Stress management
I’ve just come back from shopping at Tesco’s, and I don’t know about you but I found it stressful! Shopping I ask you, stressful, good grief what is the world coming to. I’m at an age now where I’m at a higher risk of this virus being a one to miss, still the percentages of getting through it are very good but I’m taking no risks. A year ago I took this photo on my way down from Hart Crag, the mountain behind the rowan tree, obscured by clag. I had approached the mountain from Deepdale, deciding when I was in the hanging valley below Greenhow End, not to go up the step, a scramble up the crag to the summit plateau, a climb I had good experience of. I had weighed up the risk, it looked like bad weather on top with enough snow on the rocks to give it an edge, my balance is not what it was and I was solo. So I decided on an easier route, to head for the col between Dove Crag and Hart Crag and on to the summit, although I still felt the need to put my crampons on nearing the top. On the top it was a whiteout and I careful noted my route to the summit cairn. I was to follow it again on the way down as I intended to descend by Hartsop above How. The point of this story is that I knew what I was doing from many years in the mountains, understood my diminishing abilities in this terrain and managed my survival accordingly. However this virus is something different, I have no experience of this type of situation, don’t understand what we are dealing with, and relying on the advice of a government/leader (which I’m following to the letter) who I usually passionately disagree with. So outside of my enforced cocoon going shopping was very stressful. But there is always a bright side, during that hour I focused on the task in hand and anxiety for my far away children took a temporary backseat, I was in the same zone a year ago on that mountain.
Stress management
I’ve just come back from shopping at Tesco’s, and I don’t know about you but I found it stressful! Shopping I ask you, stressful, good grief what is the world coming to. I’m at an age now where I’m at a higher risk of this virus being a one to miss, still the percentages of getting through it are very good but I’m taking no risks. A year ago I took this photo on my way down from Hart Crag, the mountain behind the rowan tree, obscured by clag. I had approached the mountain from Deepdale, deciding when I was in the hanging valley below Greenhow End, not to go up the step, a scramble up the crag to the summit plateau, a climb I had good experience of. I had weighed up the risk, it looked like bad weather on top with enough snow on the rocks to give it an edge, my balance is not what it was and I was solo. So I decided on an easier route, to head for the col between Dove Crag and Hart Crag and on to the summit, although I still felt the need to put my crampons on nearing the top. On the top it was a whiteout and I careful noted my route to the summit cairn. I was to follow it again on the way down as I intended to descend by Hartsop above How. The point of this story is that I knew what I was doing from many years in the mountains, understood my diminishing abilities in this terrain and managed my survival accordingly. However this virus is something different, I have no experience of this type of situation, don’t understand what we are dealing with, and relying on the advice of a government/leader (which I’m following to the letter) who I usually passionately disagree with. So outside of my enforced cocoon going shopping was very stressful. But there is always a bright side, during that hour I focused on the task in hand and anxiety for my far away children took a temporary backseat, I was in the same zone a year ago on that mountain.