Tides, the award-winning follow-up to Nick Bullock's critically acclaimed debut book Echoes, is a gripping memoir that captures the very essence of what it means to dedicate one's life to climbing.
Nick Bullock is a climber who lives in a small green van, flitting between Llanberis, Wales, and Chamonix in the French Alps. Tides, Nick’s second book, is the much-anticipated follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Echoes. Now retired from the strain of work as a prison officer, Nick is free to climb. A lot. Tides is a treasury of his antics and adventures with some of the world’s leading climbers, including Steve House, Kenton Cool, Nico Favresse, Andy Houseman and James McHaffie. Follow Nick and his partners as they push the limits on some of the world’s most serious routes: The Bells! The Bells! on Gogarth’s North Stack Wall; the Slovak Direct on Denali; Guerdon Grooves on Buachaille Etive Mor; and the north faces of Chang Himal and Mount Alberta, among countless others. Nick’s life can be equated to the rhythm of the sea. At high tide, he climbs, he loves it, he is good at it; he laughs and jokes, scares himself, falls, gets back up and climbs some more. Then the tide goes out and he finds himself alone, exposed, all questions and no answers. Self-doubt, grieving for friends or family, fearful, sometimes opinionated, occasionally angry – his writing more honest and exposed than in any account of a climb. Only when the tide turns is he able to forget once more. Tides is a gripping memoir that captures the very essence of what it means to dedicate one’s life to climbing. (from Vertebrate Publishing website)
Contents
Prologue - living scared
love and hate
immortal?
nothing more
the cutting lap
the rain
the emotional tightrope
bad shit
deception
the web
cravings
death or glory
slave to the rhythm?
bittersweet desire
strange eden
how soon is now
you only live twice
the cathedral
trapped
evening redness in the west
into the shadow
similar to a scottish quarry
best before
death of paradise
the pitfalls of a peroni supermodel
what were his dreams?
balloons
that's rowdy, dude
over the top
flames
dreams and screams
just beneath the surface
the light of the moon
the mountain soundtrack
please queue here
dawn to dusk to dawn
threshold shift
postscript
acknowledgements
Notes
Signed by author
Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival winner for Mountain Literature (non-fiction) Jon Whyte award
Pertains the climbing career of Nick Bullock as well as Steve House, Kenton Cool, Nico Favresse, Andy Houseman, James McHaffie on routes such as The Bells! The Bells! on Gogarth's North Stack Wall; the Slovak Direct on Denali; Guerdon Grooves on Buachaille Etive Mor; north faces of Chang Himal and Mount Alberta.