Climbing Everest, once considered impossible, is becoming an altogether mediocre achievement.  I have a book, published in 1983 called ‘Everest: The Ultimate challenge’.  Now on an in-season day people cue next the summit for their ten minutes on top.  In just one single weekend last year, over 300 people summited.

Times have changed on the world’s highest mountain.  People going to the top are no longer time-served mountaineers.  Instead they are cleints on commercial trips – anyone with a spare $25,000 to buy a place on a tour to the ‘top of the world’.

Mountaineers have moved on to other more difficult but much less recognised challenges – doing more technical routes with less equipment in fast time – known as Super-Alpinism.    Back in the 70 and 80s, when the achievements in mountaineering were much more tangible – ‘the first to summit Everest’, ‘the first to climb K2′, ‘the first to climb all 14 peaks over 8,000m’, ‘the first woman to climb x’, ‘the first Briton to climb y’ etc, etc – it was much easier to get the world’s attention.  Now the races are over, or at least much less talked about, and for those pushing new routes it’s about the mountaineering rather than being the first.

But back on Everest the egos keep going.  People go to say ‘I got to the top of the world’.  If it was about mountaineering, then those people would be mountaineers – ones that had spent years learning the skill and climbing the mountains.

I’ve always watched Everest with interest – [perhaps foolishly!] I thought one day I might climb it.  Now I realise, the more people go, the more  Everest will fade into the ordinary, it’s magic melting along with it’s Glaciers.  It’s time for Westerners to find something else to do and learn to respect a mountain, just as the Nepalese and Tibetans always did before we arrived.

Written in response to the film ‘The Wildest Dream’ – in cinemas just now but not worth going to see.

So where are the mountaineers hanging out??

Cerro Torre, Argentina: photograph taken by a friend of mine Douglas Cunningham at Leading lines Photography.

See more extreme mountains

It’s been a while since a saw an Adder in Scotland.  Just like the last time, I nearly cycled over it.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

This is a short story by the French exporer Alexandra David-Neel (1869-1968), [taken from 'a book of travellers tales' assembled by Eric Newby].   She made a series of extraordinary journeys in Central Asia in the 19th century.  Disguising herself as a Tibetan beggar woman she is thought to have been the first European to enter Lhasa.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

The Lung-gom-pa runners of Tibet

Under the collective term of lung-gom Tibetans include a large number of practises which combine mental concentration with various breathing gymnastics and aim at different results either spiritual or physical…

Though the effects ascribed to lung-gom training vary considerably, the term lung-gom is especially used for a kind of training which is said to develop uncommon nimbleness and especially enables it’s adepts to take extraordinarily long tramps with amazing rapidity….It should be explained that the feat expected from the lung-gom-pa is one of a wonderful endurance rather than of momentary fleetness.  In this case, the performance does not consist in racing at full speed over a short distance as is done in our sporting matches, but of tramping at a rapid pace and without stopping during several successive days and nights….

I met the first lung-gom-pa in the Chang thang of Northern Tibet.

Towards the the end of the afternoon, Yongden, our servants and I were riding leisurely across a wide tableland, when I noticed, far away in front of us, a moving black spot which my field-glasses showed to be a man.  I felt astonished.  Meetings are not frequent in the region, for the last seven days we had not seen a human being.  Moreover, men on foot and alone do not, as a rule, wander in these solitudes.  Who could the strange traveller be?

…As I continued to observe him through the glasses, I noticed that the man proceeded at an unusual gait and, especially, with an extraordinary swiftness.  Though, with the naked eyes, my men could hardly see anything but a black speck moving over the grassy ground, they too were not long in remarking the quickness of it’s advance.  I handed them the glasses and one of them, having observed the traveller for a while, muttered:

‘Lama lung-gom-pa da.’ (It looks like a lama lung-gom-pa.)…

The man continued to advance towards us and his curious speed became more and more evident.  What was to bo done if he really was a lung-gom-pa? I wanted to observe him at close quarters, I also wished to have a talk with him, to put him some questions , to photograph him….I wanted many things.  But at the very first words I said about it, the man who had recognised him as a Lama lung-gom-pa exclaimed:

‘Your reverence will not stop the lama, nor speak to him.  This would certainly kill him.  The Lamas when travelling must not break their meditation.  The god who is in them escapes if they cease to repeat the ngags, and when thus leaving them before the proper time, he shakes them so hard that they die.’…

By that time he had reached us; I could clearly see his perfectly calm impassive face and wide-open eyes with their gaze fixed on some invisible far-distant object situated somewhere high up in space.  The man did not run.  He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps.  It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity and rebounded each time his feet touched the ground.  His steps had the regularity of a pendulum.  He wore the usual monastic robe and toga, both rather ragged.  His left hand gripped a fold of the toga, both rather ragged.  His right hand held a phurba (magic dagger).  His right arm moved slightly at each step as if leaning on a stick, just as though the phurba, whose pointed extremity was far above the ground, had touched it and were actually a support.

