A LETTER FROM BOB MILWARD
By Bob Milward
NORTH Vancouver
Yearly message to the KMC : Earlier this year I hit the big 50 !
It is about 10 years since I seriously rock climbed. I sort of retired after I had clocked up 50 new routes / freeing of aid routes / variations.
The biggest was about 1000ft, the smallest about 40ft. ( all at Squamish ) The hardest about 5.11 b ( UK 6A ) the easiest 7-VS ? I still hike about the mountains and most of my mountaineering is in winter on skis etc. Weather can get very cold - 30c. With wind this can be unpleasant. Complete strangers have come up to me and said " excuse me but your nose is white and there's an icicle hanging from it." Mostly weather is mild here in town hardly ever freezing, but in the mountains it is great for skiing etc.
I had a brief burst of interest on rock last year and got back to 5.10c ( 5c ) pretty quickly, but only on rock up to 80°, steep stuff was definitely out. However in July I took a trip to the Yukon - a road trip to the Arctic Circle and back. Apart from catching about 200 fish, we took a backpack trip into the Tombstone range. Wow! How I want to go and climb a continuous set of peaks and walls with faces of Chamonix like granite between 1500ft & 2000ft, all untouched - well nearly so. About 12 or 15Km of rock walls, and the lines! Very little annual precipitation - there was a place in the Yukon which was never glaciated because of the extreme "rain shadow" location. I did not have time or willing partner, but maybe I will start to do 6 months work out to move the weight from the BIGGUS GUTTUS muscle group to the arm and shoulder area. Maybe I will just lie in.
I will be over in June for my mothers 90th birthday but this is in Exmouth, Devon I do not know if I will get to see you all. My thought frequently stray to the KMC, often with regret to the friends who have left us, Time flies.
It is now about 26 or 27 years since I led Phil Kendell up the skull on Cyrn Las one of the "big routes" then. There was aid on the middle pitch though, but I bet the sheep skull which stared back at you when you pulled over onto the first belay is long gone. Similarly, when you pulled over onto the small belay niche after the crux of cemetery gates it was to find the stance already occupied by a small plastic gnome. On Cyrn Las, again when we did Hardings overhanging arette finish, Tony Dilger, following, ripped the head right off one of the original pegs while unclipping it from a sheaf of rust flakes. Another " grand escapade" which in great humour and without any great problem was the girdle traverse of the Chromleck in the pouring rain. It turned out to be a great soggy laugh involving skyhooks and other devious tricks on right wall including the consumption of a one pound block of cooking chocolate and a small bottle of whisky.
I really should stop, all the old 6a's get downgraded to 5b I remember a guy in the Padarn (pub) saying, " I'm climbing 3 grades harder than 10 years ago but the grade is still 5c"
Ah well, "Sic Transit Gloria Mundi".
(The busses do not run on bank holiday Mondays)
All the best for 2000
Bob Milward
PS. If anyone wants a dos on the way through to Squamish please call.
