The virus has grounded planes, and with that much of the world’s travel has stopped. Lockdowns all around the globe have people shut away. Permits are needed just to leave Australia, and not even Aussies are allowed to freely fly back from overseas. Sometimes I catch myself in a moment thinking about the absurdity of it all. As second and third waves of COVID-19 explode across the Northern Hemisphere, normality, or even something approaching it, feels but a distant dream.
Tourism relies on the same human mobility that spreads disease, and so it will be subject to the most stringent and lasting restrictions, perhaps more than any other facet of our lives. The virus is not going away any time soon. You’re going to have to shelve those big dreams of trips to Font, Rocklands and Yosemite.
Travel and exploration have always been integral to how we practice rock climbing. Whether the surveying at the heart of early peak bagging, the colonialism that underpinned the sieges of the big mountains, or the celebration of the freedom of the individual that is perpetuated in modern climbing, it seems that we have always looked to far away places to slake our thirst for adventure.
When I was boy our
