Just over 12 months ago I was doing a route toward the end of an endurance training session at the climbing wall when I popped out for a hold with my left hand. My forearms were already very fatigued and as I caught the hold and pulled through into a deep lock I felt a bursting strain at the elbow end of my forearm and in my wrist.
Category: Outdoors
Climbing, skiing, running, mountaineering etc
10 years of climbing showreel
I'm lucky to climb with some of the best climbing photographers in the UK (if not the world) who take some incredible shots of the climbing and skiing that we get up to together. Here's a selection of some of my favourite photo memories of the last 10 years of climbing in the UK, Alps, Africa, Iran and the Karakoram. Thanks to Alex Messenger, Scott Mackenzie, Lukasz Warczecha and Henry Iddon for many of these photos.
Whose ethic is it anyway? A climber’s history of Millstone
When running goes wrong – heart seizures in the mountains
Sometimes in the mountains things goes wrong, the unexpected occurs, the shit really hits the fan. You think you’re prepared, you think you know how to handle every situation, over the years you’ve probably rescued a few people here and there, but then something happens you can’t control and you’re helpless. The weather was foul …
Skiing Mam Tor Gully
The savage statistics of K2
The Promise, is it finally the End of the Affair?
The VS challenge
In climbing folklore the 1989 Stanage guide is the real guide to Stanage. Proper grades, proper stars, proper descriptions, proper difficult finding the routes. Rumours of the VS challenge came from my old university housemate who had allegedly climbed it way back when, possibly before 1989 as far as the rumour knew. The VS challenge …
British climbing – the bold way or the old way?
There’s definitely something in the saying; there’s bold climbers and old climbers but not old bold climbers. A number of recent events, like Franco Cookson decking from 20m, and finding this Malham video, got me thinking quite a lot about how my climbing’s changed over the last 15 years and how the UK (or perhaps UKC) perceives …