Dave Pickford Elite Climber

Part of Karrimor's team of elite athletes since 2005, Dave is one of Britain's leading traditional climbers with a wide portfolio of major ascents to his credit, stretching from England and Wales to far flung corners of the world such as Arabia, Indo-China, Central Asia, Madagascar, India and North Africa. 

Combining his climbing adventures with work as an outdoor photographer, Dave is also Karrimor's primary photographer. His journalistic skills lead to Dave frequently reporting on his climbs and travels to a variety of magazines and websites located in the UK and the United States.

Sportsvibe caught up with Dave for a quick chat.........

1. How did you get into your sport?

I was introduced to climbing by my friend next door's Dad, when I was nine years old. We lived just a few miles from the gritstone 'Edges'  of the Peak District and he took the two of us climbing there. I haven't looked back since.

2. Tell us the best thing about your sport?

Climbing is an extraordinary vehicle for exploring the world in a way that few others are able to. Because it is a global sport, it also has a global community. Climbing has taken me to some incredible places, and through climbing I've met some exceptional people. I guess that  probably 90% of the most important people in my life, my closest friends, I've met through climbing.

3. Who, if you have one, is your biggest inspiration in your sport?

A lot of different people have inspired me over the years, and continue to do so.

4. Do you admire anyone outside your own sport?

Of course. In fact, I probably gain far more inspiration for my own climbing from sources outside climbing itself. Things like adventurous journeys, literature, music, art, design and photography inspire me a great deal more than individual climbs or climbers.

5. Do you have any pre-climb rituals or supersitions?

No. Although I prepare very carefully for a hard ascent.

6. Tell us about your training schedule? What does it involve and how does it change , i.e before climbs etc?

I don't have a fixed, planned schedule. I train pretty hard in the months leading up to an important trip or big expedition, or if I have a challenging project in the UK. I have realised over recent years that over-training is one of the biggest causes of injury and a loss of motivation. Too many athletes train far too hard, for too long, too much of the year. They then get serious long-term fatigue and stress about their performance going downhill, when all they need to do is take a week or two off! The extremely damaging modern obsession with winning, with being the best all the time, has caused this both in climbing and in many other sports. It's a really destrctive end, particularly for young climbers.

7. What is the most memorable moment of your career?

It's hard to isolate just one. In 2005, I made the first ascent of one of the hardest routes in the Pamir Alay mountains in central Asia with my good friend Sam Whittaker. That was one of the big highlights in my career in terms of pure adventure. In 2008, I established a new route in Madagascar's Tsaranoro Massif with a team of three other guys, we had such a good time on that trip - it was a big higlight in terms of having a lot of fun on an expedition somehwere quite exotic - a lot of exotic climbing trips can be pretty full-on in various ways. In 2009 I made the first ascent of a last great unclimbed line on the sea cliffs of Pembrokeshire, one of my local crags and favourite places to climb anywhere in the world; then, in the autumn of 2009, I climbed two of the physically hardest routes I've ever done in the Mascun Gorge in the Spanish Pyrenees. I guess 2009 was a pretty good year, really - I seem to be stronger and climbing better now than ever before.

8. What do you want to achieve next in your sport? What are your goals?

I want to inspire others to follow their dreams. If you decide to make a career as a climber, writer, photographer and motivational speaker - as I have - you take a whole series of big risks in order to make a living from something you love. A lot of people never had that kind of opportunity in their lives, often because they simply say 'I can't do it'. I try to show that it's always possible to do something you really want to do, as long as you believe you can.

9. What has been your favourite climb?

That really is an impossible question to answer. Try and ask a racing driver what their favourite track is, or a professional skier what their favourite mountain is. They'll most likely say the same thing. I've done so many amazing routes, in so many places over the last twenty years that to isolate my favourite climb is a bit like trying to choose my avourite sports car of all time - there are just too many to choose from!

10. If you hadn't of been a climber what would you have been?

Good question - I guess if I hadn't discovered climbing at such an early age I would have discovered something else adventurous like extreme skiing, ocean sailing or paragliding - something where you engage in an elemental dialogue with the world and have huge adventures along the way. Actually, I discovered big-mountain skiing much later in life (I was 25 or 26) and the thrill of that took me almost in the same way that climbing did when I was a young kid. It's obvious to me now that adventure sports attract adventurous people.

11. What will Dave Pickford do after their sporting career is over?

Fortunately, my career as a writer, photographer, editor and motivational speaker is not dependent on me continuing to climb at an elite level for the rest of my life - obviously sportsmen and women can't stay on top of their game forever. It's important to set up the next stage well in advance!

12. What music (if any) do you listen to when training?

I don't normally - I try to focus on breathing and keeping a quite, focused mind. I actually try to avoid training in a noisy enviroment - it's very counterproductive.

13. If you had 24 hours to live, how would you spend it?

Waking up to freshly made Indonesian coffee followed by a long swim in the sea. Afterwards, I'd go and climb a really long, adventurous route up a big mountain wall. In the evening, I'd cook freshly-caught fish on an open fire, open a bottle of Bordeaux, and play several games of chess by moonlight.

14. What is your favourite film?

As with climbs, I don't have just one favourite. I enjoy and respect the work of the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa very much.

15. Do you get any strange fan mail?

Thankfully not, so don't distribute my details via this publication!

16. What is the funniest thing you've heard/read about yourself in the media?

I was once described by a (presumably drunk) lady journalist on Cooler Magazine in an article about 'Rock Gods' as a 'honey-coated Adonis'. I laughed for a long time when I read that.

17. Tell us a joke about your sport.

See above. Whenever journalists who don't know anything about climbing try to write about it, they always come up with some absolute corkers!

Dave Pickford is a Karrimor sponsored athlete, for more information on Dave visit www.karrimor.com.