My servants dismounted and bowed their heads to the ground as the Lama passed before us, but he went his way apparently unaware of our presence….

We followed him for about two miles and then he left the track, climbed a steep slope and disappeared in the mountain range that edged the steppe.  Riders could not follow that way and our observations came to an end.  We could only turn back and continue our journey.

One of the main reasons I started blogging was to form some kind of catalogue of inspirational things I come across.   Being a great believer in the emerging ‘open source’ way of working, I like the idea that keeping an open sketchbook allows much opportunity for collaborative work and solutions to come forward.  With this in mind I’m going to make more of an effort to post ‘in homage’ to the things I feel are worthy of mention, starting with the work of Jimmy Chin.

I don’t think it’ll take you long to realise why his work is worthy of mention, but for me, what comes through is his personality.  I get the impression he is never trying to impose himself on the situation, and therefore the result is something which both un-contrived and beautifully effortless.   In this day and age it’s great to see such strong content that relies so little little on digital manipulation.  Check out Jimmy’s  website and blog.

After ten years of living an almost completely urban life in the city of Glasgow, 2009, for me, was the year that I emerged from the cocoon to discover the majestic Scottish wilderness.  Perhaps it could be same for any of the world’s great wildernesses, I don’t know any of them well enough to know if they have the same depth, but something of the way the landscape and people have woven together through time,  is truly magnificent.  It is said that the Scottish mountains are amongst the oldest in the world, and the poetry, the music and the people, even to this day, move forward with echos of this ancient history.  It might be foolish to try and convey this – like describing the taste of one of the finest single malt whiskies – but here are a few things that speak to me the loudest against this backdrop.   I’ll let you peel back the layers:

Sounds

‘Walts for Hector’ from Bothy Culture by Martyn Bennett

‘Why’ on Grit by Martyn Bennett ‘

‘Blackbird’ on Grit, by Martyn Bennett

’4 Notes’ from Bothy Culture by Martyn Bennett

more info | buy Grit | buy Bothy Culture

Words

A Man In Assynt_Norman Maccaig

more info | book available here

Pictures

I’ve been working on putting up a blog and forum for High-8, an organisation recently formed to  share stories and information about trips into the scottish wilderness.   Like many parts of the world, Scotland is a fantastic venue for outdoor sports.  Over time, I hope High-8 will become a great resource for activities like gorge walking, for which there is little information available and for which Scotland remains a relatively uncharted territory with huge potential for the sport.   We intend use the forum to explore possibilities in photography and film making, as a means to inspire and bring the amazing places and experiences to a wider audience.  If you do take part in this kind of thing in Scotland, then please do get involved. Here’s some pictures to wet the appetite:

World class climber talks about Bamako Boom Boom on his blog!

http://davemacleod.blogspot.com/2009/08/creative-people-misha-somerville.html

I have finally succumbed to the temption to post a link to this video of Catherine Destivelle climbing in Mali.  I visited here several years ago but not to climb. This is an impressive piece of footage which melds climbing, culture, a 1970′s style narrative and tight shorts into just 10 minutes >>

Here are some pictures from the last few months adventures around Scotland.  Hopefully the images capture the moments.  All taken on Film on my Olympus OM20.  Should be getting my digital SLR back shortly [my sister pinched it to go to California - bum deal for me or what!?! Hopefully she'll come back with some good pictures though].  I’ll be interested to see what kind of photos I get out of the digital when I get it back [if I do !!].

I have recently been in touch with the Scottish climber Dave Macleod to congratulate him and his wife Claire on their success with their latest film – Echo Wall – which has won a string of awards at film festivals and most recently at the Scottish Baftas.  Dave is one of the world’s very best climbers and his success has galvanised a new wave of enthusiasm in the sport is Scotland.  Echo Wall might well be the most difficult trad climb ever done, and full respect to Dave for continuing to pursue his goals, and push boundaries in world climbing, on home soil.  As it turns out Dave and Claire had looked into using some Croft No. Five’s music on the film, but attempts to get in touch with the band got lost in cyberspace (more our fault than theirs I’m sure) but as there’s some of Martyn Bennett‘s music on there they certainly go didn’t go too far wrong!  Rest assured I’ll be sending them some tracks in case they have a similar inclination any time in the future!!

Dave Macleod pictured (L>R) climbing ‘Dont Die of Ignorance’ [Ben Nevis], solo on The Cobbler, and on Achemine [Dumbarton Rock].

For the first time in a while the incubator got reved up when Father of schmo mailed me through a sketch for an idea.  A clever use of laminating materials which can also be seen on a chair, created by the Danish designer Mathias Bengtsson.  I first spotted this chair a number of years ago on the design museum website and it got me thinking about where else this idea might work.  Father of Schmo pointed out the strikingly obvious  potential to make 3D maps and we hope to develope this idea in the coming months, starting with the Scottish mountain Suilven.  It struck me this idea could not be displayed more vividly than with the terraced Paddy Fields of East and South Asia and to a slightly lesser extent at Machu Picchu.  I have been exploring with the use of lamination in musical instrument design for a while but more on this later….