Rock around Embrun
A chilly, showery day following heavy rain overnight – time to put the “you can always find somewhere to climb in the Durance” theory to the test! The crags around […]
Category Archives: France
La Bérarde, Les Oisans
The magical Veneon Valley runs roughly eastward from Bourg d”Oisans to dead-end at the tiny village of La Bérarde, passing the start point for the refuge du Soreiller approach at […]
Aiguille Dibona
The Oisans region lies between the Vercours and the Ecrins and is home to some magnificent peaks. One of these: The Aiguille Dibona, must rank as one of the most […]
Presles, sector Daladom
Presles is undoubtedly the Queen of Vercours climbing – a 7km wide crag of grey and orange limestone around 300m high and offering hundreds of routes of around 8 to […]
L’Albenc and into the Vercours
The Isere Valley marks the northern border of the Vercours national park and the river has sliced the end of this high plateau leaving towering limestone cliffs impressively lining its […]
Thaurac
This is a great set of crags a few km from Ganges, about 50km north of Montpellier and the Med. The area’s main claim to fame is the show cave […]
Vingrau, Tauteval and Opoul – Route de la Grimpe
Warning – this post contains no actual climbing! We decided to spend a rest day getting a bit of the drive north done and recceing the crags around Vingrau. This […]
Ablon – un petit peu de cragging
The Grand Beaux Temps were forecast to end in storms in the Val d’Arve and up into chamonix, and my toes weren’t fit for any more multipitch madness, so a […]
La Balme – Vieux de la montage.
More like deux Vieux de la montagne – a very appropriate name. … l certainly felt like an old man of the mountains after this one. La Balme is almost […]
Vertiges de l’oubli – Les Vuardes
Back to the limestone, and another of the mega adventure crags of the Val d’Arve – Les Vuardes is on the opposite side of the valley to Maladiere, and similarly […]
La Piège
After the fun of Guy Anne, we only had time for a short route before heading back down the hill. The thought of missing the last train down from Montenvers […]
Guy Anne, Chamonix
amonixOur main objective for the week was the route Guy Anne, a 12 pitch TD+ with almost every pitch 6a or 6a+. It takes the skyline of the most prominent […]
Refuge d’Envers
With Grande Beaux Temps forecast for a few days, we decided to head up to the Refuge d’Envers for a couple of days. Our plans for an early start were […]
A mini Alpine adventure
Just arrived in the Chamonix valley for a week’s Alpine hit. Dodgy weather when we arrived on Tuesday, but an on time flight and speedy car pickup left us with […]
Klingenthal
A bit of a weather window seemed to be hovering over Strasborg, to coincide with our homeward journey, so we decided to explore Klingenthal. This had been recommended by two […]
Homeward bound and a bunch of YECTOYDs
The weather finally crapped out in a big way, so we started to plod gently northwards. Despite the rain showers we managed to squeeze in the odd route along the […]
Haute Durance
Another showery day and nature’s way of suggesting a rest day and a change of scene. We headed a couple of hours north east to La Roche De Rame in […]
Orpierre
A damp day in the Verdon suggested time to be moving on. A great visit, which has certainly whetted the appetite for more adventures here. With Jim and Jane heading […]
La Demand
This was the route that started everything off in Verdon climbing, the first route to climb from river to rim about 60 years ago. In its own way, almost as […]
Big sunshine – back to Verdon
The last couple of days at Chateauvert were sweltering and it was time to head for the hills again. Jim and Jane had also abandoned camp for a respite and […]
RockAroundTheWorld 