Clay landed in Munich and hopped on a train to Salzburg at lunchtime. The südgrat route above Schober is a prominent line rising from the Red Bull HQ at Fuschl below. A lovely choice for a sunny afternoon, with no real difficulties except for one stiff pitch of 7 up a steep finger crack on the final headwall.
A beautiful 1500m ascent to the Schöderhorn, the perfect reminder of why we moved to Salzburg in the first place. Powder right back to the valley floor - what an amazing back garden! Thanks to Rebecca, Martin and Max for setting the Austrian pace up ahead all day.
A post-wedding trip with Al to the mighty Scottish Dubh-loch. I wanted to try something a bit harder but in the end we settled for the Black Mamba (VS). This turned out to be a wise choice with a Gary Latter navigational masterclass and buttcracks abound on the 9 big pitches. Combined with the 8km cycle and 90 minute approach on foot we managed a 13 hour day car-to-car. Lucky it doesn't get dark in the summer in Scotland.
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.
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.
A nice warm-up of 4 pitches of climbing on L'index with Rob and Steve on day 1 in Chamonix. Lovely little route, not much more to add! Thanks to Rob W-M for some of these photos.
