Stepping Out Of The Ordinary

Stepping Out Of The Ordinary

Mike Hope

Austin Macauley Publishers

Stepping Out Of The Ordinary

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Part 1: Early Years

Chapter One: My Childhood

Chapter Two: Mid-Teens to Our Marriage

Chapter Three: No Looking Back

Chapter Four: Proudest Moments

Part 2: Life-Changing Moments

Chapter Five: Direction Choices

Chapter Six: Sudden Epiphany

Chapter Seven: Alpine Initiation

Chapter Eight: Alps Revisited

Part 3: Early Expeditions

Chapter Nine: A Taste of Alaska

Chapter Ten: Running Wild

Chapter Eleven: Defeat in South America

Chapter Twelve: Mount Robson and Edith Cavell

Part 4: Short Stories/Long Journeys

Chapter Thirteen: Fun Together

Chapter Fourteen: Along the John Muir Trail

Chapter Fifteen: 1998

Chapter Sixteen: Rewards of a Bivvy or Wild Camp

Chapter Seventeen: The Corsican Traverse

Part 5: Further Expeditions

Chapter Eighteen: Mount Asgard, Baffin Island

Chapter Nineteen: Cutting it Loose on the Moose’s Tooth, Alaska

Chapter Twenty: The Old Man of Hoy

Chapter Twenty-One: Jebel Toubkal and Moroccan High Atlas

Chapter Twenty-Two: Christmas in Patagonia

Chapter Twenty-Three: Korichuma, Bolivian Success

Part 6: Alpine Adventures

Chapter Twenty-Four: Winter Icefalls, Canada and Europe

Chapter Twenty-Five: Piz Badile, North East Face

Chapter Twenty-Six: Cycling in the Alps and Andalusia

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Beautiful Lofoten Isles

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Les Courtes—North Face

Part 7: UK Playground

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Circuit of the Lairig Ghru

Chapter Thirty: Three Ridges

Chapter Thirty-One: The West Highland Way

Chapter Thirty-Two: Maesglasau Falls

Chapter Thirty-Three: Land’s End to John O’groats (LEJOG)

Part 8: Epilogue

Chapter Thirty-Four: Past and Present

First Ascents

Adventures & Climbing Record – Mike Hope

Bibliography

About the Author

Thoughts often ran across his mind—what would life have been like if he had NOT taken that small step out of the ordinary? Mike played multiple team sports at reasonable levels, but his inner-self searched for adventure out of his comfort zone. Coming close to joining the armed forces as a reservist, he chose climbing and Mountaineering.

Instead of games dictated by multiple rules, he chose a game climbers play with rules made only by themselves.

Adventures on rock, snow and ice took him and a band of brothers to the edge. His own rules however, insisted he returned to a beloved family.

Credit for all the photographs included goes to Mike Hope/Martin Scrowston collection unless otherwise stated. A huge thank you to Martin Scrowston for the front cover picture.

Dedication

For my Mother who inspired me to be humble and a kind human being. Her life and her love were for ‘her three boys’ a legacy which has continued for us all too.

For Lynne, Gary and Nicky who have inspired me directly and indirectly, each in their own special way, to write this book.

For Chester who had a battle from birth, will have battles throughout his life, but I know will grow to be a remarkable and kind person.

Copyright Information ©

Mike Hope 2023

The right of Mike Hope to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of the author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398487574 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398487581 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398487598 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

To Lynne, Gary and Nicky for everything, particularly their support writing this book in the first place. Their suggestions and corrections at various stages were invaluable.

To Martin and Carole Scrowston for sharing many adventures without which, there would not be this book to write.

The same goes for the rest of family and friends who also have a mutual passion for life and adventure.

Thanks to Audrey Salkeld (General Editor of World Mountaineering) for inspiration and allowing me to use a few words from ‘unwritten codes’

Thanks to Corrie Jeffery (Digital conversions specialist) for her excellent digitising work on my photographs and slides.

To the UK’s Air, Land and Sea rescue services who without them, people like me may not have been around to write a book.

Finally, I am grateful to Austin Macauley for taking me on and giving me the opportunity to publish my memoir.

Introduction

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour.

Catch the trade winds in your sails, Explore, Dream, Discover.

Mark Twain

Why am I writing this autobiography? I’m not famous, nor am I at all wealthy, but thanks to the love and support of close family, and some special friends, I have had one heck of a life.

