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Rock Odyssey: Simon Carter's new book & slide show 28-Nov-2011 At 1:26:22 PM Mike Bee

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Back in 2008 I'd been toproping for a few years, done the lead course in the gym, but was really struggling to find a way to take the next step into trad climbing (and eventually into the mountains).
A quick google around told me that the book I needed was a classic titled "Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills". Given that it was first published in 1960, I had a small degree of skeptisism that the book would be exactly what I was after. Nonetheless, I duly tracked this book down, hoping that this would be my ticket into bigger goals.

Once I saw the cover photo, two things struck me.
One, my skeptisism was unfounded, this book was exactly what I wanted.
Two, I simply must take up mountaineering.

That classic photo of a climbing party on Bugaboo Spire, in the Bugagoos, Canada instantly galvanised me into action.

With two months I had a trad rack, within a year of that I was leading 17s on gear, and in just over a year from purchase, I'd booked in for a TMC with Alpine Guides.

The cover photo of Freedom of the Hills (7th ed) was my catalyst for every subsequent rock, alpine and ice climb I've done since.