In reply to Goucho:
Things I miss and don't miss
Things I miss:
The MOAC (number one item)
Hemp waistlines (honestly - their smell alone)
The Tarbuck knot - brilliant, though it needed constant checking to see that it wasn't falling apart (still very good for improvised guy ropes)
Buying hexes and chocks and a load of cord to thread them with.
Buying 1" blue tape and making slings with the tape knot.
Climbing in jeans with holes in the knees (had a certain charm, despite not being able to move legs freely)
Ron Hills, when they first came out, for freedom of movement
A Norwegian woollen sweater (with natural oil).
Dachtein Mitts.
Terry's Festerhaunt
The ODG full of climbers (and the route book)
The Bar Nash
Amazing wild, debauched sing-songs at the Bar Nash, ODG, PYG and Padarn Lake in winter (when EVERYONE used to 'sing', and wasn't embarrassed by it)
The traditional London trip to Cornwall in Easter
The Optimus stove
Wendy's Cafe, Llanberis
Alan Blackshaw's 'Mountaineering'
The old ultra-succinct CC guidebooks, particularly to Llanberis North, Cwm Idwal, Tryfan & the Glyders, and Cloggy
Early editions of Mountain Magazine
Sensibly small racks of gear
Peg hammer and one's own treasured pegs (on Alpine routes)
When multi pitch routes were just called routes, and we made no real distinction between single and mulitpitch routes (though mostly regarded the former as inferior)
Abseiling with no fuss and no back-ups.
Climbing (... not really ... poor eyesight means I can't enjoy it any more)
The amount of laughter and fooling around
Not worrying too much about the grade, or the technical grades, and climbing on-sight with minimum of 'beta' (the word didn't exist anyway!)
People I miss:
The 60s crowd at Harrison's Rocks
Beardie playing the guitar, singing his own songs.
Tony Wilmott (at the YHA, and at the crag)
John Syrett
Ken Wilson
Eric Jones
Maurice at the Nash
Emil Perren, Heinrich Taugwalder, and the old guides in Zermatt, 1966, 1967
Things I don't miss:
Excruciating Black's Masters boots without socks, and with v unsticky soles.
EB's and thick socks
Climbing breeches
Hairy woollen shirts
Suntan cream that didn't work
Tape slings coming undone
c80% of early wire nuts falling out.
Climbing HVS with a single stiff, hairy hawser-laid Black's Viking nylon rope = massive rope friction
Showell Styles' 'Mountaineering'
Hitching to destinations
Snells Field (sordid and unhygienic beyond beyond description)
Classic orange Vango Force 10 tents.
The Black's Good Companion tent (which leaked like a sieve)
The old climbers' bar at the Clachaig
Climbing in jeans with holes in the knees (very impractical, couldn't bend leg without pulling up some slack at knees first)
No chalk
Old nylon cagoules which leaked like a sieve.
Post edited at 09:39