Read a snippet of Leo Houlding's first book, Closer to the Edge, and find out where you can hear more from Leo himself.

Closer to the Edge

Excerpt: Chapter 8

End of the Beginning

In July 1998 I went on my first international climbing road trip. It was to Norway with a strong team that included renowned alpinist Andy Cave and the sport climber Neil Gresham, who had recently turned to trad, making the third ascent of Johnny's famous route Indian Face. He was also a sales rep for DMM and as Tim Emmett had been demoted to a slower car following his collection of speeding tickets, we travelled in the beloved Alfa.

At the time there was a ferry from North Shields to Stavanger, where we went to visit a young friend of Andy's, Trym Saeland, to explore an area with a vast amount of unclimbed granite cliffs, little known outside Norway, called Rogaland. We loaded a roof box on the Alfa full with beers and a case of fine single malt whisky as gifts for our hosts, which Andy had assured us was valuable currency in the extortionately taxed, oil-rich, socialist state of Norway. We all stayed with Trym in his tiny studio apartment, where we completely filled the entire floor space, bedded down in our sleeping bags. We were heartily welcomed into the close-knit Stavanger climbing community and I was introduced to characters who proved influential in later years, including Sindre Bo, Rolf Bae and Robert Caspersen.

Unfortunately the trip was a washout: it rained heavily every day bar one of our two-week trip. Thankfully a couple of the crags in the region were so overhanging they stayed reasonably dry and we were able to do some climbing. I had just turned eighteen and was as cocksure and hungry to prove myself as they come. The others were all a decade older and far more mature. My catchphrase for that Norway trip was 'I'll climb anything you can in my trainers' and I did a good job of supporting my claim, favouring those specialist approach shoes that are good for climbing but disguised as regular trainers. 

The ethical debate as to where it was appropriate to place bolts for sport climbing or withhold them to maintain adventure values was a hot topic in Rogaland at the time. As well as climbing many routes in my trainers, I did some of their hardest bolted routes using trad gear in my climbing shoes, just to prove a point.

The highlight of our trip was a couple of days in the jaw-dropping Jøssingfjord, which we nicknamed the Fierce Fjord, where Neil and I added the second free route, following Norway's strongest climber of the time Caspersen's first, to an absurdly overhanging 500-foot wall that forms a prominent silhouette at the head of the fjord called the Profileveggen ('profile wall' in Norwegian). We called our route Firefox, which was their name for a joint, and given E7 6c or Norwegian grade VIII was up there with the hardest multi-pitch routes in Norway at the time.

Our subdued, stereotypically conformist but extremely friendly Norwegian hosts weren't quite sure what to make of my arrogant, energetic youthful self. We had a farewell party in the Stavanger climbers' pub Cementen on the picturesque docks of their oil-rich city, where I made a complete fool of myself due to my acute alcohol intolerance, blowing my shot of a dream end to the trip by going home with a blonde beauty and instead falling, or being thrown (I'm not sure which), into the harbour. After this they seemed to conclude I was OK.

On the last morning as we said our goodbyes (snatched between violent fits of vomiting amidst my desperate hangover from the previous night's partying), Rolf, the wildest of their crew, with whom I had most bonded, took me to one side. 

'I have a gift for you, Leo,' he said, presenting me with a book. 'We should go here one day, it is the wildest place of all.' He smiled knowingly. 

It was Ivar Erik Tollefsen's coffee-table photobook of the first climbing expedition, one he had led to the astounding other-worldly peaks of Queen Maud Land in the Norwegian sector of Antarctica where he and Caspersen had made the first ascent of the mighty Ulvetanna ('the wolf's fang'). It was the most astonishing mountain I had ever seen and inspired a life dream that I would dare in a later chapter of life.