I am immensely proud of my wife, Lynne; my son, Gary; and my daughter, Nicky. Not only have they helped me accomplish my wonderful life, they too have made the most of their lives, and together we have shared some incredible journeys that I would love to share with others.

I guess there are two reasons I am writing this book, whilst being realistic and under no illusions, it’s not likely to run off the shelves of Waterstones!

Firstly, just as it was for me wanting to know a little of my family history, this autobiography will be available in writing somewhere, should any of my progeny down the line want to know a tiny bit of ‘Hope’.

Secondly, most of us don’t inherit that rare DNA that helps one become an Olympian, a great musician, rocket scientist or micro surgeon. Like the majority, we settle for the lower divisions; but every single one of us can find that hidden talent waiting to be explored and do something special with the gift given to us, the gift of life. We only need to dare to dream, open our minds and work at it, bloody hard in most cases to have the same fulfilment.

I would like to think that this book may help encourage others, who like me, needed to seek adventure. To help make a life changing decision if necessary, into something that will consume mind, body and soul positively with great enjoyment, instead of a journey down depression, drugs or alcohol. In my opinion, it doesn’t matter a toss to compare oneself to others.

It matters so much more to know in your heart that you have contentment and self-satisfaction in life. I could probably have achieved more in mountaineering terms, but it would have been too much at the sacrifice of my family. For me, it was that balanced combination that has given me the utmost pleasure and belief, to encourage others!

I did not think for one moment in my youth as an urban layabout that I was going to join a group of hard-core loonies and become a rock climber, alpinist and mountaineer at the ripe old age of thirty…not in a million years!

Although I wish I had found the sport in my teens. I couldn’t have joined it at more dynamic period than in the early 1980s. ‘British Traditional’ climbing, known more commonly as ‘Trad climbing’¹, had got to a level where E5 (E for Extreme) perhaps E6 was the pinnacle of the sport.

Along came the likes of John Redhead, Johnny Dawes, Gerry Moffat, Ron Fawcett, Andy Pollitt, and of course Catherine Destivelle, to name a few, who took Trad climbing and the new found love of ‘Sport climbing’² into a different dimension. The legends that were Joe Brown and Hamish MacInnes had already taken rock climbing well into the E grades and Scottish winter climbing into the V/5 grades.

Very soon, Trad grades of E7, E8 and E9 were appearing along with F8a, F8b Sport routes. These guys were inspirational to me and others climbing in the lower leagues. Over the years, I was inspired by them and their training regimes, eventually managing a few E4s of my own, which gave me enormous pleasure.

There is no doubt that rock climbing and eventually alpinism/mountaineering changed my way of life. It has nurtured my soul, helped improve self-confidence, given extreme pleasure in the natural world, bonded family and friends and given me such a wonderful life. Unfortunately, it has left me with a legacy of fear; fear that as I grow old, and then so old, I will not be able to climb or walk in the mountains anymore. However, should that be the case, I will eventually depart this amazing world with a huge smile on my face.

Cross country running, football and badminton had been my main sporting interests until well into my late twenties. I was a husband and father but something was missing. Whether it was the desire to test myself out of my comfort zone or just ‘explore’, I’m not sure.

I was not academically strong at school, preferring to participate in any form of sport instead of knuckling down to secure ‘O’ and ‘A’ level qualifications like my peers. I was often punished for gazing out of the classroom window at others on the sports field.

My only degree was one of ‘common sense’, gained after leaving school, and in my opinion, it deserves much more appreciation than it gets in society today. I suppose there was one other degree I claimed which was ‘bluff and bollocks’ but I dared not include that in any of my CVs.

I believe today’s youngsters are universally pushed into and judged by their ‘A’ grade achievements, what degree course they are signing up for and the university they will be going to. This, for many kids, is unnecessary pressure at an age when there is far more scope to seek other opportunities in life. Just as important is the understanding that we mature academically at different ages, often gaining our academic strengths in education outside of the norm.

Don’t get me wrong, I recognise the need for many to focus on their education and career sooner rather than later, but for others, there is ample time for erudition.

As I write this, I hear on the news that Culham Science Centre (formerly Culham Laboratory) in Oxfordshire—where I worked for 4 years, is looking to take on numerous apprentices in a brand-new facility. This has been necessary to rebuild the huge gap in skilled craftspeople lost because of the trend towards ‘must have degrees’ and the stigma of learning a trade. If we don’t take this seriously, we will lose the ability to compete worldwide in the technologies.

