The other valley

Drove from Sheffield to Chamonix yesterday. I spend a lot of time driving now, alone in my smelly diesel van, earphones rammed in to drown out the noise. This time I’m heading to climb… ish.

I haven’t done the Alps drive solo for a while. Around hour six it hit me — I still had the same distance left as Sheffield to Inverness. A journey I’ve grown to dread. Mind-numbing. Endless. I finally understand why people fly. Only reason I didn’t is I had too much kit. Old-school suffering. Like alpine climbing, you forget the misery and sign up again.

I’m in Cham for three weeks. Plan is to finish the first draft of the book and solo a route. The book might be a ruse to calm my editor — who, if he reads this, will be tearing his hair out. But anyone who’s been to the Alps knows there’s plenty of downtime. So maybe the route won’t happen, but the book will.

Then again, maybe that’s the double bluff. Pretend you don’t care about climbing and the mountain might offer a window.

What route? Secret. Mainly because I might not do it. If I get on it, will I tweet about it? Probably not. Maybe a photo or two to keep people guessing.

If I try it, I’ll be on the face a long time. I’ve printed chapters to edit, so don’t worry, John. It’s not a big deal. We live in the age of speed, but I don’t.

I prefer the Kama Sutra approach: whatever you’re doing, do it at half the speed.

Seems to work for climbing. Might work for writing too.