UKC

Back in 2011 my wife and I (and our unborn 1st son, though we didn't know it at the time) went on a trip to the Highlands, and at some point found ourselves at the Mountain Coffee Co. bookshop in Gairloch.  I picked up a copy of Dave Cuthbertson's "The Climbers Logbook" and since then have used it to record details of particularly memorable days out in the hills and crags.  Each entry starts with the date, place, company and weather and then I give a little diary entry for what we got up to.

At the moment I am reading it with great enjoyment, dipping into it to dust off some great memories that otherwise would perhaps be fading, and using it as a sort of methadone to replace the real thing.  I hope that when I am an old(er) fart I'll pass happy hours remembering all the great days outdoors in good company that I have been lucky enough to have, sitting by the fire with a cup of tea and my logbook on my knee.  "Ahhh, them were the days my laddie" : )

What's my point?  If you are just starting out consider doing the same, I know lots of us use the logbooks here but this is a bit different and it is amazing how I can access technicolour recordings of some brilliant times with the help of a few words.

Definitely. I kept a diary for many years only stopping when work got onerous. Then it became a few scribbled notes before grinding to a halt. I did used to write pieces for a club journal going back to the 1970's. I've been re-reading them recently and it's like I'm reading about someone else! Did I really do that?!

I kept detailed climbing diaries for the first few years, but then they went missing during a house move (they might still be in a loft somewhere) so I stopped. I really wish I hadn't. There were some great memories stored in there, some of which I'll have forgotten about 35 years later.

Takes me back to the old Liverpool Uni Mountaineering Club (LUMC) Log Book from 1985-87. I'd love to know what happened to that.

I absolutely agree. I've got something written for every 'climbing-day' since I started climbing outdoors, in 1998. Great memories, with detailed comments about routes, incidents etc! I feel sorry for friends who can't remember whether they've climbed a particular route or not.

Sadly, at the beginning of lockdown I allowed myself one yearful of climbing every day ... I've reached the end, and now I've got to work through guidebooks....

Surely no problem if you have the South Devon and Dartmoor guide from '95? "If you keep an open mind...you will discover dark secrets" .  Classic.

That's on the shelf, and will be mined for gems. The Pete Saunders 2018 South Devon guide is also lovely in a different way, but was read from cover to cover last year.

I was hoping to be on Skye this month, so I will see if I can read 'The Cuillin' from end to end in one long day...

I too am a 'lamenting lapsed logger'. Kept a diary from 1981 to (checks) 1992 with notes from one word up to a page or more. Then there's a few scraps of paper and vague thoughts of "I'll catch up with that in the dark winter months", and now precious memories are all over the show and I can't remember of I did a certain route in 1993 or 1999. And I later find out "I definitely lead that with Dave" actually means I seconded Steve.

Write it down folks, and just that one madeleine might trigger an avalanche of memories!

One of my biggest regrets in life is not keeping a climbing journal.  My wife reckons I've got a book in me but my memory seems to keep letting me down. I have conversations with one of my regular partners from 40 years ago and our recollections of certain events seem to differ quite significantly.

Al

I'm glad to say I've kept a climbing logbook right from the beginning, in 1966. The first one was very verbose, like a diary, then after a couple of years I converted it to a one-liner affair, recording almost every climb or hill walk I ever did, with a summarising comment, except where very trivial and/or a repeat of something on a small outcrop. Red ink for the landmark climbs. Why it is so useful is that it goes so far beyond what memory can ever do, and triggers off very detailed memories.

Came across this earlier today in my log book for September 1962 when camping in the Pass, “poured fester tent floods - sleeping bags soaked no sleep”. Then two weeks later back in the Pass in another tent, “poured at night and 90 mph gusts, tent flooded poles broke etc!” and next day “hitch home!”. The 90 mph may have been a bit of an exaggeration but that’s what it felt like. I had forgotten the former but not the latter.

I think the log book and other assorted documents were given to the university library sometime around 1990.

Is that me Al , if you remember we started climbing together 50 years ago 1970 I have photographic evidence. PS my memory is slipping only on what I did last week.

Your life long climbing mate back again later in the year ABW.

keith s
 

I was talking to an old caving pal recently about something we both dug out and explored almost 40 years ago. He was convinced I'd never gotten in even though I wrote a journal article about it shortly after. We'd explored and surveyed it on a nine hour trip. It constantly amazes me, the fragility of memory, particularly my own.

"The palest ink is better than the strongest memory". Chinese proverb, allegedly.

That sounds far more authentic than: 'Confucius says - "a woman's love is like a spider's web; it leads to fly's undoing". Sorry - just couldn't resist.

Vital. I can't say why I began it on the first day as it wasn't until a few trips later I became utterly hooked on rock climbing, but start the diary I did on 13th Feb 1965 after my first day at what is now known as Denham Quarry near Preston. Subsequently every day climbing and every route, with the possible exception of days I was taking youngsters out and routes that got into double figure repeats, has been written up, and I'm thankful for it. During a spell of injury a few years ago when I couldn't move much for a couple of months I laboriously, but enjoyably, transcribed the whole lot into my UKC logbook. 8000+ climbs from 20 feet to 3000 feet from Lancashire quarries to The Alps and beyond.

It's remarkable how often, as an old fart, the questions arise when contemplating a route - when? who with? how often? when first? when most recently? and I can whip out my phone and look it up and the memories, the people, the pubs, the laughs, the fears all come back. Marvellous. 55 years and 8370 climbs with well over 200 different partners. And counting.

I might have to make a visit next time I'm in the area - unless anyone can get hold of a scanned copy ??

I see we share some climbing partners! I climbed a bit with John Boyle in the 90s. We actually had an LUMC reunion in France last easter, though it was only me, Steve Williams and Jim Waddington in the end. Do we know each other from back in the day 

I've kept a logbook/diary since I started - strict rules though, I only record ascents of routes I've not done before and no boulders unless they are significant. Has some graphs to show activity over the years and some poetry too! - don't ask, it's not for sharing...

I’m sure our paths crossed at some point but I was only ever on the periphery of the LUMC as I could neither climb nor drink hard enough to be an esteemed member.

Where did the last 30 years go!?  

I kept diaries in note books continually from 1962 until last year and have typed them up into a large single chronological diary. Date and partner followed by text, usually fairly expansive for Alpine routes and expeditions plus ski tours  (including time taken for route).  Generally briefer for UK except for trad climbing in the mountains and Pembroke and my annual Scottish trip with Simon Richardson.  While recording everything on limestone,  trivia on gritstone tended to be lumped as eg afternoon with X or soloed a dozen routes at Stanage but the event is nevertheless  recorded.. Numerous days on Bleau and bouldering however were not shown as separate events, while climbing walls ignored, except usually coupled to  a complaint about the weather.

So the data is there but logging it on UKC is too time consuming and what I have done is generally provisional, a sort of  helter skater  undated and unpartnered tick list for which I apologise to my friends. Fortunately I have a large number of slides, (though jquite a lot lost) which I have had scanned so my memories are supplemented by the pics; so Flickr albums with text  are in process of being generated for friends and partnes while reviving my own happy memories in locked down old age