Great Britain has been so good at it, like the Aerospace, Nuclear, Automotive and Pharmaceutical industries to name a few. The UK remains one of the most attractive countries in the world for direct foreign industrial investment; we must not lose the skills that make it so vibrant.

Looking back, I was probably inspired by my mother, who was a good athlete in her day, before WW2 and ‘the Blitz’ buggered that up for her. She was also a very positive and lovely person.

I represented the county at cross country running and football, always hoping that someday I was going to be a professional footballer. A very short trial at Queens Park Rangers FC soon put paid to that, when they told me to come back when I was bigger; thank goodness I never went back!

My sporting prowess certainly outweighed my academic ability, none more so than poor English language and English literature grades from school. I hope I have at least been able to get the following history and stories in some sort of readable quality…so stick with it!

Mountaineers are quite often asked the question why?

It is difficult to explain and even more difficult not to quote the classic answer given by George Mallory³: Because it’s there.

Whatever answers we give, must wash over the heads of many who see mountains from an armchair, TV screen or windows of their cars. This is completely understandable, as unless climbing is experienced for oneself by applying the precise and calculated movements up a rock face, or the technical requirements and knowledge to scale vertical ice with axes and crampons in big mountains, it is impossible to comprehend the thrill and sense of achievement it gives to those who play the game.

Climbing also involves expression, action and a demonstration of what is possible. Above all else, it involves the recognition and acceptance of risk. As each generation evolves, this acceptance of risk deviates from society’s convention.

Mountaineering has also opened my eyes to our planet’s global pollution problem. Whether that be the glaciers in the Alps or further afield from Alaska to South America, without doubt it has shown me it is happening, and happening fast.

It has given me first-hand knowledge and observations of the absolute abomination and seemingly disregard of what pollution is doing to countries around the world in the atmosphere, in our oceans and on the land.

Small pockets of people are trying to bring it to world’s attention, but the problem is now so huge because the greater percentage of countries and their populations cannot give a toss, consumed by greed of self-prosperity and wants of their own—at any cost.

If we really are going to resolve this behemoth and help future generations enjoy the planet as we have, it must be led ‘from the top’ by every government, in every country in the world…and force change without delay!

Changes need to happen with great thought, not knee-jerk reactions, however if we take the case of plastics as an example, let us not forget that it was introduced and developed mid-twentieth century, primarily by a family who wanted an alternative to cutting down trees.

There are many organisations trying to help where they can.

The John Muir Trust is one such organisation that has inspired me. They are a conservation charity dedicated to protecting and enhancing wild places across the UK. Their work naturally fits alongside my heart, and is why I have been a member for nearly twenty years.

I shall close this introduction with a short piece by Audrey Salkeld⁴—a famous female Mountaineering author, who wrote an article in a book published in the 1990s called ‘World Mountaineering’. It had a profound influence on me in my early days as a mountaineer.

Primitive people were geared to facing danger in almost everything they did. We have evolved a society that seeks to eliminate risk almost entirely—even to hold someone else accountable when anything goes wrong. In providing this expectation of safety, we fail to encourage the acquisition of skills, experience, and above all the common sense which would help us, if not to manage it, at least to react to risk constructively.

We lose the empowering sense of our own judgement. This is what climbing is mostly about—taking back the responsibility for one’s own existence, and climbers react dramatically when they perceive this essence is being threatened or compromised.

¹ ‘Trad climbing’ is a specific form of climbing in the UK where only the natural features of the rock are used for protecting the climber from a fall. Pitons or pegs are the only form of ‘fixed gear’ permitted and must not be used to ‘aid’ progression upwards. It also has very specific codes of practice relating to types of ascent.↩︎

² ‘Sport climbing’ has found its way from the continent onto selected crags or types of rock. The grading follows that of the French ‘F’ grading system. More to the point it has ‘fixed gear’ protection in place in the rock with the use of ‘Bolts’ or ‘Staples’ making for a safer, less ‘adventurous’ form of climbing.↩︎

³ George Herbert Mallory was an English Mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s.↩︎

⁴ Audrey Salkeld was born in 1936 in Cumbria, England. She is known and respected for her work on Adventure (1987), National Geographic Explorer (1985) and Everest: The Mystery of Mallory and Irvine (1992).↩︎

Part 1: Early Years

Life does not owe you anything,

because life has already given you everything.

