As you read these words you know what my story here is called, but as I start writing this, I myself do not know what the title will be and I don’t even know, with any clarity at all, just what it is that I want to say.
I can add a brief post script : I could see the mountains from the apartment window; thought of Dave all day - and sketched and painted my time away whilst I waited patiently. The little township had a tiny ‘Spar’ market … so there was a big pot of high carb spaghetti and sauce waiting for him upon return. Every intrepid explorer needs sustenance and replenishment!
Lol yes. All I took was a few energy bars, some dried fruit and nut mix, and a bit of chocolate - plus 2 litres of water. To reach the peak from where I had to leave the vehicle was a total altitude gain of around 3,300 feet, and that's a pretty big hill, so I wanted to minimise the weight I was carrying.
Ah! Good question. There are times when I have done things like that, but you don't leave behind gear you may need for survival. So on this day trip I was only carrying survival essentials. Enough warm clothes, and a rain/snow jacket in case the weather broke, and a bit of energy food and water. All that had to stay with me.
On multi day expeditions - where you might do a side trip up a mountain peak - you can definitely hide your all your heavy gear (tent, extra food, camping stove etc) - and then zoom up and back just carrying essentials.
The down side: You do have to be certain you will come down again the same way. You also have to be certain you can find your cache!
When I lived in the desert I left my rather heavy binoculars on a ledge half way up a mountain, but then came back down a different way. In fact I had forgotten about my binoculars and only remembered that evening - when I was many many miles away.
The mountain was in a remote spot, and life was busy, and the binoculars weren't worth a special trip all that way back to get them, so I filed it as a "next time you are in the area" thing.
Well... that "next time" was over two years later. I did happen to be passing fairly close by, so I made a detour, found the very remote spot where the climb started, and I headed up.
My binoculars were still where I had left them - and in perfectly good shape! The case was sun bleached and starting to crack, but it had kept off the minimal rain that had fallen in my two year absence, and I guess no-one else had been that way, which was not really surprising.
What a marvelous story! I just love it. It’s like when people lose their house cat hundred of miles from home, and the cat finds its way home six months later. Wow. I think there’s a children’s story here, illustrated by the marvelous Meg of course!
What a wonderful piece, David, about a man's need to climb a mountain and what it means to you - how its vast expansiveness lifts the weight of the world from your shoulders.
"So as I rose on up the mountain through the day, feeling as a diver might in an ocean watching all those depths fall away below me - like a diver I too felt expanded, but it was my heart swelling instead, as all the weight of the world was lifted from me and the sight of the mountains filled my gaze, so eloquently, piercingly, utterly."
And what pictures to go with it! Then climbing the staircase to your true summit at the end of it all. Wonderful stuff - full of life and two passions - one for the mountains, the other for the woman to whom you always return!
Thankyou my friend. Your "Longing" piece made me think of places I feel I belong - despite having no real connection with them. My travel writing is full of them.... and this day describes one. I really did not know where it was going when I started, and then it ended up where it did....
I love how you can set out on a course and end up in all sorts of places. How it all emerges, the feelings and the moment, the revelation of something only partly seen.
This was not real climbing in any technical sense. It wasn't even a via ferrata. I didn't have the gear for that - having turned up entirely unplanned.
However, it was great scrambling and there were several places where a slip would be highly consequential - which is why they have the spikes and cables here and there on the route. So it felt steep enough to be fun, and to make you careful. I was more worried about someone dropping a rock on me, or a major change in the weather.
I would love to go back and do more, though I have an increasingly painful and limiting knee problem which may require a drastic remedy before I can attempt a route as big as this again. Even walking on a track is getting painful.
Oh David, I hear you. I too am in pain just walking around my house at the moment. Memories of trips past and the garden and sunshine keeping me afloat. Damn knees, and bodies, if only they would do what our minds wanted. Take care, Kate
I'll admit to reading this over the weekend, but I wasn't ready to comment yet. I keep coming back to it in my mind. At first reading, I thought it mostly about the thrill of the climb, which I loved, as a person who similarly longs to go up and up and up. I was swept away by the photos and the descriptions. I felt it in my lungs and in my legs and in my heart. But really, I think it's a love story. That's the stone I keep thumbing in my pocket. The return to your person, her painting, your beautiful poetic rendition of how you beheld her, sitting there, waiting for you. (But also deeply engrossed in her own meaning-making.) It all makes me feel hopeful, and maybe a little shattered. But in a good way, I promise. In a way that reminds me that we need to find people who will take in the sight of us with reverence and gratitude. So, with a lump in my throat, I thank you for that gift. I remember what that feels like now. I just need to keep remembering.
