I didn’t fancy driving out to the Wye Valley and George couldn’t make the Tuesday or Thursday meets so we teamed up and headed off to Blaise Castle (aka Trym Gorge) instead to climb at Lovers’ Leap. Starting from a lay-by opposite the main car park (which closes after 2100), we headed in what we […]
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Scottish Tradfest
After an extremely successful haul of gullies and ice last year, Pete, Cameron, Niall and I hoped to build on our success. In the days before the Scotland trip this year however, it became apparent that all of or our new ice gear would be of little use. Instead we reached for our trad racks and […]
Dog walker to Mountain Leader
In midlife I unexpectedly found myself with time on my hands. Wondering what to do with this unwanted and unappreciated turn of fortune, I considered the options. I looked into getting back into sailing but Bristol’s a bit far from good sailing locations, I thought about horse riding but couldn’t afford it and decided that […]
Climbing in Wadi Rum, Jordan
A desert trad paradise Whenever I mention climbing in Jordan, most people are surprised to hear that there is any. Not only is there climbing, if you like big adventuress trad, it may be one of the best destinations in the world. This year was my second trip to Wadi Rum. This vast canyon system has […]
30 Pitches in the Gorge
Turning 30, for some reason, is quite daunting. But what better way to mark it than by exhausting yourself in a climbing challenge? Thirty pitches in the Avon Gorge came to mind. As a complete punter, it would be difficult but still achievable. The Avon VS Challenge nicely takes up about half the pitches and is […]
Cycling across Europe
Trying and inevitably failing to sum up my three month cycle trip into a snappy sound bite for curious colleagues has debatably been more challenging than the ride itself. I am not going to attempt to do that here. Instead I will focus on one country, Switzerland, during which I also enjoyed a few days […]
How do you like your stake?
Ever seen one of these? I was away sea cliff climbing recently and found this stake. It was the only anchor in place and it would have been madness to use it. Stakes can look brown and rusty and reasonable (?) but are actually disintegrating below the surface. This particular stake was probably originally plain […]
A Trip to Thailand
A Trip to Thailand by Rob Morgan With darkness and cold setting in, I’ve been reminiscing about warmer times.. Back in August, Win and I went on holiday to Thailand, where we sampled the popular climbing destination of Krabi. We’d never climbed abroad before, so it seemed a fairly exotic location for our first […]
It’s Grim up North
It’s Grim up North A moderately successful trip to Arctic Norway by Dave Beynon The Fort William of the North “You have taken me to Fort William!” accused J.P. I checked the map. We were about 5km from Tromsø, several hundred km north of the Arctic circle and heading roughly south on the E8. […]