My major expedition of the summer was a 3 week adventure exploring the South Chuyski Range of the Altai Mountains in Southern Siberia. Rather than duplicate pictures and details, I'll point you to the dedicated trip website at www.thealtai.co.uk.
My tour of Warwickshire and Coventry's finest local crags continued with a trip to the dirty sandstone crag of Corley Rocks. The plus point is that being 6m high, it is almost 6x higher than any other crag in the region. However, sunglasses are highly recommended, especially on the arete. As you haul up past the termites, lichen and dust you may wonder what brought you here in the first place.
Rigging the toprope is easy, if you enjoy crawling around inside a holly bush.
There can be few finer ways to travel to work than by kayak. The Leamington to Warwick commute is a 20 minute drive, or a 50 minute paddle (plus 15 minute hike with the boats across the town centre). A very pleasant trip, with just one small weir to negotiate half way down.
Two days of scrambling and training in the Lakes in preparation for the Altai expedition. Spent a day recapping rescue techniques at the foot of Gillercombe Buttress. Sunday was a bit wet for climbing on Pavy Ark, so we wandering up Jack's Rake then headed home.
Eleven great routes with Steve at Froggatt in the sun gave me a painful introduction to crack climbing. Managed to get 6 leads and 2 solos completed, although Valkyrie will have to wait for another day...
With a transfer booked back for the afternoon, there was just time to make use of the good weather on Saturday to run up the North Face of the Petite Verte. We skipped the final 50m of climbing which was shoulder to shoulder with other teams, and descended before taking the much quieter NE rocky ridge back to the lift station.
