It’s been a while since I have written a blog post, which is more due to the shear volume of climbing I have been doing, rather than the lack of climbing. I have been having an excellent season and have been making good headway into E2 and am now looking forward to the rest of the season. Last weekend I was due to head up to North Wales for a friend’s stag do, and given the nice weather three of us decided to head up a day early and do a mountain route in Snowdonia. We decided on Grooved Arete and were pleased to discover that we were the only people on the crag when we arrived in the morning. The weather was fantastic but very warm and humid in the sun which made the approach pretty warm. I lead the entire route to save time due to thunderstorms being forecast in the afternoon. The route was fantastic with lots of interesting pitches, although there was a surprising amount of polish which was a bit of a shame. The standout pitches for me were the second main pitch, the third main. Read the full article…
MasterPlan Mountaineering
Easter Weekend in Cornwall
After a brilliant but long winter have been looking forward to it warming up and allowing the rock season to start. After missing the few warm weekends we have had in late March I was beginning to get frustrated, but thankfully a good high pressure system arrived in time for the Easter bank holiday weekend. I headed down to Cornwall with the Avon Mountaineering Club for the annual easter trip. There was a good group of people down for the weekend which made for an enjoyable social weekend. On the first morning I headed to Chair Ladder with Rich, wanting to continue from my successful season last year I jumped straight onto Excelsior, a multi pitch E1. The second pitch was my lead and standing at the bottom it looked pretty intimidating, but as soon as I started it all came back quickly and I enjoyed the brilliant and sustained pitch which turned out to be the crux of the route. The rest of the route went easily with Rich making light work of the committing move around the overhang on the third pitch and I quickly climbed the very bold and. Read the full article…
Smith’s Route & Tower Scoop
After three days not getting out due to lots of warm weather and rain I was pretty keen to get out for another day of winter climbing despite the slightly dodgy forecast. I was out with Jason from Peak Aspect today and it was great to be out with an experienced winter climber having done a lot of guiding less experienced friends over the past few weeks. The past two days of rain caused a significant thaw and it wasn’t forecast to cool down until the early hours of the morning, due to this we decided to head up high on Ben Nevis in the hope that anything that might have refrozen would be there. The day started pretty badly as it was raining when we got out of the car which meant a sweaty walk up to the CIC hut in gortex and I somehow managed to forget my camera. As we were walking in the rain eased up and the weather cleared up from the west which produced some fantastic views back down the valley and towards Ben Nevis. Ben Nevis seems to have coped fairly well with the thaw and all. Read the full article…
Traverse of An Teallach
The traverse of An Teallach is often described as the best ridge in mainland Scotland, this description put a winter traverse of An Teallach high on my to do list. However, due to An Teallach being so far north west and wanting a good weather day for the route it had so far escaped my attention. With a ridge of high pressure across Scotland and far too much snow on Ben Nevis to go climbing we decided to head back up to the North West. As the weather was improving throughout the day we decided to have a late start and accept that we would be finishing in the dark. There was snow down to the valleys, which while is pretty isn’t always great for making quick progress. Thankfully with the good quality stalkers track we made good progress despite the snow and were soon on the mor below Sàil Laith. The conditions on the walk in were fantastic with lots of sun and blue sky and views which just kept getting better, however we were walking towards a very cloudy An Teallach with the hope that the cloud would lift as. Read the full article…