Blog Posts in Category: Locations

Tour of the Vanoise

Alastair BegleyFrance, Walking Short Link

Along with a friend I was involved in organising a hut to hut walk somewhere in the Alps this summer for fifteen members of my university expedition society. We decided to head to the Vanoise National Park where there is a dedicated hut to hut walk called the GR55 or the ‘Tour of the Vanoise’. The entire route is a 10-12 day tour but due to only having a weeks holiday we modified the route slightly just to do the eastern loop of the Vanoise over five days. The route was to start and finish at Tignes 1800 where we were staying in a youth hostel and headed up to the Refuge de la Leisse on the first night, before carrying on to the Refuge du Lac Blanc on the second night, Refuge de Vallonbrun on the third night before descending down into Bonneval-sur-Arc before the final days walking up to the Col de l’Iseran and heading down into Val d’Isere. The first days walking started out in the rain though with the forecast set to improve we were optimistic, though there was an extra 300m of height gain todo. Read the full article…

Rock climbing in Borrowdale

Alastair BegleyLake District, Rock Climbing Short Link

On our bank holiday weekend in the Lake District we managed to do a surprising amount of climbing considering the amount of rain which was pouring down over the rest of the country. On Sunday when we drove up after the tents were setup we headed to Shepards Crag in Borrowdale where I lead the classic VS which was Adam. I found it fairly high end for VS due to some tricky climbing and also some runout section on easier climbing higher up the route. Having said this the climbing was fantastic, it was my first time on the rock type which is found on Borrowdale which is a kind of volcanic rock and thought it was fantastic. After this Dad lead Aaros which was my first E1, albiet seconding not leading, but was great to get some harder climbing under my belt as a second to improve my own climbing. After we finished our 6 hour mountain day on Monday and got back to the campsite, instead of relaxing and enjoying the sun we headed out to Quayfoot Buttress to climb Mandrake. Mandrake was a fantastic HVS which had. Read the full article…

Classic Scrambling in the Lake District

Alastair BegleyLake District, Scrambling Short Link

For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend I was originally planning on heading to Pembroke to go sea cliff climbing with my parents however the weather had other ideas and due to a forecast of wind, cloud and rain we played a game of hunt the good weather. As in general the good weather was up north we headed up to the lake district to go scrambling and rock climbing there, but we were armed with guide books for Snowdonia, Yorkshire and the Peak District in case we had to chase the good weather around in the north. The best forecast of the week was on Monday so we went for a mountain scrambling day in the sun and headed up to Great Gable via Napes Needle. Here we did a modification to the classic grade 2*** route which involved ‘Threading the Needle’, scrambling up Eagles Nest Gully, Arrowhead ridge and finishing up Pinnacle Ridge on Westmorland crags. It was a fantastic day out and the weather was clearing throughout the entire day and after the first half an hour we spent the entire day in t-shirts in the sun. It was fantastic. Read the full article…

Mountaineering in the Caingorms

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Scotland, Walking Short Link

Following on from my previous post about Winter Climbing on Ben Nevis I have just spent the week mountaineering in the Caingorms where we had a fantastic time. Other than the day we did Ben Nevis we managed two other walks, a day trip over to Glen Coe in order to visit Ice Factor, a visit to some waterfalls where we went for a rather cold swim and a trip to Dalwhinnie distillary. On the day we arrived there was hardly a cloud in the sky and it was really warm so we had a BBQ outside, but with the crazy Scottish weather 3 days later we woke up to large amounts of snow on the ground! On the first day we went for a local walk which I tried to do at New Year but had to turn back on that attempt due to being unable to stand up in the wind. It was a horseshoe walk up to  Sgor Gaoith and along the ridge to do a few other tops as well, it was a fantastic walk which we were able to relax nicely on to enjoy the summit views. On Monday. Read the full article…

Gardyloo Gully

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Last week I was up in Scotland for a week, the intention was to go winter climbing but after stunning and really hot weather the two weeks before we headed up there was very little ice left so the prospect of doing any winter climbing was looking very unlikely. However due to a sudden change of weather over two days, from having a BBQ on the first evening then on Tuesday morning we woke up to several inches of fresh snow and freezing temperatures, this mixed with a northerly wind quickly sent Ben Nevis back to great winter conditions on the easier routes such as Gardyloo Gully. Armed with a positive weather & avalanche report from SAIS stating that on the northern aspects there was a low avalanche risk due to the northerly wind scouring the faces we made the decision to get up early and head up the north face of Ben Nevis. We  headed up to the CIC hut very early leaving the car at 7am and got to the CIC hut less than two hours later where we had to hide from the bitter wind as the weather forecast was not. Read the full article…

A Stunning Weekend in Snowdonia

Alastair BegleyNorth Wales, Scrambling Short Link

I have just got back from what was quite frankly an unbelievable weekend in Snowdonia. It was an odd trip as there was supposed to be 17 of us heading up but the minibus broke down en route and didn’t make it so it was just my car of 5 people. On the first day we did the standard ascent of Tryfan, albeit with a few hard section that I added in for myself as always! It was great though as there was no hill fog and for most of the time it was dry so for the first time in 5 visits I could actually see the mountain I climbed and had great views from the top without being blown off! After we had done this we headed back to the campsite to endure another night of heavy rain, but that’s fine as its going to rain at some point over the weekend so its better that its overnight! On the Sunday morning we headed up to Pen-Y-Pass car park to do Crib Goch, our plan was to just do Crib Goch and head down. We got to the car park. Read the full article…

Scrambling in the Lake District

Alastair BegleyLake District, Scrambling Short Link

Last weekend I ran a trip up to the Lake District with my university’s expedition society. The aim of this trip was always to do some great scrambling and thankfully we got the weather as the wind was not too strong, it didn’t rain in the daytime and we even had some nice views on both days! Last time I was in the lake district scrambling was 7 years ago where I remember climbing the grade 3*** route up Pinnacle Ridge with my parents and while we were at the top eating lunch we had a flypast by the red arrows. The routes we did this weekend were much easier but still very enjoyable and were the two grade 1*** routes in the Lake District. On Saturday we headed up Blencathra via Sharp Edge and down Hall’s Fell ridge which was a lovely route which actually took us a surprisingly small amount of time and we were finished in time for the rugby! The great thing about Sharp Edge is the view that you get of the ridge as you walk in and with people that had not done much scrambling before. Read the full article…

Winter Climbing in South Wales

Alastair BegleyNorth Wales, Winter Climbing Short Link

This cold spell that is currently all over the UK has advantages for those of us that are mad enough to go winter climbing and after some snow and a cold spell there is some great winter climbing up the north face of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons. Thursday saw me take a day off university and head over to the brecons with my mum for a day out in perfect weather with sun all day and cold temperatures. Due to it not having risen above freezing all week the snow was still powdery but that didn’t matter due to it being so cold the turf had frozen up nicely which is the important thing on Pen y Fan. It was a bit of an odd way of starting a climb as to get to the base we had to walk up to the summit of Pen y Fan to descend down the other side just to climb back up the north face. Though this did mean we got fantastic views on the way up with the early morning sun. When we got to the base of the. Read the full article…