Mark Twain

Chapter One

My Childhood

I was born in Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in the Metropolitan Borough of Hammersmith on the 22 March 1951 to John Richard Arthur Hope (b. 1/3/1924) and Lillian May Hope (formerly Lincoln; b. 19/10/1923).

Evidently, I was a bit of a porker, having popped out at nine pounds three ounces, and was the first of three boys for Mum and Dad. We lived in a flat above Grand Garages at Richmond upon Thames where my father worked as a motor mechanic, having completed National Service in the Navy up to the rank of Petty Officer.

It was a stone’s throw from Richmond Bridge, the river Thames and Richmond Park, and judging by some early photographs they were obviously the places to walk and show off their new born. At fifteen months old, my one claim to fame was winning a baby competition. I’m unsure of the number in the contest or what the requirements were, but who cares, it remains the only competition I’ve ever won!

My mum also worked, often holding down a couple of part-time jobs which was the main reason us kids seldom went short of basic needs. To help her do that, I had an exceptional godparent called ‘Nan’ Philipson. She looked after me at certain times while Mum worked, remaining a close friend to her up until Mum’s passing away due to cancer in 1985 at sixty-two years old.

‘Nan’ was a petite woman but had one hell of a constitution. She outlived her husband Roy and many friends younger than herself until her own passing in 2018, at the ripe old age of hundred and four years old. Not one single year went by without her remembering my birthday, always sending a card with cash enclosed.

She looked after herself and her house at Okehampton on the edge of Dartmoor right up to the last few months of her life. She made herself three meals a day and hardly missed seeing an evening out with a tipple of red wine whilst listening to the BBC news—a truly remarkable woman.

Memories and photographs show there were frequent visits from grandparents. On my father’s side, I had a grandad who I often thought was rather hen pecked by my grandma, but he remained a jovial and kind bloke. He worked on the railways as a signalman. I remember being taken to his signal box now and again, and being awestruck by the mass of levers and bells, and with the whistles of the steam trains that came thundering through.

My grandma, on the other hand, was not the sort of person I warmed to, as she appeared to me to be a stern and grumpy old dear.

My nan on my mum’s side was the complete opposite. She was quite a bit older than the other two grandparents, but was just a friendly, quiet person who was always around. My nan lived with us up to my early teens. I have always thought it a shame I never got to know my grandpops.

He was one of the first London cabbies, and by all accounts a bit of a lad. Sadly, he died during the Second World War.

I was around the age of three years old when we moved from Richmond to Goffs Road, Ashford in Middlesex. It was a new three bedroomed house and one of the first to be built on a ‘new estate’; vague memories still pop into my head of the muddy, unmade road we travelled down to get to it.

I look back now with admiration at my parents for the nerve and risk it must have taken to acquire their mortgage at that time, especially on the salaries they were earning and the uncertainty of a country that was still coming to terms with the devastation that the Second World War had brought, nine years previously.

Pretty soon after moving in, my brother Chris was born (6/1/1955) and four years following that, my youngest brother Pete (1/6/1959). There were now six of us in the house as our nan occupied the smallest third bedroom, while us, three boys, shared the second bedroom.

Our nan lived with us for a few years, always being around for us when both our parents were out working.

The estate was pretty much full of housing by the time Pete was born, which enabled us to build friendships with neighbouring kids of respective ages as we grew up. We all had a happy life at home well into our teens and each of us brothers lived there until either getting married or going to university.

However, there were a couple of dark moments in our lives, one of which affected Chris and myself more than Pete due to our age; and one that affected us all, which I will bring up later.

My father never really got on with my nan and he was a bit of a shit really. I suppose space could be tight at times, but she did contribute to the house in many ways. Eventually Mum found her an ‘old folk’s home’ near Streatham Common, London, but not once did the old man take my mum to visit her.

For years she relied on public transport, friendly neighbours or much later, by us brothers. It set the scene for what was going to happen later.

We all went to the same Spelthorne infant school followed by their primary school. Thereafter, it was Kenyngton Manor Secondary school at Sunbury-on-Thames for myself and Pete, whilst Chris, the academic of us three, went to Ashford Grammar school.

For me, there was always plenty to occupy me after school hours. At one end of Goffs Road, there was a recreation ground with a pond. It had an enormous oak tree which I was very fond of climbing, and a large grassy area ideal for playing football.

