Climber of the Year

Receiving the climber of the year award was a great honour. I feel I have come a long way in a short period of time. Without a doubt I must thank many people for helping me along the way, without their crowd side support generous sharing of equipment and ideas I would not be writing this now. Richard Kenyon, Robert Knott Abbey Bengston, Owen......, Ben........., and Nick Pott, are the people I am most grateful to and of course the wonderful Alex laver for his time, efforts and amusing dog, Mapel.

Each competition is not without its ups and downs. It is a rollercoaster of emotions that has definitely strengthened my character and changed the way I look at competitions, more importantly the winning and losing. In 2006 when I started competing, I hate to admit it, but I was a bit of a brat. I was a sore loser and discovered some rather unattractive characteristics about myself. So apologies to anyone who witnessed my rants. Now I enjoy competing to be able to participate in a sport which attracts so many likeminded people, that I would call great friends. You can learn loads of skills and have a laugh, camping, boozing and battling it out against the elements together. The sense of achievement is great but the sense of involvement is much better.

Whilst competing I travelled to many fantastic places and climbed loads of great trees such as the monstrous Red Oak in Brussels that defeated me and the crazy Baobab tree in Hawaii. I have also seen strange things that you would only find at a climbing competition (like the boat that sailed between trees, crewed by a bunch of French clowns), and met all the other quirky and unusual people, that you could not meet anywhere else, you know who you are! I would also like to mention the tragic loss of Noel.......... who had all the potential to become a tree climbing champion, but now sadly it will never be known, my thoughts are with his family who I remember as being great supporters of his climbing.

With all this in mind I will keep my beautiful trophy polished on my mantel piece until next year, when I look forward to seeing everyone again and hopefully more female competitors.
Get involved, it’s great.