Alastair Borthwick

"The strange, other worldly, Alice in Wonderland feeling never quite left me at the difficult places; but it diminished as the day passed, and by the time we had reached the north peak John and I were …"

"They crawled like flies over the face of the Cobbler; and it was not too fanciful to imagine that the mountain might sigh in its sleep, shake a rocky paw free of the heather blanket which surrounded i…"

"The ground we had covered was easy; but we did not know that, for we had not yet learned that a vast amount of space below one is not of itself a difficulty, and that the difficulty in rock climbing v…"

"A precipice, seen by a person who has never had to climb one, is a sadly misunderstood part of the landscape. It is written off, in the mind of the beholder, as so much light and shade set at an angle…"

"The scale is so vast and so far beyond his comprehension that the conventional signs of the cliff mean as little as those on the map. Therefore, if he should think of rock climbing at all, it is as a …"

"Climbing to my mind finds its chief justification as an antidote for modern city life. One cannot sweat and worry simultaneously. The mountain resolves itself into a series of simple problems, unconfu…"

"In time the handhold gave way to another handhold, and another, and another. A pair of boots appeared level with my face. I pulled myself over the edge and sat panting. Murdo smiled at me, and automat…"

"The tent door faced the summit. The three pinnacles were gigantic fingers, black against the sunset. Nothing stirred. Arrochar and all its works were out of sight below the skyline, and there was sile…"