For years it attracted many like-minded kids to come home from school and go straight to the ‘rec’ for a game of footy until it got dark, often up to 15-a-side in the summer. Very often the old man would have to come over and shout at me to ‘get home’.

Another attraction for me were the local gravel pits, not for swimming, as I knew how dangerous they could be, but they offered a sense of wildness and dare-devilness for roaming around, lighting fires, firing catapults, pea shooters and other boys’ stuff.

Not quite into my teens, the pits were a great place to ride old wrecks of motorbikes. Inevitably if the old man caught me, I would get one hell of a bollocking. I know my mum worried terribly over that, encouraging me to stay out of trouble, but I didn’t see the fun in that. I honestly believe it was a heuristic period of my childhood that gave me early self-confidence and self-belief.

Failing my ‘eleven-plus’ and starting senior school were two memories that are still very vivid for me. Most of my mates had passed the exam and were going to either Ashford Grammar or Sunbury-on-Thames Grammar schools, whilst I was on my way to Kenyngton Manor Secondary School. I was gutted; it was the end of the world, but of course that only lasted the short time it took to make new mates.

Worse than that, I had to endure the first day going to my new ‘big lads’ school in shorts. I swear I was the only one in the school, let alone the class, that wore shorts. I knew times were hard at home, but made it very clear to my mum that I was not going back the next day unless I had long trousers!

In those days, one could not just nip out to the local shops to get a pair. Fortunately, there happened to be a good friend up the road about the same age and size as me, so I was able to borrow a pair. It mattered not that I had to roll up the waist band a couple of turns, I was just so relieved not to be associated as the new kid in school, which had been so bloody obvious the day before.

This was especially important as all the new girls the school had to offer looked much more mature and grown up for their age; they were not about to be chatted up by a short arse in shorts.

It didn’t take long to feel part of the school and make some good friends. I believe my participation in as much sport the school could offer helped support me with the lack of interest I had in most of the lessons, although I did just manage to hold my own in subjects that kept me in the first stream throughout the five years.

I represented the school and the county of South West Middlesex in cross country running and football. Basketball and gymnastics were also where I made the school team. These activities required a certain amount of time after school for training and certainly for competition, so there was little time for homework—my excuse anyway!

I did not regard myself as a trouble maker, just full of energy and inquisitiveness, although I did get attached to a couple of groups, loosely called gangs, made up of girls as well as lads.

Smoking was the indulgence in those days, not drugs or heavy alcohol. I think I tried a couple of packets of cigarettes to keep up with them, but found no appeal in it whatsoever. I was more concerned of the impact it might have on my sporting activities.

That’s not to say I stayed completely out of trouble. One of my gangs had a fascination for pipe bombs. Jimmy G, Christine G (no relation, just boyfriend/girlfriend) and others would get a short length of metal pipe, close off one end and drill a small hole one third up the tube. We filled it with a mix of weed-killer and sugar, then carefully sealed the other end.

The pipe was usually placed on the ground in a local field with a short length of the mixture making a trail up to the hole. The other end of the trail would be lit and we would run like shit and hide. Most of the time the bang was loud but not excessive, about as loud as some fireworks, but of course the pipe bomb making practice had to end in tears sometime.

It was inevitable we would ramp up the scale of the thing. Goodness knows where the bits of pipe ended up, but having blue lights and sirens looking for us all over the place certainly put an end to all that larking about. It was made a little more concerning knowing that Jimmy and Christine’s fathers were policemen. I was a lot older when I realised our innocent larking about was surpassed by the violence of IRA terrorists using similar materials.

That’s how it was for a year or so, right up to the point where I nicked Christine from Jim while he was away on holiday. Didn’t go down too well obviously, but at the time I thought I was in love and as I was learning a lot, an amazing amount in fact about the birds and bees, I didn’t really care. Not surprising it fizzled out, Chrissy went back to Jim, and I went back to other sports!

As a family we all got on well together, and to this day, us three brothers have remained very close. Holidays were spent together mainly on caravan sites in Cornwall or at Holiday camps such as Warners on Hayling Island. One memory my brother Chris and I remember very clearly (Pete was too young) was when our father decided he wanted to buy his own caravan. He paid about £35 as I remember, certainly not a lot more, for a four berth ‘Eccles Alert’ caravan, sited on the Isle of Sheppey.

Looking back, as we have done on many occasions, it was a pile of junk. I think we had to make two visits with the old man to pick it up, as our first visit was met with ankle deep snow and everything frozen