DON’T FEAR THE REAPER - One Day as a Tiger - page 51

was at Leeds throughout this period, from 1969 to 1975. He edited the famous
Leeds Journal of 1973 and eventually became editor of both Mountain and
Climber magazines. [1]
When Alex arrived at the university, some excellent alpinists were also emerging
at Leeds. Brian Hall, Roger Baxter-Jones and John Stainforth had many hard
routes reported in Mountain magazine, like the Bonatti Pillar on the Dru and
many first British ascents. John Powell and Tim Rhodes arrived about the same
time as Alex.
The notoriety and success of the Leeds University club resulted in an extended
family of climbers from both Britain and the United States coming to visit, or to
meet us in the mountains. In Britain, our closest club association was with the
University of Cambridge, whose leading lights were Alan Rouse and Mick Geddes.
The Americans were mainly New Englanders from my original home. When I went
to Leeds to do post-graduate work in 1972, many friends came over to climb.
Among them were Roger Martin, John Bouchard, Henry Barber, Steve Arsenault,
Chuck Ziakowski and, later, Ed Webster, Andy Tuthill and Chris Elms.
Many of them had a real impact on both the British and European climbing
scenes. In 1974 Roger Martin made the second solo ascents of Point Five and Zero
Gully , a feat Alex repeated the same year. John Bouchard did a number of new
routes in the Alps. Henry Barber was sent to the UK by ex-pat Raul Ross to wind
up local climbers with his exceptional skills and clean ethics. The year before he
came, he had been nicknamed 'Hot Henry' for his phenomenal solo ascents and
on-sight leads in Yosemite. [2] He discovered a like-minded companion in John
Syrett. John's approach - climbing ground up and on sight - was a mirror image
of his own. Some other excellent climbers of the day, Pete Livesey and Ron Fawcett
among them, would occasionally inspect a new route from above and there were
whispers of pre-placed slings to make routes easier to protect and even chipped
holds.
None of us could match Syrett, Alan Manson or Pete Kitson on rock, but we ad-
opted our ethical stance from them. Any route done with a rest, or with a fall, was
not considered an ascent. Some credit could be gained by being lowered to the
ground, then pulling the ropes through before trying again. But it was still con-
sidered a flawed ascent and duly noted as such in our hand-written journal. This
arrived at the salad bar under Bernard's arm at lunchtime for members to record
their ascents and other antics.
There is no doubt that a clean and free style of climbing influenced Alex's ap-
proach, first in the Alps and then in the Himalaya. We were not the first to practise
this clean tradition, merely the keepers of the purist flame. The influence of the