Free Solo climbing

The holidays continue in a festive manner. It’s nice to have James at home, and it’s also pleasant to have a house full of young ones coming and going. Yesterday James and I went for a 10 km walk along the Fife Coastal Path from Kincardine to Torryburn. It was rainy in the west, but as Marjory says, “It’s always sunny in Fife even when it’s raining!” and by the time we started our walk it was indeed sunny with blue skies. At Kincardine we popped in to see Forrest in his shop; we said hello but he looked extremely busy so we didn’t linger. We skirted inland round the imposing landmark of Longannet Power Station before returning to the coast and continuing east. We found the village of Culross to be very pretty with old traditional buildings, and the final part of our walk was around the salt marshes of the Torry Bay Nature Reserve. We saw geese by the shore, as well as a buzzard and some curlews. It was an easy walk in glorious weather.
Later on we went to the GFT to see the documentary “Free Solo” with Ally, Cat and Davie. The cinema was packed. It was James’ idea to see it and I must admit that I thought it would be a bit boring. How wrong I was, it was fascinating. It’s about an amazing free climber called Alex Honnold as he prepares to attempt the first free solo ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Just in case any reader doesn’t know what that means, free climbers don’t use any ropes at all. It’s such an extreme and, sadly, usually very life shortening sport. I admire his skill but the fatal consequences for even the tiniest mistake seem too reckless for me. The side that he climbed was a sheer cliff and it was absolutely terrifying to watch even though we knew that he made it because we saw him being interviewed on the One Show last week! I don’t know how he does it; he was using the tiniest of cracks or dimples in the rock, and if he had lost his grip he would have fallen thousands of feet. Honnold is a very interesting and quite eccentric character; I’m pretty sure that he has ASD, in many ways very high functioning. I think that everyone in the cinema held their breath until he got to the top, and the whole audience applauded at the end.