Winter climbing season arrives

It is with some trepidation that I watch the snow falling on the Ben, with Dave getting distracted by it too and staring feverishly at it out the window every 5 minutes. Outside, it’s my least favourite time of an all-round climber’s wife’s year – winter.

Winter brings with it all sorts of fun and games, but for me it means long days of hanging around the phone, waiting on the call to say yes, he’s down safe, and yes, everything’s fine and yes, they’re sitting in the car eating a chippie from Ben Fongs. Now we live that much closer to all the winter climbing action, I don’t think that fear is going to subside any; in fact, I imagine it’ll get worse as days on the hill are probably going to rise as he can keep a closer eye on the conditions.

To me, winter climbing brings with it too many abject dangers that are out with Dave’s control – you can’t help but worry.