May I say... your thoughtful, sincere and deeply generous comment has just brought warmth and light to my Winter's day.
Thank you.
Yes, it is indeed a love story, even though I when I started writing I did not know it would become one. Of course, when I first met Meg I had no idea what would become of that meeting, either...
My profound love of wild places is reflected in much of what I write - probably most of what I write - but although I am not a terribly social person in the everyday sense, human connection is equally fundamental to me, and I have the massive and remarkable good fortune that M and I truly adore each other. We spend time in nature together when we can, but she also encourages and supports me to undertake some more "out there" trips. When I do that I usually have a wonderful time, but the best part is always the homecoming, and home is wherever M happens to be.
I am a happily incurable romantic but I try to express that without falling (too often) into cliche.
Also, and I am sure the same is true for you because I see it so strongly in your writing, the natural world gives me reverence for life itself, in all its forms, while also helping me to understand myself, perhaps, a little better.
The adventure aspect is fun, and I do delight in it, but I also understand that nature is not an amusement park. M has taught me to also sit still, and to observe, to revere life and to be more generous to others.
I do agree that Meg's piece is the summit, but that's probably because I would never do this climb, never to the point that there's nary a bit of romance in the thought of doing it. I would much rather dive down under the earth. I never have, but I think I might be quite good at caving. It is a lovely reflection, and I wish I could have made such a climb when I was young and able, although I think that even then I would have stayed in the cabin looking out the window, writing and drawing.
Well.... both options are equally valid and productive. M has accompanied me on many high energy outdoor adventures, and loves the wilderness, but she has also taught me the value of just sitting still, looking, and really seeing.
Way back, I have done some good caving - with friends when I was much younger, and also on my own when I lived in the Northern Territory and had no caving buddies to go exploring with.
The underground world is fascinating... if a bit Freudian! :)
Thankyou Stanley. It was a long way from my home country, but we are all citizens of the same planet and, I tend to think, we all need to regard anywhere on Earth as "home" and care about it as if it is....
This is a wonderful piece of writing that properly captures the spirit of the casual climber. I’m not really a one for summits but I wanted to be there with you and your photos are fantastic. And thank you for giving me permission to take each incredible, frustrating, glorious, painful, euphoric, knackering step of a hike and turn them into something joyful for others to share.
The ridge of mountains in the one picture looks gilded with pure gold. You capture the feeling of a walk like no-one else... and you go places that stir the spirit (from the comfort of my deck chair). Thank you for doing the hard work, David. Meg--it's always better when you paint it.
I don't have anywhere quite as spectacular to go walking here, but the season has turned to Spring and the days are as warm and yellow and delicious as a sun ripened banana.
I can add a brief post script : I could see the mountains from the apartment window; thought of Dave all day - and sketched and painted my time away whilst I waited patiently. The little township had a tiny ‘Spar’ market … so there was a big pot of high carb spaghetti and sauce waiting for him upon return. Every intrepid explorer needs sustenance and replenishment!
And I needed it…. but not as much as I needed the chef :)
Hum...yeah. I wondered about Dave's little bit of food for energy.
Lol yes. All I took was a few energy bars, some dried fruit and nut mix, and a bit of chocolate - plus 2 litres of water. To reach the peak from where I had to leave the vehicle was a total altitude gain of around 3,300 feet, and that's a pretty big hill, so I wanted to minimise the weight I was carrying.
I get not wanting to tote the weight, but couldn't you secret some of it under a rock, say a 1/4 of the way up?
Ahhhhh he’s such a purist though!
Ah! Good question. There are times when I have done things like that, but you don't leave behind gear you may need for survival. So on this day trip I was only carrying survival essentials. Enough warm clothes, and a rain/snow jacket in case the weather broke, and a bit of energy food and water. All that had to stay with me.
On multi day expeditions - where you might do a side trip up a mountain peak - you can definitely hide your all your heavy gear (tent, extra food, camping stove etc) - and then zoom up and back just carrying essentials.
The down side: You do have to be certain you will come down again the same way. You also have to be certain you can find your cache!