After an overnight crossing the ferry arrived back into North Shields passenger port. We disembarked in the Alfa and drove onto the A1 heading south. We were on our way to the wedding of a mutual close friend, held at a castle on the way back to Wales. As we sped down the dual carriageway the imposing, recently unveiled Anthony Gormley sculpture the Angel of the North came into view. A 60-foot-tall human figure with 180-foot-wide wings wrought from rust-brown cast iron.

'Wow, look at that thing, I wonder if it's climbable?' Neil pondered.

I had just about recovered my self-esteem following my toxic hangover and responded, 'Ha, I'll climb that. I'll do it in my trainers!' 

The car swerved onto the exit ramp, drifting tyres screeched around the roundabout and we slammed to halt in the lay-by beneath the Angel. 

'Go on then, you cocky little shit!' Neil had had enough of my arrogance and intended to call my bluff. 

'All right then!' 

I stepped out of the car, walked the short way to the base of the sculpture and without pause shimmied my way up the iron fins that formed the body, onto the wing, then surmounted the overhanging head to stand on top. 

'Nah, nah!' I mocked from the highly conspicuous position. 

'Stick your arms out,' shouted Adam, who was snapping a photo. 

On the way down I casually strolled out along one of the narrow wings to the tip. It was 5 p.m. on a Monday and the A1 was full of rush-hour traffic that I noticed were braking dangerously to rubberneck at my display. 

Suddenly the screech of sirens wailed over the hum of the traffic. Half a dozen police cars with blue flashing lights pulled into the lay-by beside the Alfa. I bolted back along the wing and slid down the fins like a fireman's pole in seconds, reaching the ground before the cops had made it to the base. I took off my jacket, calmed my breath and, trying to look as relaxed as possible, began to stroll casually towards the Alfa. I made it past the first two cops, who were running, helmeted and aggravated, towards the Angel. I held my nerve and kept walking until a plump, kind-mannered boy in blue accosted me. 

'Excuse me, sir, I believe that was you up there and I am arresting you for a breach of the peace,' he said in his Mackem – not to be confused with Geordie – accent in the politest fashion the predicament could allow. 

I was handcuffed, piled into the back of his car, driven to Washington Police Station, literally a mile from Berghaus's head office, and locked up in a cell. The others had kept their distance at the scene of the crime then left so as not to be late for our friend's nuptials. I had a roached packet of Rizla papers in my pocket which I was paranoid would lead the cops to investigate further should they discover them during my strip search so I promptly ate them. A challenging task without the aid of a drink. The same plump copper opened the door and escorted me to the interview room. 

'I'm sorry, marra, but we'z got 'bout an hundred 999 calls from folks on t'A1 an' had to follow up,' he apologised. They emptied my recently decriminalised pockets and set about taking my fingerprints.

'How way, man! I darn't think they'll 'ave this!' he said, attempting to make an ink impression from my granite-ravaged fingertips that left nothing more than a featureless smudge on the page. 

I was left to sweat for another couple of hours before he returned and walked me to the entrance of the station.

'Am right sorry 'bout this, pal. We'll not be pressing charges, it'll not go on yer record and you'z free to go. The lads all think yer a cracker, and if I ever sees ya in the pub, I buys ya a pint, mate,' said the nicest policeman I've ever met as he released me.

I jumped in a taxi and arrived just in time for the reception party, full of old friends from the climbing world who were highly entertained by my brief incarceration.

Back in North Wales, I enjoyed the rest of summer with Tim, Patch and others, climbing classic test pieces onsight and seeking out ever more difficult and dangerous first ascents on the remaining unclimbed scraps of rock in the Llanberis Pass, unaware that soon my horizons were to be blown wide open and my perception shifted so far that I would never again feel the same way about those precious little crags and that special place that had been so formative. In September 1998, shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I made my first trip to the Yosemite Valley in California and nothing would ever look quite the same again.

Kendal Mountain Festival

The social event of the year for outdoor people takes place across the town from 17th-20th November.

Book tickets and passes on the KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL SITE

Leo Houlding - Closer to the Edge

November 18th, 5:00-6:30pm

This event is now sold out