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WHAT'S MADE YOU? Alex Honnold


The coolest cucumber on the face of the planet. This unfl appable Yank who has taken soloing to higher, harder levels that we’ve ever seen before. Whether it’s free soloing at the limit or huge Patagonian linkups, he’s the man who can.


Adam Ondra


Ondra. Sharma. To be the mutant sport climber of your generation, you need to end in ‘a’. Ondra, the Czech wizard, has magiked himself up every signifi cant existing hard sports route in the world before retiring to a troll’s cave deep in Norway to hew his legacy out of holdless granite. Currently hovering at the F9b/+ level with at least another ten years of hard climbing ahead of him. What will the ‘b’ models be capable of?


Facebook


Never has one computer program been responsible for so much envy, inspiration and determination to out-do your mates. Facebook has ensnared 17 per cent of the world's population, meaning 1.23 billion people who can taunt you with their holiday snaps alongside thinly- disguised brand brainwashing, baby pics and bouncing kittens. Like?


Mobile phones


“We don’t bother taking two ropes now,” a leading alpinist whispered to us the other day, “we just take one and call for a chopper instead.” Sacrifi cing the spirit of the mountains at the altar of convenience or just keeping up with the times? You decide. But, extreme examples aside, mobile tech has changed our experiences in a fundamental way. You can blindly follow Google Maps on the Cairngorm Plateau until your battery runs out; you can call for help from half-way up a north face if an unexpected storm comes in; you could play it faster, looser, closer to the limit and then call for help if you need to bail. Unless you’re really off the beaten track, your world is now smaller.


Kings of convenience


We’ve all gone soft without noticing. Back in the 1930s, after the factory bell went at fi ve, men would get on their bikes in Manchester and cycle out to the Peak. Sleeping in caves, they’d spend the weekends climbing or walking, then cycle back early on Monday to get back


Brit girls get going


For years, British female-climbing role models – such as Fliss Butler, Airlie Anderson, Ruth Jenkins and Lucy Creamer – were thin on the ground and constantly outsmarted, on routes and in competitions, by the continental mafi a. But now a new generation of British women are taking the fi ght abroad – and winning. The legacy of powerhouses such as Mina Leslie-


P Katy Whittaker: giving grit a good kicking.


on the line. Now people wouldn’t do anything like that without a well fi lled-in sponsorship form.


Democratisation of the meritocracy


Thanks to social media and YouTube, everyone’s a marketing manager. The worth of sponsored climbers is now measured in hits not ticks. The most successful are the ones who spend less time on the fi ngerboard, and more trying to calculate just how much self-publicity is too much self-publicity.


The bl**dy weather


Weather it’s 1914 or 2014, one topic has obsessed British climbers and walkers: our climate. We all dream of perfect alpine days but our reality is damps days snatched in-between rain showers. It affects everything, from our clothes to our pessimism, makes planning impossible, regularly ruins our holidays and, yet, like all things mad and mercurial, we secretly love its capricious whims.


Selfi e love


Yes, I’m about to climb this route. I’ve just got to take a quick selfi e: I need to show what a great time I’m having. I’m really climbing well, actually, but I might get some personal coaching, it’d be great to get some pics of me with some famous climbers too. I’m here with my friends; I’m not in a club, I’ve got a busy life. Facebook me, I’ve got some great pics of me climbing. Does my face look fat?


Climate change


Whilst we fret over bolts in the mountains, warming alpine summers causes huge chunks of alpine rock faces to collapse and glaciers to shrink. Back home, the summer alpine season is in danger of extinction, super storms are smashing into our coastlines, stealing routes and re-routing footpaths, and Scotland either has a feast or famine of snow. What should we do, we ponder as we step on our third short-haul fl ight of the year? “Enjoy life while you can. Because, if you're lucky, it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan," says climate science maverick James Lovelock.


The Internet


Once the web escaped the grasp of geeks in labs, there was no turning back. Now every aspect of climbing and walking is clamped in its virtual grip – from logging routes and climbs, to pre-trip weather and conditions and sharing heroic photos and footage – and the outdoor world is splitting into two camps: those who constantly monitor everything and won’t leave the house unless it’s perfect and those who ignore everything and get on with it. Is the potent cocktail of the web, the weather, mobile phones and our creeping love of convenience dulling our sense of adventure? Answers on a tweet.


Words: Alex Messenger, Niall Grimes and Sarah Stirling. Thanks to Mick Ward and Graeme Alderson. What’s made you? Let us know @Team_BMC


58 | 70TH ANNIVERSARY | FOR BRITISH CLIMBING AND WALKING SINCE 1944


Wujastyk, Hazel Findlay, Katy Whittaker and Shauna Coxsey won’t just be their hard ticks today, but an even more psyched generation tomorrow. Watch out boys, you’re history.


Corrosion


Wild-eyed men chopping bolts make headlines, but time and chemical reactions have changed more routes than any angry activist ever could. Each year, rust takes another bite out of the unseen iceberg of iron hammered into British sea cliffs. What lies beneath? No one knows – until someone takes the plunge on to a rusty peg or bolt. With thousands of bolts also decaying in exotic places like Kalymnos and Thailand, this is a global problem.


PHOTO: ALEX MESSENGER.


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