I’ve taken my first steps back into climbing following surgery on my injured knee. They’re just small steps at my local climbing wall, because I worry that anything else will see me injure myself again or at least slow down my recovery. My physio was clear about how to not hurt myself – avoid jumping down or falling off from boulder problems until my legs … Continue reading Back on Plastic
I was unlucky, uninformed and an idiot. It was near the end of our second day of my first bouldering trip to Fontainebleau and I was with a group climbing just a few more problems before it got too dark and late. Some of the group had climbed this tricky problem up the flat front of a split boulder and I wanted to do it too. It was different, a challenge and looked fun. This was partly because completing the problem required a right heel hook and I don’t do heel hooks often. Continue reading One Year On
My hands dry out and can crack like the bed of a river in a drought when the weather is cold or wet and when I’ve had my hands in climbing chalk. This means I’ve taken an interest in the balms and moisturisers designed to keep a rock climber’s hands in good condition and reviewed a few of them before. Recently I’ve been trying out the Climb On Adventure Bar and Climb On Crème Lite, made by SKINourishment of Texas using natural and food grade ingredients. Continue reading “Climb On Adventure Bar and Creme Lite Review”
Rock climbing isn’t kind to hands. Thankfully, there are quite a few balms available that aim to revitalise, repair and moisturise the cracked, parched and cut mess a climber’s hands can become if they are not shown some loving care. I reviewed some of these balms a while ago and gave the highest score to Climb On balm. Now I’ve come across another balm that is right up there with it.
Beta Balm is made by Simplici from Chattanooga in Tennessee. Simplici describes Beta Balm as “a powerful herbal moisturizer formulated to naturally rejuvenate dry, cracked, sore and irritated skin.” Continue reading “A Beta Balm?”
My best photos from my climbing and hiking adventures in 2014. Continue reading My Climbing 2014 in Pictures
Christmas is the season for giving. It is also the season for lots of really good competitions for outdoor clothing and equipment. Just as the shops put out their Christmas wears come December, so a range of shops, magazines and forums put on generous competitions for the sorts of goodies that outdoor enthusiasts would love to have in their Christmas stockings. It’s a fairly blatant attempt to boast sales during a peak buying period, but I don’t care, as I like entering competitions so much. Continue reading ’tis the season of competitions
People who like rock climbing are apparently more likely to enjoy eating gruel and poppy seed rolls, live in Wales, be middle class and describe themselves as analytical and practical, but occasionally neurotic. This is according to YouGov Profiler, a new, free app that allows you to look at survey data from polling company YouGov. It’s designed as a taster for the much more in-depth, paid-for YouGov Profiles that is YouGov’s segmentation and media-planning tool for PR agencies and brands. It’s quite fun to input random things into YouGov Profiler to see what it can tell you about people and their interests. However, looking through the occasionally quirky results from this app made me wonder if some people are admitting things in surveys that they aren’t sharing with their friends at the crag or if YouGov might need to talk to a few more climbers. Continue reading The Quintessential Climber
One of the things I like about bouldering is that it’s great when all you want to do is pootle. That’s all I wanted to do last weekend at The Roaches. I had a creeping cold that was developing a cough. The gritstone was green, wet and strong, blustery winds made sitting belaying at the top of a crag look a bit unappealing. So I spent my time wandering around the boulders, doing low-grade routes that looked interesting and weren’t so slimy and wet that my feet would skate off them. Continue reading Pootling Around The Roaches
In the year and a bit since Valerie and I became parents we’ve been slowly and carefully been working out how our young family can spend time climbing and walking. We started with visits to the climbing wall before moving on to bouldering and walking trips in which we stayed in hotels and hostels. Last weekend we took the big step of taking Leo camping for the first time. Although, to be honest, it might be more accurate to say that we took the baby step of taking him glamping for the first time. Continue reading Pod, Tor and Bude
Somehow I’d never seen the rolling hills of the Peak District turn purple before this week. I’ve walked and climbed in the Peaks numerous times, but somehow my timing meant that I had never been there when the heather was in bloom. It was a stunning sight. The smell of honey as Valerie, Leo and I walked along the edge of the Burbage valley and through fields of purple was sweet and warming. It was a great start to a couple of days of bouldering in the Peaks, but the trip didn’t go entirely to plan. Continue reading Burbage Bouldering
There are some items of outdoor gear that you don’t often see reviewed in the outdoor magazines and websites. Jackets, tents, rucksacks, baselayers, softshells, fleeces and boots all get regularly tested and reviewed in detail, but outdoor underwear doesn’t get reviewed much and, if it does, the reviews tend to be a bit cursory. Continue reading Getting Out in Rab’s MeCo 120 Boxer Shorts
An Easter break to the woods of Fontainebleau to climb on its famous sandstone boulders was our first real test as rock climbing parents. We had been taking our baby son, Leo, to the climbing wall on a regular basis and to some artificial boulders not far from where we live in London. He’d enjoyed the trips and we had managed to get a good amount of climbing done. But several days of outdoors climbing in a foreign country, with a teething seven-month old baby, felt like more of a challenge. Continue reading Fontainebaby
Sometimes places live up to the hype and Fontainebleau is one of those. The thousands of boulders in the vast woods are legendary among rock climbers. Fontainebleau is regularly described as a magical place, with the purest, most engaging climbing. Now that I’ve been there for the first time, I agree how brilliant and fun bouldering at Font can be. Continue reading Font First Timer
A brightly shining sun and unseasonably warm weather last weekend meant that Valerie, baby Leo and I could swap our weekend climbing wall trip for Fairlop Waters Boulder Park. These are nine boulders of sprayed and carved concrete almost hidden in the trees by a lake in East London. Continue reading Climbing Concrete
the Severe climber 