Articles

Take a walk on the wild side

As I drove down the A9 towards Perth on a lovely sunny autumn evening I felt rather pleased about the trip that was now drawing to a close. I had been in Scotland for nearly two weeks and my time had been spent getting to know some of its more remote mountains. Several years ago […]

A beginners guide to the art of seconding

You’ve completed a top-roping course and the climbing bug has bitten. You’re dedicated and spend many evenings at the local indoor wall, tentatively starting to lead, and then you start to fantasise about the big wide world outside – particularly its lumps of rock: the arching overhangs, the bulging buttresses and the angular arètes. In […]

Wild Camping

When asked to write a piece about wild camping I was unsure whether to take it as a compliment or a slur. To many, it is a dirty word; something practised in the dark ages and akin to sleeping rough on the streets in our modern parlance. Personally, I think such folk need enlightenment and […]

Snowdon, the hard way

This article is more about Michaela Bray’s first time up a mountain of any distinction, and for this momentous occasion she chooses non other than Snowdon.  Well, actually, I chose it.  As it was me that convinced Allan, Sarah C and Michaela that Clogwyn Y Person Arète would be ‘a great day out’ and we […]

New kid on the rock

A breezy day in May that carries with it ozone from a restrained sea. I sit on a beach of pebbles feeling their shape and texture with my fingers while I look at the horizon. Distant walls of grey cliffs, dwarfed boats on a wide steel-blue sea, and the sweep of a million billion smooth […]