New Jack City a.k.a. Sawtooth Canyon
WARNING – IF YOU ARE PHOBIC ABOUT 8-LEGGED CREATURES DON’T LOOK TOO CLOSELY AT THE PHOTO A COUPLE DOWN THE POST. The main claim to fame of Barstow, in southern […]
Category Archives: California
Pinnacles National Park and the Western Sierra
Lake Tahoe marked a decision point in our trip, with options eastward towards Salt Lake City, or extending our north-bound trajectory through Oregon to Smith Rock. Unfortunately, a major cold […]
Lake Tahoe, Lover’s Leap and The “Best VS in the World”?
Lake Tahoe straddles the border between California and Nevada in the northern Sierras. Lying at 6,225 ft above sea level, Lake Tahoe earns a few entries in the record books: […]
Around Bishop – ORG and the Buttermilks (and some Festival Schmoozing)
Owens River Gorge is just a few miles outside of Bishop and at a much lower elevation than the last few crags we posted about. Depending on your point of […]
Two Big Rocks and a Big Lake
We were (over) due a rest day, and Mono Lake was the perfect spot to spend it. This iconic geological oddity combines volcanic origins with extreme mineral abundance (due to […]
Climbing Above Bishop – Pine Creek Canyon and Gong Show Wall
There’s an absolute tonne of climbing around Bishop, the outdoor capital of the Eastern Sierra. It probably has a similar claim to “epicentre” status as say Moab or Boulder, and […]
Alabama Hills, in the shadow of Mt Whitney
After the sandbag trad and hot, grueling walk-ins of Tahquitz and Suicide, we were open to some lazy roadside sport – ideally at altitude and/or in the shade. Mountain Project […]
Tahquitz and Suicide Rocks (Not Painless!)
Idyllwild is a pleasant if touristy town in the San Jacinto Mountains, a couple of hours east of Los Angeles. It sits nestled between two giant granite bastions: Tahquitz and […]
Sin City – Too Hot to Handle
Las Vegas is a pretty logical start/end point for our West Coast road trip – not least because there’s a direct flight (outbound at least) from Manchester. Red Rocks is […]
Big Wall Apprenticeship – where better than Hobby
When people ask me “How did you get into Big Wall climbing?” they’re invariably surprised to hear that my entire apprenticeship took place over a couple of hours in Hobson […]
RockAroundTheWorld Retrospective – The 2004-5 BIG TRIP Part 3: California – Big Trees to J Tree via The Big Stone
If you missed the first couple of installments of our Big Trip Retrospective, you can follow our blast around Eastern Europe and Scandinavia here: https://rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2020/06/22/rockaroundtheworld-retrospective-the-big-trip-part-1-around-the-baltic-in-80-days/ and our trip across the […]
North America Wall revisited – The Rucksack Club’s first virtual slideshow
In these difficult times it’s really important to stay connected even if we can’t meet physically, so it was a great privilege to team up with Bill to deliver The […]
North America Wall – Trip Report
This could be subtitled ‘Episode Ten in Bill and Dom’s Excellent Adventures’ after five previous trips to Yosemite, and further adventures in The Alps, Dolomites, Taghia (Morocco) and Riglos (Spain). […]
Dike Wall, Mammoth Lakes
After an exhausting day of being tourists it seemed much easier to just go climbing again for our last day – but nothing too stressy! The criteria were: not far […]
… And Relax
The beers, shower and pizza (plus a dose of ice cream) were every bit as wonderful as anticipated – and the luxury of a humble apple served as a reminder […]
Topping out on NA Wall
After an only moderately comfortable, but historically resonant (Robbins, Frost, Choinard and Pratt slept here – it’s like a climbing hall of fame!) night in The Igloo … it was […]
A night in The Igloo
The Cyclops Eye is big – REALLY BIG! Must be over 200ft in diameter and we spent much of the day circumnavigating it. Pitch 20 is a soaring traverse up […]
A night in The Cyclops Eye!
We had a comfortable night on the ledge in The Black Dihedral, though the slight phosphorescence in the quartz intrusions conjured all sorts of interesting faces and features in the […]
Back on track and a bivvy in The Black Dihedral!
Straight out of bed and into a 5.8 squeeze chimney – great way to start the day. Happily, pitch 11 of NAW is nothing like the horror show of The […]
Trundling gently up the West Coast
What a great place to wake up… Earlish get away and the climbing is quite involved from the off. Pitch 6 has you speeding up a bolt ladder – easy […]
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