At the 2019 Pinnacle Club dinner at the Castle Green Hotel, Kendal, our after dinner speaker (and Pinnacle Club member) Dr Julie Carter engaged us all in an experiment. She asked us individually to visualise ourselves climbing a favourite route and to then jot down on paper the name of the route and a few words describing how we felt about it. Our pieces of paper were then collected and Julie promised to make a poem from them. She has used almost all the words we wrote and has not added anything more. I hope you agree that the result is pretty amazing – a tribute to the power of collective imagination. Thanks, Julie!
A poem written by everyone who attended the Pinnacle Club Dinner January 2019
Learning the opening vista on Christmas Curry
A lifetime begins at Cubic Block
Coral Sea turns uncertainty to joyful elation
Merlin, first VS,
The beginnings of belief up Forbes Arete
Lighthouse Arête more joy
Little Chamonix, continuous joy
Overhanging Bastion at one
Gimmer Crack Alleluia Gloria in excelsis deo
Stretch and reach on High Neb Buttress, wind nearly teetering me over
The gift of trusting dimples and edges – innocence finding trust in yourself
Yellow Edge, Space and light
Equus, survival, slippery Hammer
Scary scary Bugaboo Spine
Top Sail, exhilaration
Eagle Front, mastery and pleasure
On the last runner on French Route, axes in the ice – strong
Dusty dry-bone wall Pocket Symphony, sea worn pockets warm on the palms
Troutdale Superdirect, breathe and push fingers horizontally into the crack
Ronson Kirkby, six metres of nothing and the sky unfolds
I will climb again and again first and last
Red rock Red Wall, sun’s rays aspire and accept
Freedom on the Red Edge, shared with a special climbing partner – Sally Kier
Soaring glorious Golden Compass
Red Edge, done well
Turquoise sea Little Brown Jug, warm golden rock, gulls crying
Mount Louis, too dry to make spit, no belays out there
Tryfan North Ridge, everyone at anytime the most perfect route
Professors Ice Fall, companionship and reliance
McGregor’s Slab Colorado, ‘Good job’ (in a long drawn out American drawl)
Sunny warm Assassin achieves success
Saxon, joyful surge the conqueror sublime
Feeling free and effortless on Ardverikie Wall three times
Fearful exciting joyful
Poetry in Motion, the feeling of climbing well
Zig-zig, I can do it
Goliath’s Groove, push and pull
Standing on a belay ledge on Chic view into the distance
Living totally in the present
South East Pillar satisfaction
Freedom Grooved Arete
Stretching on the East Wall Shrike
Never thought I’d be there Snake Dyke
Old Man of Hoy, sunshine space sitting next to puffins on the summit
Space and beauty on Piz Badile, long different exciting
Awareness
Excitement happiness Dibona
Kinky Boots, Impossible alone but as a team we conquered the gaping zawn and ascended the slabby route above the crashing waves
Padding stealthily upwards on Grey Crag, no protection fearful
but now at the top it has given me life