When I lived in the desert I left my rather heavy binoculars on a ledge half way up a mountain, but then came back down a different way. In fact I had forgotten about my binoculars and only remembered that evening - when I was many many miles away.
The mountain was in a remote spot, and life was busy, and the binoculars weren't worth a special trip all that way back to get them, so I filed it as a "next time you are in the area" thing.
Well... that "next time" was over two years later. I did happen to be passing fairly close by, so I made a detour, found the very remote spot where the climb started, and I headed up.
My binoculars were still where I had left them - and in perfectly good shape! The case was sun bleached and starting to crack, but it had kept off the minimal rain that had fallen in my two year absence, and I guess no-one else had been that way, which was not really surprising.
I just love deserts.....
(and desserts)
Also just desserts.
D :)
What a marvelous story! I just love it. It’s like when people lose their house cat hundred of miles from home, and the cat finds its way home six months later. Wow. I think there’s a children’s story here, illustrated by the marvelous Meg of course!
What a wonderful piece, David, about a man's need to climb a mountain and what it means to you - how its vast expansiveness lifts the weight of the world from your shoulders.
"So as I rose on up the mountain through the day, feeling as a diver might in an ocean watching all those depths fall away below me - like a diver I too felt expanded, but it was my heart swelling instead, as all the weight of the world was lifted from me and the sight of the mountains filled my gaze, so eloquently, piercingly, utterly."
And what pictures to go with it! Then climbing the staircase to your true summit at the end of it all. Wonderful stuff - full of life and two passions - one for the mountains, the other for the woman to whom you always return!
Thankyou, dear Martin.
At times like this I am a romantic, and utterly beyond cure.
It may be by Irish Great Grandparents...
Best Wishes - Dave :)
What an extraordinary landscape, in words and pictures.
Hi Wendy. Yes - they are such beautiful, and strange, mountains. I was beside myself with delight, all day....
D :)
Stunning photography and poetic calls to find a truth. A thing of beauty really.
Thanks Dave and Meg. I do love these mixed media pieces. They go straight to the heart. As ever, richard
Thankyou my friend. Your "Longing" piece made me think of places I feel I belong - despite having no real connection with them. My travel writing is full of them.... and this day describes one. I really did not know where it was going when I started, and then it ended up where it did....
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I love how you can set out on a course and end up in all sorts of places. How it all emerges, the feelings and the moment, the revelation of something only partly seen.
C’est la vie, n’est pas?!!!
Held my breath for you the whole way through! And the joy of a painting! Thank you for sharing!
Thankyou, Sarah!
The real challenge, for all of us, is to see every day as an adventure - even the mundane days. They are all equally precious, and uncertain.
I hope your own day is full of marvels. A cloud, a flower, sunlight flickering on windows...
the eyes of someone you love.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Incredible photos and a perfect ending. My husband spent many months climbing in the Dolomites, I hope one day I can visit too.
Oh! I am jealous of your husband then!!
It is stupendously beautiful country.
This was not real climbing in any technical sense. It wasn't even a via ferrata. I didn't have the gear for that - having turned up entirely unplanned.
However, it was great scrambling and there were several places where a slip would be highly consequential - which is why they have the spikes and cables here and there on the route. So it felt steep enough to be fun, and to make you careful. I was more worried about someone dropping a rock on me, or a major change in the weather.
I would love to go back and do more, though I have an increasingly painful and limiting knee problem which may require a drastic remedy before I can attempt a route as big as this again. Even walking on a track is getting painful.
Happy Sunday, friend Kate!!!
D :)
Oh David, I hear you. I too am in pain just walking around my house at the moment. Memories of trips past and the garden and sunshine keeping me afloat. Damn knees, and bodies, if only they would do what our minds wanted. Take care, Kate
Good evening, David.
I'll admit to reading this over the weekend, but I wasn't ready to comment yet. I keep coming back to it in my mind. At first reading, I thought it mostly about the thrill of the climb, which I loved, as a person who similarly longs to go up and up and up. I was swept away by the photos and the descriptions. I felt it in my lungs and in my legs and in my heart. But really, I think it's a love story. That's the stone I keep thumbing in my pocket. The return to your person, her painting, your beautiful poetic rendition of how you beheld her, sitting there, waiting for you. (But also deeply engrossed in her own meaning-making.) It all makes me feel hopeful, and maybe a little shattered. But in a good way, I promise. In a way that reminds me that we need to find people who will take in the sight of us with reverence and gratitude. So, with a lump in my throat, I thank you for that gift. I remember what that feels like now. I just need to keep remembering.
