“It wasn’t until I turned 25 that I received my diagnoses of everything that’s going on. It’s been with me all my life, as far back as I can remember. It’s just the way I’m built, I have to live with it, so I try my best, in whatever way I can.” Gerard West is…
Climbing for people with disabilities
If ever there was a sport that seems inaccessible to anyone with disabilities it is climbing. It takes place on remote hillsides or overhanging walls, it requires full commitment and no mistakes, you need all your facilities intact. You can’t imagine a blind man walking to the base of a wall with his guide dog –…
A Woman’s Place is on the Wall
If you ask people to imagine a climber, they’ll probably visualize someone who is thin, strong, young – and almost certainly male. A young man, biceps bulging, doing a series of pull-ups with his feet swinging free below him. In fact, the blazing new talent who on track to become the world’s hardest climber is…
Climb Every Mountain
Welcome to the first of a 5-part blog series about the many benefits of climbing and why you – yes, you! whoever you are – should try it. And I am talking about the kind of climbing that involves hanging from vertical walls by your fingertips, not about hiking up mountains. (Although you should try…