Steve and I had had our eye on Moss Gill Grooves on Scafell Crag all weekend. Optimistically hoping it would be dry, we hiked up early on Sunday to be greeted by a very drippy rockface. Switching to Pisgah Buttress instead, I got into a bit of a fight with a sketchy, mossy face on the first pitch, after which the climbing significantly improved and we hauled ourselves to the misty summit.
The valley was disappointingly damp after the long drive to Wasdale Head from Bristol. Steve and I guided Jimmy up Needle Ridge, a Classic Rock route which goes in all conditions and was a great introduction for Jimmy to mountain trad.
A productive week in the gorge, taking Adam and Craig on their first multi-pitch trad routes either side of a day out with Steve Gibbs. The latter was fairly eventful as found myself back near the ground upside after taking a big lob off of Simian.
Over fourteen days in June 2016, Elliott and I traversed the whole of Iceland from the northern coast at Akureyi to the Skogar in the south. We set off with the warnings of a local driver ringing in our ears and battled the sun, rain, wind, flies, dust, snow and complete isolation of the central highlands. Several hundred kilometres later we arrived, hungry and happy.
The best photos courtesy of Elliott. See the route we took here
Adam and I returned for our third weekend adventure in Norway to backpack a lap of the Ringedalsvatnet lake to Trolltunga. As in previous years, we packed no winter gear and were then surprised with how ridiculously snowy it still is up high. Rather than take the usual tourist approach we headed up from Odda and hiked in isolation from the south side of the lake, breaking trail through the snow for up to 9 hours a day. On our last morning the rain cleared and we finally arrived at the crazy rock of Trolltunga, looking out across the stunning Norwegian landscape.
Relocating to the Fuente De end of the Picos de Europa, we thought that an ascent of Espolón de los Franceses on Penya Vieja would make a great end to our week in Spain. After some early route finding issues on the complex SE face of the mountain we eventually hit the ridgeline and the route got better and better as we cruised towards the top.
With seven hours of climbing gone we could have been forgiven for thinking we were nearly finished, but the route ends with a further two hours of complicated, exposed and occasionally terrifying ridgeline including three abseils and a number of wet snow patches. Running out of time we soloed across the rocky mess to summit at 9:30pm and dashed down the avalanche prone slopes to the bottom, finishing the 2km vertical of descent shortly after midnight.
