Quit your day job. Go on. I dare you.

What did I do with my Sundays when I lived in the smoke? Well… I might have dragged myself to some market or other, spend the afternoon in the pub if I was feeling a bit adventurous, make some dinner, play a bit of xbox and probably go to bed early with that sinking feeling of Monday morning bearing down.

And now? After the Aiguillette d’Argentiere last weekend, Martin and I drove up to Barberine to go climbing. The village of Barberine is in France, but the hike to the massive granite cliff we were aiming to climb took us over the border to Switzerland. I say border - really it was a piece of string across a path over a very beautiful river.

There followed afternoon climbing the smoothest, slipperiest granite I have ever seen in my limited climbing experience. It was really hard at times, but Martin and I are getting quite good these days, and although we’re far from climbing the 200 metre, 6-7 multi-pitch routes to the very top of the cliff, we can certainly monkey up a couple of 6a graded pitches here and there. The picture on the right is the view we were rewarded with when we completed the hardest pitch we’ve climbed together yet (The village at the bottom is Barberine).

This is real climbing now. Out in the back country where the stakes are much higher and the sense of achievement equally so. If you’re interested in more details about the climbing, then have a read of Martin’s account here.

One thing hasn’t changed though. I’m going to bed early this Sunday too. After all, Monday is Monday and I’ve got work to do tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 7:20 pm and is filed under Sport, the mountains, climbing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.