CLIMBING LIFE LIVING THE DREAM? Climb now; work later is DMM’s famous motto. But what happens when a sticker slogan becomes your career plan? Sarah Stirling talks to seven sponsored stars to discover the graft behind the glamour. limbing’s bohemian forefathers were young at a particularly boring time: after World War II had crushed the life out of everyone, but before the 60s started swinging. Before this, climbing was something mountaineers who had earned their beards did for training; now an adventurous few developed it into a way of life. In that hedonistic epoch before the apple of commercialism had been bitten, most climbers knew each other, and tribes of them began coagulating around crags. It was inevitable the tantalising question would spark: Chow can we do this all the time, and never have to work? In the beginning, the answer was simple: live rough, live now. As Gwen Moffat wrote: “I was a typical product of the war: impressionable and frustrated.” Then she meets a Greek god in bell-bottoms, hard and golden at the foot of Cadair Idris, who opens up “a free and splendid world of mountain climbing”, populated by “supermen and lovely, casual girls subject to no ordinary rules.” Meanwhile the Golden Age of Yosemite is beautifully depicted in the film Valley Uprising, in which Yvon Chouinard describes buying damaged cat food tins for the climbers living rough at Camp Four to eat: “None of us expected to ever have a job. We were going to be hobos basically. And we were going to climb forever and that was the extent of it.” Human nature meant things wouldn’t stay simple, of course, and that Yosemite era ended with the Peter Pans wanting to grow up. In the 60s, Yvon Chouinard and several of his contemporaries turned their skilful hands and risk-taking minds to gear manufacture, setting up companies like Black Diamond and Royal Robbins. Even Gwen Moffat stopped skipping up climbs barefoot and became the first female British mountain guide. Around this time, Chris Bonington was busy pioneering the ‘professional climber’ lifestyle we know today, too – earning money from sponsorship, writing and talking about his climbing. “I didn’t think it was possible to make a living from climbing at first,” says NICK BULLOCK COLLECTION. R Nick Bullock loving living the dream. PHOTO: 30 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN. NICK BULLOCK Nick Bullock is a prolific hard climber who has bagged many new routes across every discipline from Welsh trad to Scottish mixed, and alpine to expedition climbing. y life is about testing myself, pursuing freedom and attempting to be happy. Although I make a living from climbing and then writing Mor talking about it, I wouldn’t call myself a ‘professional climber’ because to me that word connects to regulation and conformism. I battle against the trap of being paid for what I do constantly. Time is the most valuable possession I have, and my only real pay-master. Freedom to pursue a passion is the greatest wage. Worst day scenario? I don’t have one. I have no fixed abode, so sometimes use club huts, and when I want peace and quiet to write this can be difficult, but it’s a minor niggle. At the end of the day I am not living in poverty or wondering if I will be bombed in the night. Pension plan? I don’t really have one, but the way things are going, I’m not sure anyone who has paid into one in Britain will have one, either. I came to climbing after working almost full-time for 20 years, so I had already paid off the mortgage on my terrace house. I rent it out, which provides income and something of a security blanket for the future. As well as making money from writing, I do some work for my sponsors – generally in the form of giving lectures. They provide me with all the kit I need, and two of them also pay me a small retainer. This modest income combined with paying no rent allows me to live exceptionally comfortably because I don’t feel a need to buy things, unless I really need them. I’m not smug about this: I’m genuinely concerned for people who have slaved away only to be let down in their old age. It really scares me to think I could have gone on working hard doing something I did not enjoy for a large part of my life only to realise that I had worked for a deception. If I had remained a PE Instructor in the prison, I probably wouldn’t have had the motivation, time or fitness to go from one type of climb to the next – Scottish mixed to trad, sport to alpine, Greater Ranges to ice – in short time periods as I do now. I