Advice for someone completely new/clueless

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Trevers89

 
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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by Trevers89 » Thu Dec 15, 2011 10:31 pm

Hey Will

I feel I ought to give you my advice and experience because not too long ago I was in the same position as you. I'm 22 and graduated from Leeds in the summer. For years I'd been longing for some real adventure, and had always been drawn to mountains, but felt it was too late and that somehow you had to have been brought up as a mountaineer to have any chance of getting up a mountain. Then I realised that my housemate in my final year of uni was pretty adventurous too. He approached me with the idea of walking from Munich to Venice across the Alps in the summer. My first thought was that he must be mad, my second was that if he went, I wanted to go too and with no clear plan, I bought flights that evening.

A few months later, I found myself walking into the mountains with a heavy pack full of equipment and far too many clothes, no experience and no physical training and a very detailed route. Tell the truth I was pretty scared, but I went and did it anyway. There were times when I was extremely bored, or on the verge of turning my back and walking away (I nearly caught a train to Innsbruck). It was physically exhausting and often uncomfortable and dangerous, but the views and the elation and the challenges we overcame and experiences are priceless. When I returned home to England, I found myself getting bored and restless so a few months later I dragged a bunch of friends to Snowdonia and did some fun routes. I've just started indoor rockclimbing and next year hope to get out onto some more mountains (Scotland or Europe) and do some intrepid routes, then if I can afford it, a winter mountaineering course in Scotland

Clearly becoming a rounded mountaineer requires the accumulation of skills and experience which doesn't come overnight, and I am hoping to build this up over the next few years. But as I said, I went off with no training at all and if you can read a map, use your common sense and more importantly really want to do it, there's no reason you can't. Ask around your friends and you might be surprised, there's lots of people who feel the same as you but need a bit of a push.

North Wales is a great place to get hands on (and I mean hands), although Cumbria might be more accessible from Knaresborough. The British mountains might be lower than in Europe but they still offer breath-taking views and real mountaineering challenges for many different levels of experience.

Message me if you want to know any more :)



lcarreau wrote:Don't make excuses like I did in my life.

Don't get married. Don't even think about getting tied down. Do something for yourself, and you'll be patting yourself on the back for it later.

:wink:


Also, that's excellent advice

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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by willb » Fri Dec 16, 2011 7:17 pm

Hi there! Sorry I haven't been here in a while. However, shortly after posting here for the first time I joined a hiking club which was going to snowdon. This was quite a large step for me, joining a group of people I've never met to go hiking, which id never done before was quite scary. So i bought all the gear, worried it was a waste. We got to snowdonia and the first day we were there i went with the easy group. Easy my arse! within about 15 minutes of walking up a mountain next to snowdon, i was exhausted wondering what the hell i was doing there. We finally neared the top and i got a sudden burst of energy, eager to get to the top. I got up there, sat down and had a sandwich. It was awesome! the views were incredible and i was so pleased id made it up there.

We did snowdon the next day, which compared to the previous climb was easy. But i loved it, being way up there in the clouds. I want to do more, but I'm low on cash, with no job. Transport is also a big problem. I want to do more, but I'm finding it hard to motivate myself, I've slipped back into my unhealthy lifestyle, sitting around all day doing nothing. I am job hunting but its really tough at the moment.

I have asked around my mates, but most of them are more interested in blowing thousands on a holiday to Ibiza again and drinking themselves to death.

Thanks for the post mate, hope to hear more from you!

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Trevers89

 
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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by Trevers89 » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:08 pm

willb wrote:Hi there! Sorry I haven't been here in a while. However, shortly after posting here for the first time I joined a hiking club which was going to snowdon. This was quite a large step for me, joining a group of people I've never met to go hiking, which id never done before was quite scary. So i bought all the gear, worried it was a waste. We got to snowdonia and the first day we were there i went with the easy group. Easy my arse! within about 15 minutes of walking up a mountain next to snowdon, i was exhausted wondering what the hell i was doing there. We finally neared the top and i got a sudden burst of energy, eager to get to the top. I got up there, sat down and had a sandwich. It was awesome! the views were incredible and i was so pleased id made it up there.

We did snowdon the next day, which compared to the previous climb was easy. But i loved it, being way up there in the clouds. I want to do more, but I'm low on cash, with no job. Transport is also a big problem. I want to do more, but I'm finding it hard to motivate myself, I've slipped back into my unhealthy lifestyle, sitting around all day doing nothing. I am job hunting but its really tough at the moment.

I have asked around my mates, but most of them are more interested in blowing thousands on a holiday to Ibiza again and drinking themselves to death.

