The Needles
The Needles present quite a dramatic change from the climbing, and indeed being, in Squamish. For a start, they are located at about 8000 feet elevation (I know I know... 2,400m altitude ), and nowhere near a highway. Having been at sea level for the past 6 weeks, the altitude had a surprisingly tiring effect. I visited here three years ago, and escaped benightment by the skin of our teeth (which I was soon to make a recurring theme, as I'll come on to). Thin Ice Lindy, very much by her own admission, is no bold hero. Indeed, upon being informed that something is 'fairly safe' or 'not too scary', she has been known to reply "well that's easy for you to say, but you don't have the middle name 'chicken'!" This not withstanding, I often find myself fascinated by her internal battles that often play out not so internally (climb up, climb down, curse, climb up, climb down, curse some more...). In reality, I think that even though a lot of her cl...