Well Hi folks and welcome to my new problog page. I’m pretty humbled to be joining the list of bloggers I’ve read here and been inspired by for the last year or so. With this blog I’m hoping I can share my psyche, ideas and motivation with anyone who likes to follow what is going on in climbing. I think I can bring a bit of a different perspective on all of these things, both because of where I come from and my background in climbing. 

But before we get into that, I’ll tell you some more about that background. I live in the Highlands of Scotland with my wife Claire. When we bought our wee house there, folk looked at it and said ‘is that it?’ That helped me realise why I liked it so much. I must admit that I quite like as modest an existence as possible except when it comes to the places I spend time and the amount of time I have free to enjoy them. I wasn’t buying a house to spend my life in, I was buying access to a life that afforded endless opportunities to see and experience great things and be creative in my life’s work. 

The cost of that is tiny; material wealth. 

It was kind of funny though. The day after we moved to the foot of Ben Nevis, it rained every day for six weeks. And after one day of dry, it rained for another six. Doh! Scotland is a fickle place, for sure. But that taught me another valuable lesson – to turn your circumstances to your advantage. 

One of big things I was looking forward to in moving into the mountains was trying the Echo Wall arête on Ben Nevis. I did the moves in 2005 and thought it was 8c+ or so, but its 3.5 hours walk up Ben Nevis, has a short season to attempt and falling from the second crux is not an option… at all…