Warmly,
Kendall
Hi Kendall
May I say... your thoughtful, sincere and deeply generous comment has just brought warmth and light to my Winter's day.
Thank you.
Yes, it is indeed a love story, even though I when I started writing I did not know it would become one. Of course, when I first met Meg I had no idea what would become of that meeting, either...
My profound love of wild places is reflected in much of what I write - probably most of what I write - but although I am not a terribly social person in the everyday sense, human connection is equally fundamental to me, and I have the massive and remarkable good fortune that M and I truly adore each other. We spend time in nature together when we can, but she also encourages and supports me to undertake some more "out there" trips. When I do that I usually have a wonderful time, but the best part is always the homecoming, and home is wherever M happens to be.
I am a happily incurable romantic but I try to express that without falling (too often) into cliche.
Also, and I am sure the same is true for you because I see it so strongly in your writing, the natural world gives me reverence for life itself, in all its forms, while also helping me to understand myself, perhaps, a little better.
The adventure aspect is fun, and I do delight in it, but I also understand that nature is not an amusement park. M has taught me to also sit still, and to observe, to revere life and to be more generous to others.
If you ever feel like a 10 minute trip to Australia, my Post "Splash Zone" is maybe the most intense distillation of all the above. https://davidkirkby.substack.com/p/splash-zone?r=471m47
Thank you again, Kendall. May your own day be bright with love.
Best Wishes - Dave
I do agree that Meg's piece is the summit, but that's probably because I would never do this climb, never to the point that there's nary a bit of romance in the thought of doing it. I would much rather dive down under the earth. I never have, but I think I might be quite good at caving. It is a lovely reflection, and I wish I could have made such a climb when I was young and able, although I think that even then I would have stayed in the cabin looking out the window, writing and drawing.
Hi Rebecca
Well.... both options are equally valid and productive. M has accompanied me on many high energy outdoor adventures, and loves the wilderness, but she has also taught me the value of just sitting still, looking, and really seeing.
Way back, I have done some good caving - with friends when I was much younger, and also on my own when I lived in the Northern Territory and had no caving buddies to go exploring with.
The underground world is fascinating... if a bit Freudian! :)
D
Exquisite pictures and fascinating journey!
Thankyou Stanley. It was a long way from my home country, but we are all citizens of the same planet and, I tend to think, we all need to regard anywhere on Earth as "home" and care about it as if it is....
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Those who seek the voice of mountains have so much wisdom to impart. Thank you for letting us ascend and descend with you!
Oh, friend Stephanie - thankyou.
I doubt my own wisdom, but mountains do teach me something - even though I feel some days like a slow learner....
Your company is welcome!
Best Wishes - Dave
I followed you all the way up and back from the safety of my armchair!
An excellent idea, friend Susan. Can be done with a glass of red wine!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Yes because I’m not the one who has to watch my footing! 😁
This is a wonderful piece of writing that properly captures the spirit of the casual climber. I’m not really a one for summits but I wanted to be there with you and your photos are fantastic. And thank you for giving me permission to take each incredible, frustrating, glorious, painful, euphoric, knackering step of a hike and turn them into something joyful for others to share.
Thanks for this, mate.
D
You are welcome my friend!
It was an enormously delightful day. I was fortunate that the weather cooperated - and my dodgy knee...
D :)
A wonderful experience. Your writing is amazing, with adventure and nature as a true force. I love it.
Thank you, jybyky. That is such a wonderful compliment. It is early morning here in Australia but you have already made my day!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thank you
The ridge of mountains in the one picture looks gilded with pure gold. You capture the feeling of a walk like no-one else... and you go places that stir the spirit (from the comfort of my deck chair). Thank you for doing the hard work, David. Meg--it's always better when you paint it.
Our pleasure, my friend!
I don't have anywhere quite as spectacular to go walking here, but the season has turned to Spring and the days are as warm and yellow and delicious as a sun ripened banana.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Thank you my friend! You just made my morning even brighter...
Very Best Wishes from Australia - Dave :)
Ohh thankyou so much!!