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Masters Wall: Extreme Rock
3rd times the charm they say. I still remember in 2000 as a 19 year old feeling invincible, I guess that’s why the insurance is so high for that age category. The first half on Indian Face had felt...
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Tormented Environmentalism
One of the best quotes regarding peoples’ attitude towards the environment that I’ve heard is from David Mitchell in the Peep Show.“if we don’t like the evidence we are seeing why not just ignore...
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Some lessons from trad climbing
We’d had 30/40 mph winds for 4/5 days, the worst run of weather I’ve had on a UK trip. Having tried and failed to get onto Promised Land that morning due to tides and dampness I was now strapped...
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100 worthwhile E7s
Spirit Guide, Lundy. Flying Dutchman takes the left arete and apex of the arch Craig Smith making the 1st ascent of Rumblefish on the upper tier of the Cromlech A 100 good E7s list. I’ve been meaning...
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Climbing with Ray
Ray in Borrowdale in the late 50s He was stocky, unsurprisingly really as he’d lugged rocks around for much of his life. He had a fairly wide face, curly dark and unruly hair which went grey to...
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Hard Rock Review
When Lorna Hargreaves from Vertebrate Publishing got in touch about reviewing the 4th edition of Hard Rock, compiled by Ian Parnell I jumped at the opportunity. When Ian had said that he was redoing...
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Homage to the Llanberis Pass
The 2 valleys I love most in the world and 2 of the most beautiful. Borrowdale and the Llanberis Pass. It’s been a real privilege to spend a shit ton of time in both these places, Borrowdale in my...
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Borrowdale
I once got picked up by an artist when hitching between Ambleside and Keswick, we got chatting about the Borrowdale valley and she said many artists were intimidated to paint it because of its complex...
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The Scoop
It was a standout point, one of the highlights, sometimes hard to find when you've done thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of climbs. It felt better than Salathe, better than climbing hard...
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Guiding & teaching climbing
I’ve been very fortunate to have had a lot of great work around climbing for the last 25+ years. I’ve been involved in many hundreds of courses, usually trad but a fair few on sport and plenty of...
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