Thanks for the post mate, hope to hear more from you!


Good work putting yourself out there! I know how being a student can be tough at the moment, but now that you've got a bit of gear it's not too expensive to go back to Wales, or the Lakes or Scotland. The mountains will still be there next year. As for more specialist kit, harder routes and higher mountains, remember it's a long term investment

Also, maybe get some new friends :P (Or at least try kicking them out of their comfort zones)

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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by willb » Fri Dec 16, 2011 11:13 pm

Cheers man :) I'm no longer a student, I quit that about a month ago and I'm not looking back, utter waste of time. I'll try get some of my mates involved, I do have a mate at Bangor Uni who is into outdoors stuff, perhaps we'll be able to persuade the others together :)

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Ben Beckerich

 
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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by Ben Beckerich » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:29 am

20? Just quit school? Feeling lost and don't know what to do?

I have a suggestion... It's along the lines of what I wished I'd done when I was younger, instead of get my girlfriend pregnant and have to start REAL LIFE early. I think you should sell all your crap- clothes, toys, video games, computer, whatever you have.. and try to find working transport to the USA. If you give it some effort, you might find a ship needing hands bound for the US.

Once you get here, buy climbing gear and the cheapest POS fuel economic car you can find... $500 will get you a pretty decent early 90s Civic or similar. Get a Haines or Chilton repair manual, and a $10 socket set from Walmart. Buy used climbing gear off http://www.mountainproject.com, and fill the trunk with it. Start climbing... sleep in/out of your car. Wash at bus stations or in bodies of publicly owned water. A sponge bath from a pot of hot water will get you perfectly clean "enough" for weeks between bus stations.

Use public library computers to find odd labor gigs for cash on craigslist. Dirt-bagging it, you can live on $100 a week, if need be... and you can make $100 in one 10-hour shift moving dirt or packing lumber. These odd jobs will also help keep you strong for climbing, and vice versa.

Climb... climb... climb. Anything and everything... solo most of the time, partner up when chance joins you with other climbers... but climb, climb climb. Alpine, rock, ice. Humble yourself to the wind and keep a journal.

Go west, young man!
where am i going... and why am i in this handbasket?

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Trevers89

 
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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by Trevers89 » Thu Jan 19, 2012 11:47 am

Ben B. wrote:20? Just quit school? Feeling lost and don't know what to do?

I have a suggestion... It's along the lines of what I wished I'd done when I was younger, instead of get my girlfriend pregnant and have to start REAL LIFE early. I think you should sell all your crap- clothes, toys, video games, computer, whatever you have.. and try to find working transport to the USA. If you give it some effort, you might find a ship needing hands bound for the US.

Once you get here, buy climbing gear and the cheapest POS fuel economic car you can find... $500 will get you a pretty decent early 90s Civic or similar. Get a Haines or Chilton repair manual, and a $10 socket set from Walmart. Buy used climbing gear off http://www.mountainproject.com, and fill the trunk with it. Start climbing... sleep in/out of your car. Wash at bus stations or in bodies of publicly owned water. A sponge bath from a pot of hot water will get you perfectly clean "enough" for weeks between bus stations.

Use public library computers to find odd labor gigs for cash on craigslist. Dirt-bagging it, you can live on $100 a week, if need be... and you can make $100 in one 10-hour shift moving dirt or packing lumber. These odd jobs will also help keep you strong for climbing, and vice versa.

Climb... climb... climb. Anything and everything... solo most of the time, partner up when chance joins you with other climbers... but climb, climb climb. Alpine, rock, ice. Humble yourself to the wind and keep a journal.

Go west, young man!


I don't see how anything could possibly go wrong with this plan :lol:

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Ben Beckerich

 
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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by Ben Beckerich » Fri Jan 20, 2012 3:28 am

Trevers89 wrote:
I don't see how anything could possibly go wrong with this plan :lol:


it's bomber. ;-)
where am i going... and why am i in this handbasket?

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Trevers89

 
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Re: Advice for someone completely new/clueless

by Trevers89 » Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:53 pm

Ben B. wrote:
Trevers89 wrote:
I don't see how anything could possibly go wrong with this plan :lol:


it's bomber. ;-)


Quite. But I definitely see the allure to it. I was entertaining some similar fantasies of heading off into Europe with all my gear, kicking around Austria or Bavaria, trying to find work and shelter on alpine farms and improving my German. But that was then and now I've landed myself a job in London which should have some security so I'll make do with regular weekend trips to Wales and the occasional longer trip to Scotland or Europe :)

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