Happy Christmas (Eve) at Bamford
December held out until near the end to offer up a climbing weather window – until Christmas Eve to be precise. A forecast of sunny and 5C was as good […]
Tag Archives: climbing
Ice Box Canyon
This is described in the guidebook as “a major mountain crag with some of the best extreme climbing in the region” but unfortunately it lies in the Samazar Valley. We’d […]
Ksar Rock
Today’s plan for a Tash and Dad multi-pitch adventure was put briefly on hold to check out the Souk in Ida Ougnidif on market day. It was rammed, with dozens […]
Sungold – Thumbs Up!
The Thumb is an impressive 300m high quartzite lump on the Tizi Escarpment, which dominates the skyline above the village of Assldrar. It has perhaps the highest concentration of long […]
Aktil Edge
Another glorious day – people keep telling us that December is often rainy or even snowy, and only last week the climbers staying at the Kasbah only managed a couple […]
Rock the Kasbah – An adventure in the Anti Atlas
Tash, Jake and I are off for a week of (hopefully) sunny climbing in Morocco, staying at the Kasbah Tizourgane on the northern side of the Jebel el Kest mountains. […]
Black Beauty – Lower Eagle crag
The south side of the Afantinzar valley is dominated by Lower Eagle crag – about 200m high and a kilometer wide. Shady for most of the day, we’d watched it […]
Stanage Apparent North
After a lot of overnight rain, it was perhaps asking a lot for the forecasted sunny intervals to dry Stanage, and in the event there weren’t any intervals anyway. However, […]
La Jacoterie
Drifting homewards and looking for cragging opportunities to break the journey, we took a “lucky dip” in the Vertical Life app and came up with La Jacoterie in the Jura. […]
Leysin – Pierre de Moelle
The main Leysin crags are accessed by a cable car followed by a bit of a hike, and with the weather looking a bit iffy to start with we decided […]
Yvorne
After a night in a campsite by Lac Leman We continued our exploration of the cragging a few km back up the Rhone Valley near the town of Aigle. This […]
Gorges du Dailley, Salvan – sectors Daillet and Dalle
There’s a LOT of granite on the hillside above Martigny, much of it accessed from the impossibly quaint village of Salvan Les Granges. The major tourist attraction here is The […]
Dorenaz
After a 2-day side-visit to Chamonix that turned into a fortnight, we’ve finally managed to tear ourselves away. We’d visited pretty much all of the cragging venues and the interval […]
Gietroz, sector Pylon
The somewhat utilitarian name belies an excellent little crag. Gietroz is the easterly extension of Barberine and has a bunch of sectors scattered over the hillside. Pylon is just over […]
Lady in Black, Point Gaspard, Aiguilles Rouges
After a week of valley cragging it was time for another adventure further up in the Big Hills, so it was great to be able to call on The Rucksack […]
Coupeau
On Neil’s recommendation we made a trip to Coupeau, a hidden gem of Chamonix Valley cragging – always handy to have a bit of local knowledge! It’s not a huge […]
Vallorcine
Almost 6 weeks in to Helen’s recovery and it’s time for some tentative steps back into multi-pitch adventuring – we’d been saving the friendly granite slabs at Vallorcine for the […]
Le Clis, Vallee d’Arve
We’d exhausted most of the major Chamonix Valley cragging options, and needed a break from granite slabs, so headed back down the Arve to seek out Le Clis. This is […]
Barberine
This extensive granite crag is at the top of the Chamonix Valley, just over the Col des Montets – it’s actually in Switzerland (by a couple of hundred metres), though […]
Chamonix Valley cragging – La Joux and Les Gaillands
After the lengthy approach to Les Cheserys yesterday, we opted for roadside today, so checked out La Joux. Accessed from the station of the same name, it’s a very pleasant […]
RockAroundTheWorld 