ClimbHigh?
I’ve got a bit of a thing about climbing. And – here I am trying to draw out some kind of business analogy from my selfish obsession. After a half century of rock, ice, Munro, alpine and a couple of expedition trips I am still trying to hang on to my get up and go. (Unsuccessfully as it turned out on one particular winter’s day in March! A day I was very lucky to be able to walk away from.)
Not much to do with the business of business though is it?
I beg to disagree.
Business is a challenge I struggle with. To me it is a tough game that I am not naturally suited to. Before I left teaching my attitude to sales and marketing was more than a little bit negative, so I have had to cross right over to the “dark side” 😥
And I discovered that it wasn’t actually that dark. I can safely say, out of all the hundreds of people I’ve met this side of the fence, there’s very little darkness. There is instead a huge willingness to help. Much like the large majority of people we meet in daily life. But… I still find business a difficult thing to do well.
Getting back to my other obsession.
Despite the onward march of arthritis and old age weight gain I still twitch; to climb up stupid pieces of rock. And it it is a stupid obsession – until you learn to appreciate the textures of the different rock types and getting into some kind of flow of movement. Many people think climbing is about brawn but in reality while a bit of muscle power and stupidly adapted tendons helps, it’s much more about unlocking a puzzle – a kinaesthetic puzzle.
Like Sunday. My mate Rob could only manage an afternoon. Earlier in the week we’d been to the South Buttress of Castle Rock to just get some easy mileage in as he recovers from a recent knee operation. I had mentioned going over to the North Buttress of the crag to re-climb a route called Overhanging Bastion. A slightly over-stated name – but it is fairly steep in places.
About 6 years ago an 80 foot high 40 foot wide and uncomfortably thick section of the cliff had collapsed after at least 2 years of gradual tipping outwards. Some of the local guys had spotted a widening rift at the top of the crag and alerted the climbing community to the danger. When the collapse came – in 2018 – it obliterated several climbs completely and destroyed the top section of this climb. Thankfully, the UU offices a couple of hundred metres away from the base of the crag were unscathed.
As the loose rocks have stabilised I’ve had a growing itch to reclimb the route again. So yesterday I had to put my money where my mouth was and go have a look. The climb is defined by a prominent slanting ramp high (quite obvious and eye catching in the photo) which ends at the edge of the rockfall zone, but about 20m below the top of the crag.
As it turned out – that wasn’t the challenge. Rob tackled the first 2 pitches and did them both in one go. My confidence was knocked when I found the 2nd quite tricky to follow. It was down to me to access the ramp and deal with the well documented, potentially unstable flakes that led to the easy last section.
Well That Didn’t Turn Out The Way I Expected!
Entry to the ramp stopped me in my tracks for a good half an hour. It’s a set of moves I’ve done several times in the past and now it seemed as if it was a completely new problem to unlock. Does this sound familiar from business life? I had some protection about 3 or 4m below me so a fall wouldn’t have been too serious: though there was a good chance of hitting a ledge if I pinged off the “wrong” way!
I just couldn’t work out a sequence for my stumpy little legs and arms, to get to a small but positive handhold about another couple of metres higher. How often have nerves kicked in while you’ve contemplated making a big change in strategy or taking the plunge into something new?
In the slab, I had noticed that there was a pocket, quite small – I’d tested it to see if it would do as a finger hold for balance, but I’m to old for pulling on monos! I grabbed a nut – a size 1 wallnut – because it occurred to me I might be able to get a piece of protection into this tiny little pocket. Placed flat, it locked into the bottom of the pocket and I was able to trust that there was a sufficient chance it would hold me if I did cock-up the move. Risk assessment on the hoof! As I clipped in the quickdraw to my rope, I had to adjust my specs to see clearly and a slightly flatter bump in the ramp came into focus.
I could see that if I got my right foot onto that bump… and if I could maintain balance I’d just be able to stretch to the handhold I’d spotted. I stepped up onto a couple of small footholds that I’d tested earlier and then it was “shit or bust”.
It was quite definitely the most nervous entrance into the ramp I’d made in the 40 years since I first climbed that route. Handhold grasped and a couple of balancy moves saw me stood on my previous handholds – all that angst for 2m of progress. But it was progress and the ramp was unlocked once more.
A bit more gear for protection and it was a nice “scampery” set of moves to where the ramp blanked out and the rust brown scar of the rockfall came into view. Before the rockfall, there were some creaky flakes that let you swing round the bulge that blocked the way onto some good footholds, on a slightly overhanging section of the cliff, with 60m of fresh air between my heels and the scree. Now. there was a rounded edge and a loose chunk of stone stuck fairly “securely” in a crack. Not knowing what was round the corner I swung round with trepidation.
Just above were a collection of great big rock flakes that hadn’t quite been dislodged and which were the “way on”. Unfortunately, there was also a half-fridge-sized boulder seemingly planted in the mud of a sloping ledge – right where I needed something to grab. I didn’t fancy pulling on that!
Some nervously hilarious wiggling and abuse of aging joints, saw me get hold of the big flakes above it and only having to step on the boulder when my ropes were pulled high enough not to be cut if it did start to fall off the ledge. More scampering saw me up and onto the big ledge where the 3rd belay was.
I quickly found a couple of anchors. One was a “Friend” in a crack that separated the solid cliff I was on from the still dangerous blocks that had been loosened but left behind in the collapse. I wasn’t happy to trust our lives to that: but I soon found a real solid bomber of an anchor in the solid ground.
And relax. You know that feeling don’t you… when something slightly risky or worrying has gone through OK… even with your feet flat on the office floor!
Rob made short work of following me up the ramp and through the “flakes of dingly doom” and set off up to the top to finish the climb. A beautiful day (at last), a minor ambition, no midges and a great climbing partner.
Descent was a conundrum now. The normal descent from yesteryear was down a scrambling gully but it takes you directly under the remnants of the loosened “hanging death” that our route just skirted (In the picture above you can see the detached block that is poised). We looked for an abseil point further back along the cliff but it seemed too dodgy a scramble to get down to that particular tree. So it was the long march – off round the end of the north buttress and back along under the more stable cliffs.
Sometimes you just have to accept the challenge of an idea and see where it takes you. Even on something as well documented as a rock climb the problems are different every time you come back to the place. You never quite know how you are going to unpick the puzzle this time round. And you never quite know how the landscape may have changed! Much like business.
So why ClimbHigh? Because getting your business high in searches – not just for one plum keyword – is a challenge. And although climbing is just climbing at one level, every square metre of stone is a different challenge, a subtly different problem to solve. The very same is true for you; trying to gain visibility on the rockface of your marketplace.
Yes it’s to do with keywords and copy, backlinks and brand. But, depending on who your audience is, what combination of products and services you offer and how competitive your marketplace is; the moves to get you to the top are going to be subtly different every time you tackle a marketing challenge.
#itsgreattobeontop
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