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 […]
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 […]
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). […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
A leisurely start followed by an afternoon of toil. A major packathon had neatly sorted food, water and beer for 4 nights (after a quick excursion to the store to […]
After yesterday’s snafu, we at least knew where the actual start of NAW was (the other “unmistakable” triple cracks with a roof, about 50m right of SOD). We’d also blown […]
The smoke is clearing in The Valley and folks are arriving. We were up early with the intention of “fixing” – doing the first 4 pitches of North America Wall […]
Bill and I had booked flights to SFO a few weeks in advance, for a planned trip to Yosemite to climb North America Wall on El Cap. Subsequently, the “Ferguson […]
A fitting end to the trip. We made the 4 hour walk to the base of the route and enoyed a spectacular bivvy with awesome stars. A little chilly at […]
More showers yesterday, but Tash and I managed to grab a dryish interlude for a fast ascent of Super Slide, a 5 pitch 5.9 on Royal Arches. Up and down […]
Turned a bit changeable here so we’ve been cragging. Moody sunlight over East Buttress of Middle Cathedral, partly caused by the smoke from the wildfire …and a couple of pitches […]
We celebrated Tashy’s 22nd Birthday with a variety of fine Yosemite eating experiences. First up a short stack of blueberry pancakes in the Lodge Then a couple of routes followed […]
Topped out in fine style yesterday and were back in Camp 4 for 6 pm and in the shower soon after. Monster pizza and even bigger Margarita followed before a […]
We managed to move onto Camp 4 a day early and all got on the same site. Miracle! That means we’re not going to have to move again until we […]
