Maybe Tomorrow

Following some solo days, it was pretty bloody marvellous to be joined by the splendid Carl for climbing on the Isle of Skye.  Carl has a brain the size of a planet, is well over 6 foot of blonde intellect with his own van and an encyclopedic knowledge of climbing, climbs and climbers.  I'm fortunate to have a climbing partner like him in my life.  He has a near obsessive passion over weather forecasting and comes complete with a sparcely equipped Toyota van.  Nothing like the plus luxury of Shazza.  A huge advantage of climbing with Carl is that the two of us giggle like school children with regularity.

So he arrived on the Saturday with plans.  Big plans.  Because, hey, he'd come a long way for this "weather window" and had also got brand spanking new ropes following the Alison and Pembroke sea cliffs incidents earlier this year.  So before I knew it, we were walzing off towards Crioch crags for a spot of mountain type routes.  And oh my, they were high and fearsome.  Knee tremblingly huge immense, a scale like nothing I'd contemplated climbing before.  Walking, yes, or looking at from a distance in admiration, also, all over that.  But climbing them.  Flippin' 'eck.  But yes, we attempted a multipitch ascent.  Then we got lost.  A little unfortunate to be sure but by no means marred the day because we were then presented with a team challenge of retreat down unknown paths which was a silly experience we both did together.  I actually love the dual reliance on each other, and with Carl, frankly it's a pleasure.  We work well as a team.

Monday was mostly a wash out so we did the climbers version of tourism.  First we visited our intial planned goal for the day of sea cliffs but then we toured Old Man of Storr, Rhuada beach cliffs and finally ended up at Neist point for an overnighter with a cragging day in mind for the Tuesday.  And all was mighty fine, and as ever we slept with beautiful views, rivers, fountains and general fresh air stuff all around.  And Carl having forgotten to bring his own trowel, oh yes, we bonded, knew more about each other than folk really ought to know.

Tuesday was Neist Point crags.  Mmm, cragging.  Quite a lovely thing to do with all the time in the world, sea breezes and importantly no other folk.  Imagine that, crags with climbs at all grades and nobody else in sight other than the occasional walking type tourist pointing out that my red top made me visible climbing for some distance.  And it was a good workout, and there were many laughs, there was the type of concentration where Carl was looking down on me going through a particularly tricky sequence of moves being quite impressed that at this somewhat tense time I was still carrying out conversation ... that is until I told him to shut up.  Which was fine because when I'd completed the horrid horrid moves he was giggling at me.  Lots of laughter, that's what climbing should be all about.  To hell with those serious tick listers, I like to laugh.

And today's tunes in my head are: