Nov 08

Honeymoon.. Well its been long time since I last blogged but I have lots to tell you.  
On Sat 30th August Lucinda and I got married in the Peak District. The weather was amazing and we were very lucky that it didnt rain!! Lu and I had such a good day with all our friends and family in attendance on our special day. The following day we headed off Australia for our 5 week honeymoon for some sun and hard moves...
We arrived in Melbourne and spent 2 nights in a really nice swarve hotel down in ST Kilda, we had room service etc and pretty much didnt leave the hotel.
We then flew up to Sydney for a week with our friend Nick, we climbed in the Blue Mountains for a few days and enjoyed some amazing food and lots of Coopers beer.
Then we flew back to Melbourne and arrived to a fully loaded up silver Honda civic, ready for us to take to the Grampians. We had stoves, chairs, pads and extra climbing gear. We're in...
Our friend the Rubber Chicken ( pretty much our Oz bro ) fully styled us, we arrived at the Gramps with some friends of the RC and followed them to a small campground in the middle of the bush called Mosquito Creek. We Climbed at Muline for a week and I nearly flashed this amazing 8a called eye of the tiger. I despatched it next go and thought it was one of the best sport routes I had ever done!!! ( Photo's sould be up soon ).
We then headed up towards Taipan wall to stay at Stapelton campground, this place is so cool, lots of wallabys and stumpy blue tong lizards around. We climbed on Taipan and bouldered around the area with my highlight being a 8a+ despatch 3rd go.
Lu and I then headed back to Melbourne to pick up the Rubber chicken to spend the remaining time of our trip bouldering at his new area called the Tower. It was awesome. Fresh untouched sandstone boulders with all kinds of problems. From gritstyle highball slabs to steep Hueco style roofs, we all had a great time, lots of banter and a few nights getting lashed talking rubbish.
Thanks to everone in Oz for an amazing time and making us feel so welcome..
Been back on the grit since I got back and Headpointed a coulpe of Grit E7's to get my head back in gear...
Will post some photo's as soon as I get them..
Talk soon...

August 08

Round up of the last 2 months... Well I have been very busy climbing, working going on holiday and preparing for my wedding so i have loads to share with you. 

I will start with the end of june when Lucinda and I went to amazing one day techno festival in Amsterdam called Awakenings. It started at 10am and went on until midnight featuring 3 large indoor arenas and 2 massive outdoor stages. The atmosphere was awesome very friendly and chilled out and good food tents and a superb mojito tent. We danced all day to some awesome techno and had a great time we will definatly be going again next year.

Next main news was that Lucy and Percy had a wonderful little daughter called Annie what a proud looking Dad he his!


Then before I got fully into organising things for Lu and I's wedding I had my stag do in Magic wood. 30 of my friends gathered in the magical forest for 4 days of fun. There was plenty of Climbing, plenty of banter, and a ridiculos amounts of fun. Harry my best man did a sterling job of organising the whole weekend a had the mother of all surprises for me on the sunday. He had booked me to do the worlds largest bungee jump about 220 meters of a massive dam nr Belinzona 5-6 seconds of ultimate euphoria... Get in..
I have also been training loads at the wall getting ready for Lu and I honeymoon we 5 weeks in Australia.  I have been doing circuits and some campusing to top up my power endurance. In the middle of training I made a quick ascent of Dangerous brothers ( 3rd go ) and despathed Cote de Sezwan at magic wood, all in all its been a great couple of months and now im just really looking forward to the wedding and honeymoon.

June 08

Taghia, Morocco
Wow!!! Is all I can say. I have just got back from two weeks Climbing in the Taghia valley in Morocco. Taghia is a small village of about 200 people situated in the high atlas mountains. Surrounding the village is a mass of limestone ranging from 150 to 800 meters, with the majority of the routes well bolted the area has been popular with the French and Spanish. I was there with a strong team of Brits to repeat some of the classic routes and generally sus the place out for futher trips. After a 3 hour flight to Marakesh we stayed the night in a swarve hotel ready for an early start the day after. We got up early and piled on to an already cramped bus and headed off into the mountains. The first bus journey was about 4 hours on decent roads, and then the second bus journey took us straight to the end of the road to a small village called Zaouir. We stayed the night there and enjoyed some amazing food and mint tea. The weather the next day was rubbish...no-one told us it was going to be cold and wet in Morocco at the end of May!!! The weather finally cleared enough and we started our 3 hour walk into Taghia (1900 meters) with donkeys carrying our rucksacs. It was a fairly chilled walk up the valley passing all kinds of massive untouched limestone cliffs, until we reached Tahgia where the cliffs were even bigger.
For a warmup Harry 9 toes, Andy Cave and I climbed a 6 pitch 6c+ called Class Montange Epinal. The route was fairy good with some interesting slab climbing and good rock. We abseiled back down with loads of time before an evening dinner of soup followed by veg tagine.
The next day Andy and I climbed the classic Zebda 7B+, 8 pitches of amazing climbing on perfect rock. After debating whether or not to walk off we decided to ab off instead.
The rest days consisted of listening to techno, eating rice and tomatoes, reading books, and playing cards, basically trying to do as little as possible. Everybody else got off to great starts despatching some of the classic's and jumping on some of the really long routes.
Andy and I then had an early 6am start to try a route called Riviers Pourpes 7b+. We climbed the 1st 10 pitches on sight and then abseiled off due to bad weather coming in.
After another rest day we had a late start and walked in to try a route called Tout pour le Club, an 8 pitch classic 7C. The plan was to have a go at the first 3 pitches and see what happens. I onsighted the 1st pitch, 7b+,Andy despatched an easy pitch of 6c and then I led the 3rd pitch, 7C, and it was game on. After some more hard 7b and 6c pitches, we were below the final pitch which was a 7c crack pitch. Andy was super keen on having a crack at it and as he pulled through the first roof he was home and dry. We abseiled down with the light fading rapidly. We just about had enough time to pack our kit away when it went dark. We stubbled around looking for the path using the light on our cameras until Harry and Nic came to the rescue with head torches. Heros!!!
The weather then turned more unpredictable, and to be honest, I was glad of a few days rest. Climbing totally onsight without chalk over 8+ pitches is mentally and physically taxing.
The Climbing in Taghia is very interesting with lots of diffrent styles on excellent quality rock. The majority of the pitches consisted of thin technical climbing on small to very small holds and just off vertical. All of the routes we did were well bolted with great belays. Im already looking forward to going back sometime......

