hard shoulder of the M56 somewhere near Warrington, clutching a half eaten sandwich and a cold cup of coffee…

King of the City

Just finished reading Michael Moorcock’s ‘King of the City’ and this view from my hotel room at dusk yesterday captured it all.

Stud marks

In the early nineties, sometime after I’d taken up running on the roads to kick the smoking habit acquired as a teenager, I began to venture out further into the parks and valleys that circled the city of Sheffield. Following the trails up and out onto the edges of the moors that stretched toward my family home in Manchester.

On occasion I’d be passed by a wiry runner, often stripped down to vest and shorts in all but the worst of weather. They never wore trainers, instead, thin running shoes, the soles covered in truncated pyramids, tiny ziggurats, to afford a better grip whilst flying up and down the peat covered hillsides. These Fell runners were clearly a breed apart from the joggers and the keen road runners of the City. Out climbing on the gritstone edges I’d see imprints of these shoes in the tracks and peat trails leading up to and along the top of the crags. Stud marks on the summits.

In time, I acquired my own pair and took to running the tops when the weather was poor, the crags out of condition or to clear the cobwebs after a Saturday night. After stumbling across an organised fell race, a hundred or more runners snaking out of the Burbage valley I made enquiries and ended up joining the local club, Dark Peak Fell Runners and heading out on the moors on a Wednesday night wearing a headtorch and bumbag under the tutelage of two experienced and authentically bearded runners, Andy and Chas.

They lent me a book once. It was actually a photocopy, the original being out of print for many years and available only to the wealthy or enthusiastic collector. This samizdat edition, stapled in one corner, had passed through many hands.

“Stud marks on the summits” A history of Amateur Fell Racing by Bill Smith was the first authentic account of this most esoteric of British sports. I’ve always wondered whether the title came to him a flash of inspiration or took years of distillation to filter out the words. A mini haiku that means much more than the sum of its parts.

Last week, in a remote part of the Trough of Bowland, rescuers from the Pennine MR paused for a moments silence to pay their respects to the man who’s body they had just recovered from a peat bog. Bill Smith, aged 75 had fallen into treacherous ground and been unable to escape whilst out on a run across Saddle Fell. When he failed to turn up as a marshall at a local fell race the alarm was raised and several weeks later a walker found his body.

RIP Bill Smith.

Underneath the Arches

Arch#1 New Mills Viaduct – Sheltered from the driving rain, trying to remember how to climb by crabbing back and forth along the chalky traverse. It’s damp and a little unnerving with big drips threatening to knock out my contact lenses when leaning back, straight armed to shake out the pump from my out-of-condition forearms. Enthusiasm and the psyche is low for rock climbing. The weather is awful and the grim outdoor gyms of Raven Tor and The Cornice the only venues available. I’m not in the mood for dangling around trying moves on other peoples warmups.

Arch#2 MOSI, Manchester. Bjork. The stage is surrounded with Heath Robinson-esque musical contraptions. Bouncing along to a bassline generated by a Tesla coil; strange oriental strings on ginourmous pendulums; a beautiful Icelandic girls choir. Bjork the entertainer in a huge red Afro wig. Tremendous.

Arch#3 the San Siro Italy, uncomfortably watching Robbie Williams having a what appears to be a bi-polar breakdown in front of 75000 people.

Listening to: EMA, Off!, James Blake, Tek 9, Gatto Fritto.
Reading: Hitch22, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (in Cheshire/Scouse by S Armitage), Phil Baker’s Bio of AOS, Dan John.