Blog Posts in Category: Locations

Beinn Tulaichean and Cruach Ardrain

Alastair BegleyScotland, Walking Short Link

Our initial plan had been to do the Ben Lui circuit consisting of four Munros which required the use of bikes to significantly shorten the day. Unfortunately the hard frost overnight disagreed with bikes and left us with dropper posts which were initially frozen down, and then dropper posts which wouldn’t stay up! By this point we had left it to late to do the circuit on foot, so we decided to drive around to Inverlochlairg to climb Beinn Tulaichean and Cruach Ardrain. The start of the walk was in a very deep valley which hardly got any sun, so everything as frozen solid and was even colder than the car park we left an hour before. However the ascent up to Beinn Tulaichean was brutal, as it had no path and climbed steeply straight out of the valley. The ascent soon warmed us up, and thankfully the views were stunning and more than made up for the very tiring ascent. While it was a sunny day, when we finished the initial ascent we got hit by yet more brutal winds which made for another cold day on the hills.. Read the full article…

Stob a’ Choire Odhair and Stob Ghabhar

Alastair BegleyScotland, Walking Short Link

Becky and I both managed to get some last minute holiday approved which meant we were able to enjoy a 4 day weekend in Scotland with a fantastic, but cold forecast. After the long drive up on Wednesday night we got the the car park at the start of the walk at 2:30am. Unfortunately due to the short daylight hours we couldn’t have a lie in and had to get up after less than 5 hours of sleep. We made use of the bikes to reduce the initial walk along the valley, but they really were not necessary. The ascent up to Stob a’ Choire Odhair would have been fairly enjoyable if I had not not been suffering with a cold and lack of sleep, as there was a reasonable path all the way to the top. As we emerged from the ascent onto the summit plateau we got hit by the fierce and brutally cold wind. After a quick layer up and some food we made a hasty retreat down to the col between us and the next summit. It was very strange as it felt like being out. Read the full article…

North Wales MTB

Alastair BegleyMountain Biking, North Wales Short Link

We headed up for a weekend in North Wales with the Avon Mountaineering Club, however given the poor forecast we elected to take our bikes as a better poor weather option than walking in the cloud and the rain. Coed-y-Brenin On the way up we stopped off at Coed-y-Brenin for some quick trail centre action. We started off on the Minotaur which is a fantastic blue. Nothing too hard, but plenty of fun for all biking abilities with lots of little jumps, berms, interesting climbs and brilliant scenery. With the short daylight hours Katherine and I then decided to do a short route in order to make the most of the remaining weather. So we headed off to do Temtiwr which was a serious step up from the Minotaur, but was brilliant fun right from the start with plenty of technical rock sections. The climb in the middle was a chore, but the final descent was well worth the effort! We made it back in good time and go to our accommodation before the deluge started. The same cannot be said for everyone on our trip. The Snowdon Ranger My. Read the full article…

Mountain rock climbing above Misurina

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Rock Climbing Short Link

Between our days at Cinque Torrie, and to finish our trip we had two excellent days out rock climbing above Misurina. The first was a short day on Diedro Mazzorana and the second was the long mountain multi pitch route Mazzorana. Diedro Mazzorana With another day with a poor afternoon forecast, we found the easily accessible Diedro Mazzorana which climbed Monte Popena Basso in 4 pitches. After getting hopelessly lost on the approach thanks to the awful description in the Rockfax book we just about decided that we still had enough time to climb the route. The first pitch was excellent with some enjoyable corner climbing, and just enough gear to keep me comfortable. The second pitch was fairly scrappy, which took us towards the chimney feature for the outstanding final two pitches. The final two pitches involved excellent chimney climbing, with some outstanding exposure, bridging, face climbing and a little bit of thrutching for good measure.  The views from the summit were excellent, and the descent back down was very easy which made for an excellent morning out. When we got back down to Misurina we had a quick,. Read the full article…

Two Mornings at Cinque Torri

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Rock Climbing Short Link

We had a couple of mornings climbing at Cinque Torrie as we had forecasts with a nice morning, followed by a stormy afternoon. Climbing at Cinque Torrie meant that we could easily approach with a chairlift, followed by a short walk in. Day 1 On the first morning we climbed the classic Via Normale on Quarta Bassa, which was fully bolted. It is a very classic route, but as we got the first chairlift we were the first on the route. We ran some pitches together to climb the route in two excellent pitches. After a quick photo on the top we had an atmospheric abseil down into a cave between Quarta Bassa and Quarta Alta. We were very glad for the early start as by the time we had got back to our bags, the initial pitches of the route were chaos as there were about 3 separate teams climbing the route at the same time. As the bad weather had not yet arrived, we then made the most of our 60m ropes by climbing a two pitch sport route, Bassa Thirteen, as a single pitch. The route climbed. Read the full article…

Via Ferrata Punta Anna & Lamon/Formenton

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Via Ferrata Short Link

The Punta Anna via ferrata is a classic route which climbs Punta Anna and then continues onto Tofana di Mezzo by combining three via ferratas: Ferrata di Punta Sant Anna, Ferrata Guiseppe Olivieri and then Ferrata Gianni Aglio. It is a long route which is graded 5c, so a fairly serious undertaking. Usually this route would finish at the lift station at Tofana di Mezzo, however at the start of July this lift was not yet open. This meant we had to descend using two other via ferratas (Ferrata Lamon and Formenton) which also involved climbing another peak, Tofana di Dentro. As the book gave this day 12 hours we reluctantly had yet another early start. The walk into the route from Rifugio Dibona was a harsh wake up in the morning as it was very steep. We arrived at the base of the route at the same time as another British couple, who we ended up spending the entire day with which was a lovely addition to our day. The climbing was very interesting as it was mainly focussed on rock and was also fairly technical whilst also not. Read the full article…

Tomaselli via ferrata

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Via Ferrata Short Link

With a poor afternoon forecast we decided to have an early start on the Tomaselli via ferrata in order to avoid the crowds and make sure we were back down before the rain arrived. Apparently this route used to have the reputation of being the hardest via ferrata in the Dolomites. We joined the many other vans sleeping at the cable car station, which meant that we had as much sleep as possible before our early start. The morning was beautiful as there was not a cloud in the sky. The walk out of the car park was fairly brutal, and did lead to us questioning our decision to not use the lift, however the views were fantastic which did somewhat make up for the hard ascent. We made great time to the start of the route, as we were there before the cable car even opened. The start of the route was tricky, but not overly interesting as it required lots of cable pulling, interspersed with lots of very loose ledges. The second half of the route was significantly better than the first half. The rock was solid, the. Read the full article…

Giovanni Lipella Via Ferrata

Alastair BegleyDolomites, Via Ferrata Short Link

Due to a deteriorating weather forecast we decided to relocate to the Dolomites. On our first day we decided to climb the classic Giovanni Lipella route up the Tofana de Rozes. As it was a weekend we had an early start to avoid queueing on the route, which worked out really well as we didn’t have to wait for anyone all day. The route starts from a car park up a gravel road at 2000m, which made for an excellent overnight van camping spot. We woke up in the morning to rain which was a bit unexpected, but left the van anyway on the promise that it would soon clear up. The initial walk certainly woke us up and got the blood flowing, but we were soon at the Gallerie del Casterletto. The Gallerie del Casterletto is a set of tunnels which were created by the Italian military during WW1, and were fairly impressive due to the amount of height that was gained as we travelled through the tunnels. We ignored the sign to our route which exited the tunnels before the end, and climb to the top of the. Read the full article…