Charlie Creese remembers the character that was Athol Whimp, New Zealand's most accomplished mountaineer and the country's first recipient of the Piolet d'Or award, who died in 2012 in an accident in the Darran Mountains.
'There's no doubting he was larger than life - and that's saying something in a sport that has never lacked for that quality – his general stand-offishness from the scene only accentuating the mystique he'd already acquired from having been an officer in the SAS and an adviser with a desert reconnaissance unit in Oman.'
By coincidence, I've just this week finished re-reading 'Expeditions' by Andrew Lindblade and Greg Crouch's "Right Mate, Let's Get on With It" article about Athol. Both of which I found, along with Charlie's thoughts, to be excellent.
Couldn't sleep and just got up at 6:30 because I was so excited about the prospect of taking off to climb on an old WW2 bunker in the woods north of Berlin today; I was sitting with a coffee and the first cigarette in the early backyard sun, and then I read this. It's made my day already; brilliantly written, many thanks!
Fri Night Vid Finding Focus - Life Behind The Lens of a Climbing Photographer
This week's Friday Night Video is a portrait of a prolific climbing photographer from Wedge Climbing. Sam Pratt is well known in both the outdoor and competition scene but if you haven't heard of him, you've likely seen...