Sunday 24th August 2008: Smell fear and still do it

Nothing to do with the Leslie Neilsen movie and everything to do with climbing up the walls in the Ice Factor at Kinlochleven with my nephew and his wife.
After I had abseiled down Ardnamurchan Lighthouse and text everyone to tell them of my success, my nephew offered to take me up the affectionately known Inn Pinn – the Inaccessible Pinnacle munro on the Cullin Ridge in Skye. Very very scary stuff for me. It’s the only Munro that involves climbing: on many others you need to scramble, the Inn Pinn involves dangling on ropes.
Now, I really want to do it, but just incase I froze with fear 3000 ft up, I suggested we have a practice nearer sea level. Then David and Jill could see what they were taking on! So we went to the climbing wall. My nephew is a climbing instructor and certainly knows his topic. I did a number of different routs on the wall – one up on to a ledge which I then had to abseil off – as I will on the Inn Pinn.
I really could smell the fear on my body. Scientists among us may dispute this so I should say more correctly that my response to fear included the release of certain odoriferous substances!