Moments in time

An early meeting at the BMC today. For once public transport worked wonderfully and I was delivered quite literally to the door. The offices are a converted church & have just been upgraded - so as the first to arrive I was able to have a grand tour with a couple of the staffers I know. The work has managed to blend modern requirements with a really nice regard for the original aesthetics of this eccentric building - many of the little design touches also seen to give a nod to the nature of the organisation that now lives here. I also approve that more examples of the BMC's really impressive art collection will go on display, several spaces seem to have been designed with just that in mind - function and form.

But in the entrance hall, waiting to be mounted, was this plaque, which drew me and held me. I suspect a few who follow this journal will have also known Roger - he was a wonderfully well regarded and universally liked member of the climbing community - famed for playing hard and working even harder - I was lucky enough to climb with him at early (in my climbing days) BMC meets - his tales and enthusiasm for climbing in all its multiple facets was infectious.
His passing will forever have one of those quirky wistful associations for me. When the terrible avalanche hit Mont Maudit in July of 2012 I too was high on the flanks of Mont Blanc - but conditions that summer were awful and we'd already decided to head for the valley floor. Oblivious to the tragedy unfolding in the cold pre dawn we slept on, only awakened by the increasing insistence of our phones, as friends from the UK, waking to the news over breakfast, and knowing our plans, started to call and message. Dazed we looked out at a sky full of helicopters and knew something terrible had happened.

Two days later, along with thousands of other climbers, we stood outside the Église Saint Michael in Chamonix and paid our respects to nine lost souls. Then we went for a beer. Then we went climbing. I like to think they'd have thoroughly approved.