Keith Bradbury, who is perhaps best known for his work on films 85 Days in Font and Between The Trees, is back in the climbing game after a long break.  This also means he’s back in the blogging game, and he just got done writing a pretty fascinating series of blog posts about his efforts to repeat the well-known Grampians V13, Ammagamma.

The catch?  Bradbury, who had previously climbed V13 some years back, was coming off a long break from climbing and had only climbed as hard as V7 before starting to project Ammagamma.  I won’t spoil the end except to share this bit from his unsuccessful 4th session on the problem.  Sound like anything you might do?

Here I was on my honeymoon and I was 100% focused on a boulder problem. I told Emily that I didn’t think I could leave without climbing Ammagamma. I told her I’d change my flight to NZ so that I could stay in the Grampians another week to keep on trying. What was I really saying? She told me that I just needed 1 good go, that I was going to do it this session.

How could I reconcile my own selfish pursuit with the fact that I was here with my wife? I didn’t know if I really would stay. I’d said it to gauge a reaction… but just saying it had made me ask bigger and deeper questions.

Check out the 5 part series by clicking the links below:

 Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5