Snow at The Cottage! First time in a couple of years! Woo-hoo! Typical that it’s the day I’ve got a big drive ahead of me! Starting a day with snowflakes falling, followed by a Christmas Carol service it all felt rather festive! We left the service in high spirits, dived in the bus and got Read more

Nothing really to add today. The photo screen shot of the weather forecast says it all. Stayed in the valley! Had first mince pies of the season and a good brew with friends in Llanberis and got gear packed for tomorrow’s departure. Heading north! Happy Birthday Michelle! Read more

Something a bit different! After spending the day organising equipment for my next expedition, I got the chance to have a go at rifle shooting! Last time I had a go with one of these things was trying to shoot a polar bear shaped box in Svalbard! The bullets and recoil on these were much Read more

As part of my mountaineering ‘Continuing Professional Development’ (CPD), I had an eye-opening evening at Plas y Brenin, the National Mountain Centre with the Head of Development at Edelrid Ropes; taking a scientific and practical look at the use of climbing ropes. The meeting was scheduled from 17:00 to 19:30, but it was nearer 21:00 by the time Read more

I finished the weekend climbing wall course that I’ve been running at the Beacon Climbing Centre. It’s been a while since I had such an able and psyched group. We did loads of routes, some speed climbing (where I had to work hard to keep from getting burnt off y the students!) and finished with Read more

It wasn’t all about rock climbing today at the indoor wall. For something a bit different, we had a fun session learning how to climb a rope in order to escape from a crevasse or up a steep section of cliff. We used a mix of traditional ‘prussik’ knots as well as some mechanical gizmos too. Read more