On Monday I start working at Rolls-Royce so I have been making the most of the last few weeks where I am free to go off climbing whenever the weather allows. Due to lots of unsettled weather over the past week I have been on two day trips to venues slightly further away than most people would call day trips as last week I headed down to Swanage in Dorset and yesterday headed to Baggy Point in North Devon both of which are around a 2.5 hour drive from Bristol. On arriving at Swanage we headed straight to the Boulder Ruckle which is approached by a very committing 40m free hanging abseil, which was made even more committing due to the fact that with high tide and the swell the easiest route out was the route I was planning on climbing combined with the fact that we were the only people there. The first route that we climbed was Lightning Wall a HVS 5a, the climb went up a groove to a huge overhang which was then avoided by traversing left to a line of weakness and some very committing. Read the full article…

I have been waiting to go to Pembrokshire in order to climb on the steep limestone sea cliffs there but it’s not just a case of turning up and climbing there due to an assortment of bird bans until the end of July, many of the cliffs are within the Castlemartin firing range so they can only be accessed when the range is not being used, many of the sea cliffs can only be accessed at low tides and finally wanting good weather so it is enjoyable to be on the cliffs. Last week most of these happened so I headed over to Pembrokeshire for three days with mum, although tides were not ideal but due to calm seas and neap tides it wasn’t an issue. On the first day we arrived in the afternoon and headed to Mowing Word which is home to the classic traverse line Heart of Darkness which is given HVS 4c. This was the first route we climbed and we combined it with New Morning which is E1 5b to make it a truly fantastic three star climb by climbing the first pitch of Heart of Darkness. Read the full article…

I have just got back from a brilliant four days sea cliff climbing down in Cornwall with my parents. Having spent most of July waiting for any nice weather to go on a climbing trip we were finally greeted with a a weather forecast which consisted of sun for an entire week so we headed off. On the first day we headed to Chair Ladder where we climbed a couple of VS routes to adjust to the rock, and it definitely took a bit of getting used after plenty of climbing on limestone. The first route that we climbed was South Face Direct which was graded at VS 4c, although a few moves felt hard for 4c but this was probably because we were not used to the rock. It was a great route with some stunning climbing and locations, though route finding wasn’t so straight forward and I did end up belaying in the wrong place which was slightly awkward given that we were climbing as a group of three! After we had done South Face Direct we abseiled back down and climbed a classic VS called Diocese which was VS 5a, the first. Read the full article…

Four months, 1 week and 3 days after my first outdoor lead climb ever and first outdoor climb in 7 years I have progressed from climbing up VDiffs to now having climbed my first ‘Extremely Severe’ climb. I headed to Wintour’s Leap with my Mum due to the weather improving late in the day where we climbed an HVS called Dazed and Confused which was great and I felt great while climbing it so thought I would give my first E1 a go. After some deliberation it was decided that I would climb Ecliptic an E1 5b and it went really well with me getting to the top with a huge sense of satisfaction, though it seemed significantly less scary than when I jumped up from VS to HVS a few months ago.