At our six month point in the trip I wrote a short review of that time to sum up what we had been up to. So I thought I’d do the same for the second! Each of the things on here have more in depth individual posts, that go into more detail, however this will... Continue Reading →
Ski touring and valley cragging in Chamonix
For the first time on this trip we have a visitor!out friend Colin flew over and met us in Cham, we put him up in the five star spare room in the van, also known as the front seats, and decided on a few places to visit. We first took a trip to Les Gaillands,... Continue Reading →
Last days in Spain, first days in France
In my last post I described our trip to Montserrat, where we walked and climbed in the mountains above the Monastery. The views in this place were out of this world, towers of rock stood atop of a huge mound, and from a distance it looks like a hedgehog. We enjoyed our time there, although... Continue Reading →
Heading north to Montserrat
I have not written a diary style blog post for a while now, mainly as there has been very little to write about, and rather than write a post for the sake of it, I thought it best to wait until something worthwhile happened! We headed north after Las Fallas, in the general direction of... Continue Reading →
El Dorado, the climb that got away!
When we left Costa Blanca at the end of January, it was after a months solid climbing. We had climbed so much that I even got to the point that I'd had enough of climbing and needed some time off. The casualty of this was a route called El Dorado, one of the top fifty... Continue Reading →
Climbing in El Chorro
We have had another week or so of play in El Chorro, and to be honest it's a week more than we expected when we first arrived. On our first week we only managed to climb a few single pitch routes due to a lack of a guidebook, and most of these were in poor... Continue Reading →
Exploring El Chorro
So it's the end of our first week in El Chorro, and the heavens have opened, leaving me with some time to write up a blog post of what we have been up to so far. In all honesty this first week has been a little up and down. First of all we drove close... Continue Reading →
Chasing top fifties
We have continued our climbing tour through Costa Blanca, with a trip to a crag called Sax, again we were chasing top fifty and three stared routes from the Rockfax book. Sax had a lot of good routes, and looked like a great place to climb although the guidebook did say that the venue was... Continue Reading →
A Bad Days Climbing!
After what was a great day out on Toix the day before, we were to have a trying day on Mascarat. We woke up to an overcast day, and decided that a trip into Calpe for some supplies would give us time to gauge what the weather was doing. After this little jaunt the weather... Continue Reading →
More adventures from Costa Blanca
The adventures in Costa Blanca just continue to come. Following on from our success on Parle, a sea cliff/cave climb, that tested our ability to the max, we thought we’d head north and take on another time and again recommended climb, Sonjannika at Morro Falgui. I initially found out about this route when searching for... Continue Reading →
Costa Blanca a Climbing Mecca
We have been in Costa Blanca for the better part of two weeks and have so far had an absolute blast! My previous two posts have already highlighted some of the fantastic adventures that we have experienced here, such as the Bernia ridge, various quality single pitch crags, climbing on Toix on Christmas Day and... Continue Reading →
Festivities (and climbing of course) in Costa Blanca!
For near seven months we have been able to live in our van rent free, we have wild camped for this entire time! However we felt like we would treat ourselves to some normality over the Christmas period, and booked two nights at the orange house. We drove for just short of seven hours from... Continue Reading →
Climbing and sunsets in Croatia!
Another fine day, another fine climb, and another horrid descent. This is a simple way to sum up our second multipitch route in Croatia. We started later than planned, although we were pretty sure we could get up and down in the time left. This route was called Stargate and was further along the face... Continue Reading →
Climbing in Croatia… at last!
Finally the weather seems to be improving for a time and we are trying to make the most if it. The first afternoon of good ish weather we headed up to the crag near Split as we were parked in town. It's weird that for days all I have wanted to do is climb and... Continue Reading →
Final fling in the Dolomites
In all honesty this second outing to the Dolomites has been one long hard week of fun! In eight days we have had seven of them out in the mountains, with one off in the middle, my body is feeling sore, but it has been worth it. Last time I left the area feeling disappointed... Continue Reading →
Dolomites Sella Tower
This climb was our fourth day on the bounce and it's fair to say I am feeling a little bit fragile after it all, it's time for a day off, however before that I will write a short piece on this climb. It's fair to say that the great weather we are having is the... Continue Reading →
Dolomites, Cinque Torri, The Climbers Playground!
Whilst climbing on the South Arête of Sass de Stria, we could see in the distance a skyline broken by a hedge hog effect of rock. Sticking out in all angles and all shapes and sizes was the Cinque Torri (the five towers). This was one of the places on my climbing hit list in... Continue Reading →
Should I stay or should I go now…
We knew on completing our climb on the Vajolet Towers that the weather was changing for the worse! As it turned out, we moved to a new location, Canazai, which had a parking bay on the other side of town that had running water, toilets and bins, all useful when stopping somewhere! As I said,... Continue Reading →
Dolomites, we have arrived!! (Vajolet Towers)
We have been planning on getting to the Dolomites for quite a few months now, and finally we are here. Another outdoor playground to set out on a bunch of adventures! First off we have started the trip in the Catinaccio area, also known as the Rosegarten area. Local legend say that Catinaccio was ruled... Continue Reading →
One step forward, two steps back! (La Somone, D- 5a)
In my last post In Descent Proposal, Voie Ravanel (D, 5b), Pointes de Bayere, I finished by mentioning that the descent had been hampered somewhat by a pain in my ankle. Although this pain was not so acute to stop, it was enough to keep me aware that it might get worse, especially on the scree... Continue Reading →
Secret Aims of Valley Cragging
We have been based in Chamonix for the best part of a month and have so far had some great adventures in the mountains. That said, there have often been down days where rest is required and there have been as many, if not more, bad weather days where restlessness is acquired. The past few... Continue Reading →
Climbing in Sausages!
We arrived in Saucisson, or whatever it’s called (actually Le Saussois), just as the evening was creeping in, a little neglected village set in serene surroundings welcomed us. We parked the van in front of a foreboding looking rock face, which I later found out was full of some of the great test pieces of... Continue Reading →