I'm in Scotland again now. The weather was good over the weekend and I had a fantastic day doing Ledge Route on Ben Nevis on Sunday with lots of snow and ice, blue skies and sunshine.

There is still plenty of snow about higher up even though we currently have Southerly winds raising temperatures. The current thaw should refreeze over the next few days and bring excellent climbing on good neve.

Out on the Ben for the next few days.

Rob

Winter in Scotland

First off I apologise for the gap in updating my Blog. For some reason I have not been able to access it for the last 2 weeks.

I have been up in Scotland. The first week was spent with Graham and Sue on 7 days of winter skills training.

When we first arrived the snow was confined to Westerly aspects above about 900m. The photo is taken on Aonach Nid getting used to ice axe and crampons in the sun shine.

We had a mixture of weather, from blue skies and sunshine to heavy rain and wind. Generally the weather was wet and warm and a lot of the snow and ice was stripped off the mountains.

I have then enjoyed 5 days of climbing with friends. The temperatures dropped and the sun came out to play and although we did not have any real snowfall we had a great week of perfect snow ice and neve. The photo on the right shows us frontpointing up Boomerang Gully on Stob Corie Nan Lochain. The highlight of the week was Tower Ridge on Wednesday with perfect views. The lack of snow meant that it felt hard for the grade but we had an awesome day.

Back from the Alps

I am home now having spent last week in Cogne in the Italian Alps. The weather reports before I left did not look great and indeed there were a lot of routes that were not in nick but we enjoyed the ones that were.

Easyjet managed to lose my luggage on the outbound flight and so the first day was spent sharing my mates climbing kit and the second day skiing.

We then got some good routes in including Acheronte, Flash estivo, Il sentiero dei troll (pictured) and Tuborg but it was all getting pretty thin by the end of the week.

You can get a current conditions report from Cogne from: http://www.expeditionguide.com/links.htm

Where am I now?

Just a quick note to let you know that I will be away until 22nd January now. I am off to Cogne in the Italian Alps tomorrow. The plan is to have a week of ice climbing but it looks unseasonably warm at the moment so I may just be sunbathing!

Rob

Happy New Year

Well thats it for another year! I hope that you had an enjoyable Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year.

I spent the week at home with my wife and 3 kids. I managed to sneak a few days out cragging in the Roaches and the Wye valley. Pictured is a friend of mine, Sid, seconding the 2nd pitch of Valkyrie at the Roaches. This must be one of the hardest VS routes I have done, or perhaps I'm just a Southerner!

I am in the office for a few days sorting out the 2007 programme, insurance etc. This weekend will be spent in the Wye Valley climbing again and then off to Italy Ice Climbing at the end of next week.

We're all back from Sunny Spain

This weekend was spent on the Costa Blanca with 2 clients Simon & Claire.

We arrived Friday lunchtime and went straight to Sella to ease ourselves into the climbing. It was a Spanish bank holiday so the crag was busy and the weather was not unlike one of our bank holidays, a little overcast.

Having checked into our accommodation the forecast for the weekend did not look great. Saturday looked fine but Sunday and Monday were forecast to be wet and windy. Our aim was to climb Puig Campagna via Espolen Central. A 13 pitch HS mountain route to 1700m ish.

We decided on an early start for Saturday and 7:30am saw us at the foot of the route as the sun started to rise, see photo above. We moved quickly and had all 13 pitches under our belt by 12:00pm and had lunch on the top. The descent was not rushed and we were back in Finestrat for 3:30pm having had an awesome day.

Sunday dawned bright and clear and so we headed to Calpe to enjoy multipitch sport routes a about grade 5 by the Mediterranean. The sun shone all day and Claire even indulged in a bit of sun-bathing. Monday morning was spent back at Sella before catching aflight home just as rain clouds beckoned.
Time to start thinking about Christmas now!

Rob

Off to Spain for the weekend

I am taking a couple of clients to Spain for a long weekend so will be unavailable until Tuesday morning. I will still be checking emails so feel free to mail me.

Have a good weekend!

Rob

Do you want to climb Kilimanjaro?

I have spent the last couple of days putting together a trip to climb Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain on the African continent and hence on of the 7 summits.

The trip will be done over 2 weeks to allow an acclimatisation climb of Mt Meru and will take place in January 2008 so you have plenty of time to save up/raise money etc.

This is an ideal first trip to a high altitude summit and a great tick!

More info at http://www.expeditionguide.com/Kilimanjaro.htm

This weekend

I have spent this weekend in Snowdonia with my oldest son, Josh. We drove up Saturday morning and after a full breakfast at the Pinnacle Cafe in Capel Curig we drove down the Ogwen valley and parked at Idwal Cottage.

It was raining gently as we headed up to Llyn Idwal and I gave Josh a geography lesson as we followed in the foot steps of Charles Darwin. It turned out that he knew more than me having just done it all at school that week!

We headed up into the nameless cwm and up Seniors Ridge to the summit of Glyder Fawr, having lunch in the group shelter along the way. The winds were gusting 50mph on the summit and the windchill must have been about -15c. Josh had a lot of layers on!

We headed down the Devils Kitchen and finished the day with fish and chips. Its not often you can get a 12 year old to enthuse about anything but Josh had a good day, and enthused about the breakfast and the fish & chips.

A dusting of snow in Snowdonia

I have been working in Snowdonia over the weekend and the mountains looked beautiful with a light dusting of snow. I ran an advanced scrambling course and we did the East ridge of Y Garn on Saturday and then the Cneiffon Arete on Sunday. It was pretty windy and hail was falling at times but nevertheless we had a lot of fun. Have a look at the photos at http://www.expeditionguide.com/scrambling.htm

Rob

Back Home now

I am back home for a few days now. I spent the last 3 days of last week at Plas Y Brenin updating my First Aid certificate and then had a couple of days climbing. Over the weekend I was very pleased to be a guest at Twid and Louise Turners wedding, a great bash and many congratulations to the happy couple.

I have also been voted in as secretary of AMI which is very exciting and I am looking forward to getting stuck in to that.

Off to Wales

I'm heading up to North Wales tonight. I will be back in the office on Monday 19th Nov. The phone will be off during the day but if you leave me a message I will get back to you in the evening. Rob

Weekend rock climbing

This weekend was spent with two clients rock climbing in Snowdonia. We are off to the Costa Blanca for a long weekend in December so spent the weekend preparing for that. Our goal is to climb Espolen Central on Puig Campagna, a beautiful 13 pitch hard severe, and so we have been multi pitch climbing all weekend in preparation. The weekend went well so all we need is some good weather in December - fingers crossed.

I am home for a few days now, trying to organise my climbing trip to Lofoten in June of next year. Thanks to Chris Craggs for the travel advice!

Picos Photos now online

The photos of my rock climbing trip to the Picos are now on my gallery page at http://www.expeditionguide.com/Picos%20Gallery.htm

Enjoy!

Back from the Picos

I've just got back from a great rock climbing trip in the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain. I had 10 days out there with a friend in weather ranging from 28c sunshine to topping out in a snow storm. We got some fantastic alpine rock climbs done including El Jiso, 22 pitches at TD and an offorad adventure in our Seat hire car and Cepeda on Naranjo de Bulnes, another TD that finished on the summit of Spains most famous mountain.

The photos will be on the gallery pages in the next couple of days.