Sheffield hosted the Adventure Film Festival this weekend. I had tickets from Saturday afternoon onwards, which left just enough time to fall off a couple of E1s at Stanage in the morning beforehand. There were many many great videos on show, a couple of the shorter ones are embedded below.
Arguably the best adventure you can have in Snowdonia. An epic route of old mining tunnels, rusty ladders, a huge iron chain and a couple of good abseils leads you around the different quarries of Llanberis.
Grooved arete is a brilliant 7 pitch climb up the side of Tryfan in Snowdonia. My partner for the day, Matt, had never climbed outdoors before (I taught him to belay as we geared up), owned no rock shoes and had two arms which were very prone to dislocation. So to make it fair, I led the route in B2s as well, which made for a much more exciting day out.
Some pretty incredible conditions up in the Lake District over the weekend. Extensive snowfall and clear sunshine had left the hills covered in great powdery drifts. Totally out of condition for climbing mind, although it didn't stop Will & Harry from backing off of a route or two.
It's winter up north, which makes the 10 hour drive well worth it. Leaving Thursday after work, we drove through the night to dig our way through the snowdrifts into the Cairngorm ski car park at around 4am. Straight out and onto the hills, with a 6 hour walk-in meaning we didn't start climbing til around 11:30 in the morning. Ticked Deep Cut Chimney on Friday morning, skipped Saturday due to bad weather and then finished with a team ascent of Boomerang Gully on the Sunday.
Another intense winter day ended in adventurous fashion when I wandered off route on Pitch 3 of Milky Way in Coire an Lochain (Cairngorm) up something decidedly more challenging. Much fear, swearing and flailing later and I was on the top, but the gear retrieval on abseil and epic descent nav pushed the finish well into the darkness.
