Casse de Prelles and Les Ayes
Casse de Prelles is an east-facing series of quartzite slabs and pinnacles set above the village of the same name. Here’s a view taken from across the valley a couple […]
Tag Archives: climbing
Briancon revisited – Hot Rock and Pudding
It’s only a short drive from the Ligurian coast to the Durance valley; around 3 hours over the Montgenevre Pass linking these two tremendously diverse and abundant climbing areas. Each […]
Finale (the original one!)
We’ve been firm fans of Oltre Finale (which translates as “beyond” Finale) for a number of years now, but had written off its more famous and long-standing neighbor as being […]
Aosta round up – more rock than you can shake a stick at!
With so much climbing I’ve got into a bit of a “back-blog” so here’s a quick round up of the other crags we visited in the Aosta Valley: Corno di […]
Another Day In (Grand) Paradiso
A message from Will, fresh back from Leonidio, prompted a further exploration of the crags further up the Valgrisenche. He and a Cham team were planning a foray through the […]
Matterhorn and Monte Rosa
No, we haven’t packed big boots and crampons for this trip. The Aosta guide is a huge tome, organised into sections according to area, and the valleys leading up to […]
La Ravoire and Leverogne
The Aosta Valley runs for almost 100km from just north of our campsite (Camping Mombarone) … up to Courmayeur and the Mont Blanc tunnel. There’s a tonne of rock (140 […]
Gruviera and Montestrutto – into Val d’Aosta
We’re taking advantage of a weather window to explore the climbing around Grand Paradiso and the Aosta Valley, starting in the lower valley whilst things perk up and dry out […]
Weathering Storm Alex
Alex, the first named storm of the year, was forecasted to dump about 6 inches of the wet stuff on Val Penneveire on Friday, threatening to put a major dampener […]
Rocca dell’Arma – up into the clouds
With Jake and Leah having a rest day, we took the opportunity to explore the top end of Val Penneveire. Rocca dell’Arma sits at around 1,400m near Colle di Carpauna […]
Euskal – Colosseo – Rocca de Basura; a three crag day
A couple of kilometres further up the Pennavaire valley from Colletta, these three crags line the sunny south-facing flank. They’re only a few hundred metres from the road, but two […]
Benvenuto in Val Pennavaire
A number of factors conspired to see us leaving Germany and heading into Italy (dashing through Switzerland en route without a “Transit Stop” to avoid falling foul of any quarantine […]
Donautal
Unlike many of the other climbing areas we’ve visited in Southern Germany, the crags are pretty obvious in Donautal (or the Danube Valley) – there are major High Tor sized […]
Blautal
Blautal is another extensive area of crags in southern Germany, in the Schwabisch Alps, near Ulm. Despite the name, it’s neither blue nor very obviously a valley, with rolling green […]
Neues Tiefenbach and Grauer Stein – two more sides of Allgäu Limestone
Neues Tiefenbach is another impressive crag hidden from view, this time above a picture-postcard chapel framed by distant Alps. Just a few hundred metres from the van you can just […]
Seltmans – German pudding!
French climbers have a name for conglomerate: Poudinage vividly captures the random collection of glued-together cobbles, stirred together in ancient rivers or perhaps in some Giant’s mixing bowl. If Spain […]
Back on the road for climbing and cake!
The RockAroundTheWorld Trip-Planning Algorithm has been overhauled over the last few weeks, with rock quality and sunshine databases now supplemented with infection rate data and the latest quarantine regulations. We […]
Deep Throat and a Monster Whipper
That got your attention! But rest assured that RockAroundTheWorld hasn’t morphed into a sleaze site; the title accurately reflects the highlights of the first couple of days of another visit […]
Blue Scar and Kilnsey – Two greats of Yorkshire Limestone
With Jake taking up residence in the White Rose county, we decided to meet up for a Yorkshire Limestone mini-break before he started his first foundation placement. We planned for […]
Electric Quarry, Stoney
If you’ve driven through Stoney any time since lockdown you can’t fail to have witnessed the huge “spike” in popularity of the bolt-clipping hereabouts. Every lay-by, pull-off and scrape on […]
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