In 2008 I wrote a message to a friend, who had just completed a mega long-term climbing project. I said how inspired I was and that one day I wanted to find my own mega project that could beat me up, throw me around and I could really sink my teeth into.
Sitting there writing the message on the school library computer, I pictured this beautiful flow to the struggle: pushing through the tough stuff with purpose and grit and a smile. However, a decade later, swinging around on the end of a rope four meters above the ground, in a dark, cold cave, screaming f-bombs at the top of my lungs, up to my neck in the reality of pushing my limits, I wasn’t so sure.
Like many challenges in life, at least in my experience, I didn’t really know what I was signing up for with this project. When I bolted it in 2015, it looked hard, sure, but everything I bolted always did. Most projects I’d then spend a few days or a season on and they’d be done. Why would this be any different?
Walking into the crag for the first day of my third season in 2019–let’s call it about day 41–I realised that the “Hump of Trouble Project” may be a little different to the ones before.
It’s a very “un-Blue Mountainsy” climb. Not a glorious line on a slightly overhung
