UKC

My First Lead Essays: The Top Ten

© UKC News
Chris Rowlands and Simon Marsh of DMM

This has been read 26,744 times
We have read all of the My First Outdoor Lead essays and have come up with a short-list of ten. It was very difficult for us to come up with this list as there were so many good essays and experiences that we could relate to and that were well written. Here they are:

13. The Scent of the Sky by John Lisle: Read Here

15. Cat Got Your Tongue? (1969) by full stottie: Read Here

22. Great Expectations by Uriah: Read Here

33. Petticoats and Promises by A Jo by any Other Name: Read Here

50. Confessions of a Coward by nicolaw: Read Here

55. Growing Up by sarah79: Read Here

85. A new life for old... by Simon: Read Here

104. Move On by Mark HW: Read Here

105. One Hundred Years Ago by Jim Nevill: Read Here

118. M1, Avon Gorge - 1986 by RJC: Read Here

We've really enjoyed reading them all and thank you to everyone who took the time to sit down and write them.

We are so pleased in fact that in addition to the first prize of a £500 rack and spot prizes for all we have added two runner up prizes of £100 of DMM gear each.

Give us a week to make up our minds here in the DMM office and of course your comments and opinions are welcomed. The overall winner will be presented with their prize at the DMM Factory on Friday 7th of March (if they can make it) which happens to be the start of the Llanberis Mountain Film Festival where we will also read out some of the winning and favourite entries.

Once again thank you.

Chris and Simon - DMM

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Comments

CJD
15 Jan, 2008
there's one in there that should be replaced with Fawksey's imho.
antwan
15 Jan, 2008
Interesting list, only 2 out of my top ten though, but i dont know how to write properly either! Although "My First Outdoor Lead (14) - Memories Are Made of This by nwclimber ? Oct/2007" should have been in there, and yes i also agree with CJD that fawskeys' was good too but i dont think i could argue any out of the top 10 to make room either.
Simon
15 Jan, 2008
I have to say that I think this defo deserves its place - very different and above all frank!!! ...Arms full of bursting, squeezing my way up Suspension Bridge Arête on a crisp packet day. I lied to her, pulled on a nut for a moment, trainers with nowhere to go. No trouble, I'd said. A few fags later, I was chicken-scratching my way up some oily slab, fingers giving way to Newton's law. She'd hooked me at last... ...She told me I was firkin crazy, that the gear was shit, the rock was shit, the climb was shit. That I would have died if I'd fallen off. All I wanted to do was have a spliff and shag her. Right there, underneath the start of New Horizons, pitch two My First Outdoor Lead (118) – M1, Avon Gorge - 1986 by RJC 07/Jan/2008 "Chicken scratching" - marvelous stuff!! Si
antwan
15 Jan, 2008
Like i said, i cant argue them out of the top ten cos there all good, but that one was on my top ten anyhows.
johncoxmysteriously
15 Jan, 2008
I disagree on principle. It's an immutable law of climbing writing - call it Cook's Law perhaps, or maybe Perrin's Law, although he almost gets away with it once or twice - that anything which either deals with sexual relations or tension between climber and belayer, or worse still compares climbing itself to sex in any abstract or metaphorical way, is invariably deeply, deeply, embarrassing. jcm
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