Apr 08

Training.. I have been making the most of the good weather by getting out as much as I can, training for my forthcoming trip to Morocco in may. There is team of eight of us heading to the Taghia gorge in the high Atlas Mountains. The climbing consists of multi pitch sport climbing with routes from 200 to 800 meters of quality limestone.

My training program has consisted of various trips to Raven Tor and a trip up to Malham, I have been getting fitter and feel like I can recover and still climb while I am pumped.

Last weekend Harry and I went up to Northumberland to DJ at the BMC AGM. The event was being held at the Blue Bell pub in Belford. The BMC have not had any music at these events for the last 5 years and Harry and I were called in to get the place rocking. After Grimer played a nice warm up set and then Harry and I went back to back for two hours. At one point we had at least 15 people dancing for about 1 hour until we cleared the room. After spinning a few more we headed down to the bar for night cap and the night was deemed a success.

On Sunday we headed to Kyloe in the woods, as Harry had never climbed hear before he was in for a real treat. We climbed all the classics and I managed the Yorkshire man again and Harry finally despatched Hitch Hikers after trying a duff sequence.

I have also had an article published on UKC about being a Climbing wall owner, check out the link below for more details..

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=904

Back at the Climbing Works Percy and I have been practicing our party tricks, the photo below see's Percy ripping a large yellow pages in half. It has been his long term project and today was the day it went down, it good to see him working hard on a friday afternoon.

March 08

Three 8a's in a week... Well its been a crazy week and a bit.. It all started off last monday on St. Patricks day, Brian and I went into Sheffield town centre at 4pm and started drinking in the Guiness tent. The 1st round of pints went down a treat and then after reaching double figures we started dancing and then I vaguely remember getting home!

Tuesday was spent route setting all day with Harry 9 toes, we set a new purple circuit at the Works, graded font 6a+ to 7a+.
Then on Wednesday I headed to Burbage to check out some problem's I hadn't done. I flashed 'Boyager' and the went over to 'The Terrace' area as Harry wanted to despatch it. As Harry was working it I decided to go for the 8a link, this problem climbs The Terrace and then reachers right before the top into the crack, climb down the crack avoiding the ledge at the back, round the low corner to finish up the 7a+ roof. Great problem that leaves you very pumped!!
As i was on a bit of a roll on Saturday, Lucinda and I went to Gardoms for me to try Full Power. This was my second day on this problem and after lots of snow showers and battling I found myself latching the top of 'soft on the gee'. I felt like I was going to fall off but Lu was shouting at me not to let go!!

I had a welcomed rest on Sunday and then went to the Roaches on Monday to try 'Columns' another 7c+/8a on the Tetris boulder. After warming up slowly and dodging the snow showers again I unlocked an awesome sequence and found myself mantling the top to glory!! It felt hard but not quite as hard as full power, however I suppose the conditions were really good...

Feb 08

Awesome weather... After two weeks of amazing weather I am in need of some of a rest. My friends Si and scoots have been over from OZ and brought the good weather with them, we have been climbing nearly every day. We have all all over the peak and yorkshire to make the most of the conditions.
We had one of the best days ever at Earl despatching the classics and I put to bed a 5 year nemisis, the Ramp. I had fallen of the last move on my 3rd go and then spent 5 years falling of the 1st moves. I wanrmed up on Andy browns wall and some other classics, psyched up and despatched it 1st go...get in!
I have also been out in the peak getting in lots of milage at the local crags, it was great to hear about a new problem nr Grindleford train station. I went up to have a look and was pleasantly suprised to see a quality looking prow with fridge hugging moves all the way up. I despatched it in a few go's and confirmed it s quality with friends.
Last week Percy and I re-set the Berghaus Comp wall for the Last round of the Berghaus bouldering league, tI think there is now a fine set of hard problems to try over the next few weeks. I have also got to start traing on the circuits board ready for a planned big wallling trip to Morrocco in may.
This weekend see's another big party at the Workstation in Sheffield, its a joint party between Climbing Works and SHAFF film festival. The party is on Sat night from 9pm - 3am with Climbing Works DJ's..

Andy Brown's wall.. The Ramp..