Just been watching the women's world climbing championship held in Germany.
The climbing wall is an artificial construct with different hand and foot holds placed up this overhanging route. There are carabiner clips to clip the rope onto to support the climber if and when they bail off.
The women are all young, long limbed lightweights who's strength is clearly prodigious as they swing up from hold to hold, all their weight carried on the arms with the extra strain purchased through the legs which seek to balance the torso as the climber moves upward from left and right searching for finger and toe holds For what is this ultimate stretch of the human frame defying gravity and performing what appears to be the impossible. The muscular strength and the tension in the arms is palpable as they inch further towards the top of the climb. Lactic acid builds up under the strain as they hang their body weight on a single finger swinging in the breeze like monkeys in a tree.
The concentration is etched in their faces with the most difficult move right at the top. Only two girls have made it this far, the world champion from Slovakia and her young challenger from Austria. Hanging by one arm from a sloping hold they have to launch themselves on aching, tired arms across a gap to the final hold, and if wasn't enough they also have to compete against against the clock.
The teenager won, often the bridesmaid, this time she beat the champion to the roar of a partisan crowd.
The competition is sanitised by being indoors and safety conscious. These climbers are probably more at home on the vertical face of an alpine pillar, soloing the assent with no protection other than their own fierce confidence in their ability to succeed.
This is the rare world of ultra climber who's mindset is so different to the ordinary person that they might belong to different planets. It's all in the mind they say and particularly so in this aspect of the old perennial, 'risk and exposure', something no ordinary person would ever contemplate but so refreshingly at variance with our risk assessed, health and safety, litigious culture. Perhaps there is hope for us yet.
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