Time of My Life... "What the ACTUAL fuck..."

A room with a view... A lot of memories

For me, the trip to Glen Coe with the team, held a lot of significance, facing some ghosts from the avalanche, just a private tear for my friend as I walked with John attached behind me up towards the water slab where my friend died under the snow all those years ago.

I thought I would feel really scared climbing up the route that I was avalanched over as it was a profound experience to be thrown down a mountain like that over such steep ground, lose a friend, live, then learn to live with it. But with the intense objective of having John by my side, moving as one, made the return to this magical place a positive experience.

Seeing Jay, Alex and Colin forming a cohesive working climbing team up there was just so fantastic and I knew then that Colin was the right choice to help me with this Eiger Paraclimb. His journey is as big as the others as he fights his way towards accepting that change has to be a part of his journey away from chronic depression towards allowing himself the gift of letting happiness have an unequal share of his everyday experiences and thinking. The Eiger is just metaphorical for the team. each member finding their own meaning from the journey.

 

For me, it's not about the project in Switzerland, it's about trusting in something that I don't need to prepare to lose before I have it. It seems I have forgotten how to be something to someone. Re-learning to build my life with a new belief in someone that just seems so right. "What the ACTUAL fuck..."

Colin short roping Jay, with Alex behind on Curved Ridge

John and I moved faster and with more confidence than we ever have. We are learning to trust each other more and more, understanding the rules of what we are doing are being written by us and not in some manual for us to refer to. It's just a very human experience sight guiding and moving together on an exposed route like Curved Ridge. It's bigger than you could ever imagine. Watching the faces of others as we climb past them or them us, is just amazing and feels like fucking poetry...

It seems I am having the time of my life again.

Mark.

Courage: John feeling for holds at 2000ft above sea level!

The whole team on the summit of Buachaillie Etive Mor, Glencoe

Jay having the time of his life in a mountain environment...

The River beside the Hut, below The Mountain...