It has been a pretty manic month with lots and lots of climbing making the most of the good weather we have been having. Since the start of April I have managed 51 rock climbs all over the country including, Pembroke, The Peak, The Lakes, Wye Valley and Avon Gorge. It has been a brilliant start to the climbing season and I am looking forward to the rest of the summer.
Over the past month I have managed two days of equestrian photography, firstly I headed up to Withington Manor Horse Trials to take photos of Katherine competing. Since I had no SLR last summer it has been around two years since I last did any eventing photography and it felt good to be back. I did feel fairly rusty and need some practice to get the hang of it again but I was fairly pleased with what I managed. The next day I headed down to to Larkhill racecourse to take photos of Katherine doing her first point-to-point on her new pointer, and try my hand at pointing photography for the first time. It was a great weekend and I am sure there will be more equestrian photography over the summer.
So it seems the winter season which just kept giving is finally coming to an end. Over the past 4 months I have managed 21 days out in winter conditions all over the country, including the Brecon Beacons, Snowdonia, Glen Coe, Lochaber and the Isle of Skye. During these days I managed a winter walk, 2 days skiing and 33 winter climbs including descents of which 26 were unique, and most were in fantastic conditions. This winter has been truly spectacular as I have had so many days out on brilliant ice and in brilliant weather and I have progressed from climbing grade III to being happy at V and even attempting a VI, over the course of the winter I have climbed many of the classic lines lines on Ben Nevis, seen some spectacular views and made new friendships. I finished my season in just about the best way I can imagine by heading up to complete the Cuillin Ridge Traverse over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend in fantastic alpine conditions. My winter started in December before the major thaw which hit the country in January and wiped out winter for a month.. Read the full article…
With a bit of a contrast to last weekend in Skye on the Cuillin Ridge, I spent Saturday rock climbing on Pembroke’s fantastic sea cliffs with Neil. It was a glorious day with a warm sun and a chilly breeze however the crags were mostly sheltered from this. With less than ideal tides and bird bans we headed to Stennis Head in the morning to do some non tidal and non bird banned routes. I started up Bludgeon which was a lovely HVS 5a corner which was quickly climbed to the top without much difficulty which I was very pleased with as I hadn’t lead a trad route since January and in February I only rock climbed twice. After this we abseiled back down and headed for the ‘Merchant of Stennis’ however in Neil’s haste he ended up leading up the E5 crackline to the left of the route called Fetish. He made swift work up to and past the crux but ran out of energy for the final section. After a few more attempts, including having to repeat the crux he escaped right into the E3 for a few moves before heading to the top. I. Read the full article…
Having had a brilliant winter season I was quite content with staying down south for an extended period and getting back on rock, in fact I was supposed to be rock climbing in Cornwall last weekend. However, the weather had other ideas and with rain, wind and cold weather forecast down south I decided to make the most of the extended winter season in Scotland for another weekend. After exchanging emails with Mike Lates of Skye Guides I decided to head up to attempt a winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge on the Isle of Skye due to the ridge being in full on winter conditions and having a weather window where the forecast was cold weather, no wind and lots of sun. A winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge is a route which is not often in good conditions due to being close to the sea and due to its nature is regarded as one of the finest mountaineering expeditions in the UK. We planned on taking three days on the ridge moving from north to south as is common in winter due to most of the difficulties being abseiled and having. Read the full article…
When my alarm went off at 5:30 we were very tired and didn’t manage to wake up, a few hours later we finally woke up at 9:00 having had about 11 hours sleep in the back of a car! Still feeling worn out, knowing that there was going to be a massive amount of fresh powder with the potential that we would need to turn back due to the avalanche risk we decided to make the most of the new powder by heading up for a days skiing at Glencoe Mountain resort. Due to wanting to learn to ski tour I decided this would be a good time to end my circa 12 year break from skiing while I have been snowboarding and I am very glad I did, it turns out that skiing is like riding a bike and you don’t forget. The viability on the mountain was awful in the morning and finding the way down was a challenge, however the snow was fantastic. After lunch it cleared on the lower mountain which meant that suddenly fantastic lines of unskied powder could be seen so I had a. Read the full article…
Another week finished at work, in fact my first full week since January due to all my Scotland trips in February and instead of enjoying a nice relaxing weekend it was back in the car for another eight hour drive up to Fort William for a weekends winter climbing. This trip was with James and was a fairly last minute trip due to the weather down south being to wet and cold to go rock climbing.We rolled into the North Face car park at 1:30am, set the alarm for 4:30 and headed to bed. Very tired after three hours sleep we woke up, had some breakfast and coffee before starting the now very familiar walk up to the CIC hut. Despite being pretty tired it was the most enjoyable walk in I have done so far due to the weather being so Alpine with a clear sky, the Ben looking like an iced christmas cake and a fantastic view of the mountains behind us. We were soon at the CIC hut after 1h15mins and started the hard walk in up the fresh powder towards the minus face. Despite being at. Read the full article…
After yet another brilliant day on the Ben I still wasn’t going to give myself a rest day so on Sunday me, David and Rich for up for an alpine start and headed up to the North Face of Ben Nevis yet again with the plan to climb Hadrian’s Wall Direct, another classic *** V,5 ice climb. I was coming down with a cold and found the walk in really touch, it has been a long time since I have struggled so much in the hills and pretty much collapsed on my bag when we stopped to gear up. Looking up towards Hadrian’s Wall and Point Five I remembered how tiring the initial snow slope was last time and with my current state of body was really not looking forward to it, thankfully half a packet of Jelly Babies helped significantly and we arrived at the bottom of the route without anyone in front of us. Looking up from the bottom the ice looked absolutely fantastic, a long, very sustained but not too steep section of ice. There was a ledge around 7m up what looked like easy ground so. Read the full article…