Slewing to Reykjavik bearing 64 08 N & those rocks at the end of the world, where man is a vague dot with his soul feeling like this, yet a mans cage, remains a fragile splinter - Storm Force 11 Beaufort - 170ft collision trails, occasionally 12, becoming psychotic. In this place & 2007, I have every intention of taking the last few hard climbs by force if necessary- something that takes questionable attitude & serious weighing up should the gates refuse to open willingly. Grown men of sinew & sweat, soft children, mad wagons & rust veined sea going vessels alike, bleeding from the deck, have all been torn from the cliffs approaching this prehistoric epitaph to violence, & become inextricably bound within a fate of never being found again. Save for the odd tattered wreath welded into a high cavernous niche by decay, long since rejected by the ocean, or a few tiny algae affected wooden crosses, there are no signs toward the missing. Homes to this day remain graveless - memories sleep long & listless.

Here there are boulders, the size of great wagons, but you never boulder on the seabed, you scamper amongst its shadowed crevasses & slime, being careful not to tilt a precarious arrangement of 10,000 tons. Echoes of small stones clatter into the black gaping chasms below your feet & something huge grinds it's teeth as you gingerly add your weight to the sculpture. The boulders are the seas architecture & in a state of constant flux. Returning in brief respite of each circulating storm, the pathways are unrecognisable. Leviathan block your previous route, their shapes familiar over time, their positions sometimes 50 mtrs N, S or NW of where you negotiated them a few days ago with a full heart, setting off to engineer rusted stake inspection belays. It carries an unnerving agitation & excitment. New trawler buoys dragged in from the arctic waters are wedged with such force, 70ft up into fault lines you can use them as secure haul anchors. Hell, we abbed off one the other year. A crows foot sling lashed onto a chock that has no earthly business being there, just to see if we could. It held fast. You idle momentarily, but you move on, plodding through the debris massif like a drunk, occasionaly screamed at by Glaucuss Gull or Arctic Tern. You cross with swift caution, trying not to become involved in an erratic dance of wrestling an overwieght sack of climbing equipment back into balance & teeter skyward along the backbones of monsters, deeper into voids & back into daylight, eagre to gain height.

When you set off on your technical line for real, whatever that may be, redpointing horrible finger slopers, latching thumper jugs, fiddling in gear through the steepness, negotiating blank insane run-outs, or lacing up a new E1 or VDiff with vertical dentistry, salt spray on your lips...somebodies nerves have to be on the rope at sea-level, eye to eye with aggresive patrolling doubt. They are morally obliged to stay put as you climb away from a stance you fidgeted nervously on moments before, now inching up great black volcanic incisors to face your own trial. If the loneliest man in the world buckles & runs, or gets dragged off, both of your fates are sealed. You learn to place any thoughts of a huge approaching swell or storm at the back of your thoughts. Should you be unable to shake the ominous creep, you climb against the nature of this place plagued with a bad feeling, looking over your shoulder this way & that, ears pricked, trying to pinpoint every subsonic rumble. Needless to say it is a serious venue & one which will without care, should you ignore it's growl & changing temperament, swiflty submerge your retreat in an insurmountable depth of fierce Gyre & leave you bivvying alone on storm washed pyramidical summits. You'll wish you had hammered in a deep scaffold pole while the wind & heaving spray claw relentless at the thin fabric you hide behind, making it vibrate frantically; your only respite from the horrifying blackness, a dimming l.e.d, fumbled in numb fingers, to shine at a marker inches away, & allay the insistant fear that you are gradually sliding off. I've survived it before & I've survived worse - I will again, but it changes your soul. Between a chasm of an E8/9, a couple of E7s & four E6's there is still more to complete - all stilled, unfailing & staring straight back.

The lines themselves, despite flowing with moments of intense crux climbing, hellish exposure & a few freakish runouts, that turn your stomach as much as they give you a mild sense of nirvana, hide possible multiple sinister scenarios in the event of a major fall. You don't die of a broken leg these days yet here, it could become a fast & easy reality. Days upon weeks of caliber testing cliff work often pass without a single soul venturing into the vicinity. Man is a tiny silly yet often tenacious creature, a spiders web going up against jagged stone, dancing triumphant above conquered lines that seem a near absurdity when he reflects beyond egos achievement & peers back down into the scale of the abyss. It has a raw beauty, this remote pin dot on the planet rejoicing in intimidation. Yet here they are, these hard lines, & here they remain, red-hot...serious undertakings - all the while, coldly unrepeated adventures, while far away hords clammer for inches of rock, & huddled together, tell tales of bravery on E10s the length of an average house ladder; & leaning back in wine bars, they recite great yarns of how they once got dirt on their down jackets at Stanage...Unless of course your name is Dave Birkett & you use yours to wipe your feet on. Each to their own I guess, but climbing into the edge of your achievable soul quota is about total commitment to the possibility of getting into an irretrievable position...& escaping it by pushing the boundaries of self definition, ergo, it's not about breaking the habit - but inforcing it. That's the life, the hit. So what becomes of adventure when inches of over populated dirt become highway logs for migrating ants, when it is ruled by commitees, pre-packaged, insured, freed of risk, sterilized into trends, sign-posted, marketed, top-roped & sold on as wilderness...