Alan Frost
(1950s and still climbing)

And I guess when you start doing that [climbing], it never leaves you really, does it? Everything’s just so much more urbanized and pressurized and so on. So many people just don’t get out, really, and don’t get any opportunity to appreciate what it is like not to be living in a concrete jungle…it’s so good to be out on one of these climbs or faces or wherever it might be in great weather, but it’s also good to be there in terrible weather because that’s the mood of the mountain…it gets under your skin and you need to go back again.

Picture: Peter Barnes collection.