know that not everyone can follow their passions – that many in the world can only hope for the next meal – but if you can, find yours and follow it, be it needle-craft or brain-surgery, and then try hard to not worry too much, or be embarrassed about failure, it’s trying and being content that’s the most important. Whatever you do, whatever path, as they say, you take, or whatever job you have to undertake, if you are honest and focus on compassion and understanding, then your life and the people in it will be happier. Nick Bullock is sponsored by Mountain Equipment, Boreal and DMM. “TIME IS THE MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION I HAVE, AND MY ONLY REAL PAY-MASTER.” SUMMIT#83 | AUTUMN 2016 | 31 CLIMBING LIFE Chris, who spent ten years in the army. Then, in 1961, he was intruding on your every route, meal and thought. All this invited on a civilian expedition to Nuptse. “The army wouldn’t forces wannabees to commit to a move away from a regular let me go,” he told me, “so I resigned.” Afterwards, he got a career long before they know if they will actually reach the top. job with Unilever, and was then invited on another expedition. Most sponsored climbers struggle with that rather dashing “Uni-lever wouldn’t let me go,” he continues, “so I resigned.” title, anyway, because it implies that they actually make a After this, Chris began scratching a tenner-a-time lecturing at BONINGTON COLLECTION. living from it. As Steve McClure confesses: “99% of climbers ladies luncheons. When the Telegraph asked him to photograph get about as much free stuff as they could buy with a week’s the first British expedition to climb the Eiger’s North Wall, it PHOTO: wages stacking shelves at a corner shop.” There just isn’t the was a chance foot-in-the-door to photo-journalism. In those money in climbing that there is in football, skiing or surfing, techno-dark ages, he would walk a mile to the nearest phone, yet, so not everyone can muscle in and become a national reverse the charges, and dictate his climbing stories to the press. R Chris Bonington: treasure like Bonners, Sharma or Ondra. After successfully leading an expedition to climb the south- the original pro So how do sponsored heroes achieve their dreams, if they’re west of Everest, Chris began starring in TV adverts – who can climber. not paid to climb full-time, and yet can’t afford the time forget this line: “We boiled up snow and ice to make hot, required to hold down a proper job, either? strong Bovril to thaw ourselves out. How that beefy taste Climbing full-time is harder now than it was 20 years ago, cheered us” – and became one of the world’s first sponsored when sponsorship was “available direct from the dole office,” climbers, signed to Berghaus – a two-man band based out quips Steve. “Though that did require tolerance for 10p beans of a Newcastle shop. Several decades later, he’s now a non- and sleeping in a woodshed.” These days the best way to reach executive chairman of a global brand. full-time status is to buy a van and laptop, then “leave your The number of ‘sponsored climbers’ gleaming from brands’ job prospects in the gutter,” he laughs. adverts – dangling confidently from huge glorious cliffs while the His words call to mind a slack and carefree life, yet the truth paparazzi snap away admiringly – has multiplied exponentially is far from it. “Steve works like a dog!” says his contemporary, since then. However, behind the scenes lies a precarious Lucy Creamer. As well as holding onto his position at the top paradox: Chris would never have climbed Everest unless he’d of British sport climbing, Steve is a routesetter, coach, lecturer, committed to this risky climber’s lifestyle, yet it wasn’t until he’d landlord, staff trainer, team manager, writer and a father. “I climbed that mountain that his career took off. love cramming stuff in!” explains Steve, who often travels by In order to attract sponsorship, you need to be significantly train to fit in an extra admin-sesh. pushing the cutting-edge of climbing. Achieving this is a He’s not the only one. Behind today’s range of sponsored full-time job in itself – especially now that you also need to heroes lie an inventive range of side jobs. They are testament be a self-marketing whiz with a ready-made fan-base already to their ingenuity and determination, and reflecting on their PGet set with Emma Twyford. EMMA TWYFORD One of Britain’s very best female climbers, Emma has flashed both E7 and F8a, head- pointed E9 and redpointed F8b+/c.