Wednesday 26 September 2012

Slovak Direct Alaska

In recent years, Alaska has become a bit of a stomping ground for the Brits. Mike Twid Turner, Jon Bracey and Matt Helliker have been doing a great job of flying the flag for the UK with a clutch of new routes between them.

This year Nick Bullock and Andy Houseman  added their mark, by making a rare ascent of the Slovak Direct on Denali. Since first being climbed in 1984 this route has only had 5 ascents.

Check out an interview with Andy by clicking here on the link


Saturday 22 September 2012

let the strength be with you

Ray's great invention

Every considered how strong those DMM cams are ?

Worried about those cams failing once you fall ?

Never fallen on a came ?

Fear not, check out this link by clicking here  and let the peace be with you.

Sunday 16 September 2012

Tom thumb and lots going on

This summer has been a struggle in terms of my personal climbing.

A broken thumb back in April,  put pay to any thought of cranking, getting crag fit and getting out loads.

So with that in mind, best to get any injury fixed, so a lay off and rehab was in order.  However, I still managed to fit in a variety of requests, which did allow me to get out on the rock and help with the rehab.


So with a variety of days delivered , from private guiding , teaching climbing, private coaching, rescue skills, alpine rock route training and sea cliff climbing,  the last 6 months have been quite busy.

On top of this, there were a couple of AMI workshops, one on turbo multi pitch and the other on improvised rescue.


With the mixed bag of weather the last 5 months has given us, there has been a lot of juggling, but the weekends have often delivered the good weather which has worked out and fitted in well.

With winter only  3-4 months away time to start thinking about the white stuff. To be fair I had decided to start training back at the beginning of August, more on this and winter prep later in the month.

A few pics form this summers exploits


Teaching leading on Holyhead Mountain



Guiding on Shadow Wall - Llanberis Pass




Performance Leading and Coaching - Tremadog