Back on Hallowed Ground – First Gogarth Trip in 18 months!
It goes without saying that the interruption of my climbing exploits is pretty small beer in amongst the tragedy and tumult of the last year. However, the fact that 2020 […]
Tag Archives: rock climbing
So long Lockdown
The “roadmap” has finally yielded the beginning of the end of the latest Lockdown (was it the 2nd or 3rd, and more importantly will it be the last?) Time for […]
The Diamond and The Black – Lockdown slideshow
With slightly spooky foresight I managed to launch Season 2 of The Rucksack Club’s Lockdown Slideshows to coincide with the beginning of Lockdown 3 in the UK. Something tells me […]
Craig y Forwen
The coat tails of Storm Ellen were flapping around Britain, bringing lashing rain, as Andy and I set off for the crag on Saturday morning. The wipers were still on […]
Beeston Tor
Where in Provence are we?… Okay, it’s a trick question of course, and the title is a bit of a giveaway, but Beeston is one of the few bits of […]
Limestone pick n mix
I’ve deliberately dialed down the blogging of visits to familiar “holes in the ground” – there’s only so much you can say about Harpur Hill and the Stoney crags, and […]
Dovedale Groove
Here’s a route that’s been on my tick list for 35 years, ever since it appeared in the iconic TV series: Lakeland Rock. This featured Chris Bonington charting the development […]
Swordfish – Stackpole Head
There’s really no excuse for visiting Pembroke in August and going to a crag that isn’t bird banned the rest of the year. Stackpole Head is one of the major […]
There’ll be a welcome at the seaside – Pembroke’s open for business!
With restrictions easing in Scotland and Wales we had a choice to make for the next stage of getting RockAroundTheWorld back on the road. In the end, the forecast made […]
A Feast on The East
According to Hard Rock: “The East Buttress of Scafell is the finest crag in The Lakes. A great lonely crag. Its walls overhang. Water drips out instead of down.” Quite […]
RockAroundTheWorld Retrospective – The 2004-5 Big Trip part 1: Around the Baltic in 80 Days
We first coined the phrase “RockAroundTheWorld” in 2004 when Helen and I took the tumultuous decision to have a “grownup gap-year”, take the kids (aged 8 and 10) out of […]
Virtual Gogarth Meet and Quiz
Every June, for almost 20 years, Helen and I have organised The Gogarth Meet. Despite my best efforts, and the climbing on The Best Crag In The World, this has […]
Nesscliffe – Trouble in Toytown
We visited Nesscliffe a couple of years ago, with the focus very much on Jake’s ambition to lead his first E7. That trip turned out well… https://www.google.com/amp/s/rockaroundtheworld.co.uk/2018/06/03/nesscliffe-and-jakes-first-e7/amp/ …and I’d been […]
Curbar – a John Allen homage
Jake is back home for a while and keen to get some Peak climbing in the bag, and a fairly arbitrary decision saw us pick Curbar for a rather damp […]
Kinder Northern Edges – a different Kinda Grit
Ashop Edge, on the north side of the Kinder plateau, is something of a connoisseurs crag. Rarely in condition, it features a number of routes that (when “in”) would warrant […]
Lockdown loosening
It’s hard to believe that I haven’t set hand or foot to rock since 20th March – almost 8 weeks and the longest gap in my outdoor climbing in certainly […]
Back in Blighty and a Birthday Blast for Jake
I’m going to preface this blog post with a disclaimer, given the amount of vitriol that seems to be propagating on climbing fora and in the media, and also to […]
Jaén – Castillo de Santa Catalina and Reguchillo
We’d pretty much wrung the last drops from the climbing available in Portugal, which coincided perfectly with the first day of dodgy weather in ages. Time to head East! We […]
Escusa
Flicking through the Portugal Climbing guide, packed with great photos, the shots of Escusa still stand out – I’ve rarely seen such a striking wall of ribboned flowstone, and as […]
Crista de Zebro
Heading north from Sesimbra we stopped off at Nazaré to check out the surf scene – the world’s “biggest” waves, apparently and we were treated to 60 footers, and stumbled […]
