Mikey – the runner

If you are keen click on this link to find out what Mikey said about me.  While not essential reading to find out about Mikey, there may be some cross referencing in my words about him.

Mikey moved over to Queensland soon after we really got to know him, and it took an age before I headed out on rock with him again.  That all changed when I happened to luck on a trip for a conference to Brisbane.  I tagged on an extra few days allowing me to be taken to Frog by Mikey and Helen.  It was lovely for me to be able to rock up to their place and for them to organise all the camping and climbing gear!  We headed to Frog and he promptly suggested climbs for me to try, again an unusual situation for me.  It was a great trip and cemented our friendship:

On the first day at Frog I did my usual of maximising the time there, encouraging Mikey to bag one more route before we packed up.  On a couple of routes Mikey looked like he was going to give up and sit in his harness, which I simply couldn’t allow.  Each time with lots of encouragement he pushed through and bagged the clean ascent.  This probably stems from the people he had been climbing with not being very strong or confident.  Mikey however is a very good and safe climber and has many of the traits his brother Howsie has.  In those days a little encouragement proved that.  The second day he was sore but we still soldiered on for half a day:

After this trip we would catch up every time he came back to visit family.  I’ve never seen Mikey rattled, and he always seems happy.  Days out with him are often filled with laughs.  He has an air of being relaxed and carefree about climbing, and there isn’t quite the same intensity about him as there is with Howsie.  He did however set himself the 10,000m challenge, and as such was keen to find as many lines as possible to lead cleanly.  This meant our trips out had a slightly greater sense of urgency about them, with the challenge set to be completed by the time he turned 30.  In taking this challenge he got to see more of the south west crags than many a local climber has, always in search of leads he hadn’t attempted or led clean before:

He certainly has a lot of stamina, I would belay him up the routes and often start seconding up before I was on belay.  There was no dilly-dallying on these days.  Once I got to the top he would be heading back down as soon as possible to jump on the next lead.  His drive and energy seemed endless and there were only a couple of routes that spat him off, and I’m willing to guess that it was more from fatigue than ability.  Mikey was also the one to find the best way to top out on Savage Sausage Sniffer at Welly Dam, above, and the hold is still called the Mikey pinch to this day.  It did however surprise me to find out after the every last route of his challenge that the grade 18 line was the hardest trad line he had climbed:

It must be something in the Howe blood but Mikey and Helen have also had two boys, Rupert and Bryn.  So these days he doesn’t get out climbing quite as much, either back home or over here, but whenever he pops over for a visits we still try to get out at least once.  I think he has got used to me offering up the leads and even on the last trip out I got him to lead everything.  Without a mission to drive him and having a young family to spend more time with, he must have lost a bit of his stamina as he had to down climb the last route of the day to shake out before polishing it off.  That said he is always good value when you head out, and I feel lucky that the Howe boys still invite me to tag along: