Happy Birthday Jesus.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope you've all had a merry old time and enjoyed yourselves. 2013 has a been a pretty exciting year. Was a bit gutted that the Autumn climbing season didn't really happen for me, but I've got a feeling that 2014 is going to be great.

North face of the Grandes Charmoz

Jon and Myself had actually went for this face last year, but were unfortunately shut down on the first pitch due to poor conditions. Even though the face isn't steep, apart from the upper sections, you still want good conditions to climb the route fast and efficiently. As I said in a previous post. The Autumn hasn't been too good to us so everyone has been quite un sure what will be good to climb. Then Jon told me that some Italians had climbed the Charmoz.

Bringing Home the Bacon

This Autumn hasn't been the most productive, due to really poor weather and conditions.  Mostly I've just been training either at the zoo, which is the local dry tooling venue, or at the wall. So I'm feeling strongish on the axes just now. However I've not done that much in the mountains so I wasn't sure what my head would be like on a hard mixed traditionally protected route.

Videos;

Here's a couple of interesting videos to watch on your Friday night.

Patagonia & Zamberlan

This January I am heading out to Patagonia for the whole month with team of pretty talented climbers. Hopefully if all goes to plan and we'll come away with something pretty cool, but no matter what the outcome is I know it'll be a pretty special trip. I've wanted to visit Patagonia for years, and I'm really looking forward to seeing a bit of South America.

Where's your head at?

Sorry I've not wrote on my blog for a while. I've had a few things going on. I'd like to say they've been wild, exciting and entertaining things... But they haven't. My heads just been in a funny place lately. For the past two months I've been on stand-by waiting to get into the mountains, but weather and conditions have been rubbish this season. So mostly I've been training on the tools at the local dry-tooling venue, at the wall or run/hike up to the mid stations. I'm gonna try back log a few things that I did do over the past few months.

Big day oot...

My main objectives for this summer have mostly been bigger longer days out in the mountains. I think that's my favorite style for out here. Mainly cause I just like being in the mountains but moving in good style. Not Michael Jackson style, but light and fast. I've not got a lot of things done this summer that I would have like to have done, but there's still time. So on Friday I went for a little walk...

Ni dieu ni Maitre - Croix de Fer

 Every once in a while we all need to get away for the day and just have fun. Well for me going up to the Croix de Fer, above Sallanches, was just the place for that. There are so many huge limestone walls looming over the 'Valle de l'Arve'. Some of which have top notch mutli-pitch routes on them. From easier grades which take on some interesting features to major aid fest through some huge roofs. Others are quite poor rock but still really impressive. Croix de Fer is good rock and super impressive!

Going out to play!

I find it funny how as a child we didn't think about things too much, we played! We'd spend hours just messing around and not have a care in the world. It's what made us tick. One of the biggest things we all probably did as a child was run. Whether it'd be a game of tig, hidey, playing football, getting a chase from someone or kicking around a plastic bottle and shooting it between two jumpers for goalposts. We just ran for hours and didn't think too much about it.

At what point did it change, and we found running to be an activity that we have to find time for? When did we start  going for 'a run'? When did we stop kicking the plastic bottles around? I don't have the answers I'm just wondering...

A morning stroll in the mountains.

The past week has finally started to feel like summer. This means everyone is out doing things, road biking, running, rock climbing, alpine climbing, BBQ and many more.. Pretty much everyone is loving the fact that the sun has finally showed it face, I'm not though!

Swim on the Blanc.

Spring hasn't really said hello around the Chamonix mountains much this season. I don't know if it's lazy, busy or doing other fun things somewhere else. Maybe Spring had had a shameful experience on a night out in town and was just too shy to show its face. There's mutual feelings going around Chamonix with everyone being fed up with the poor weather. Just feels like we've missed out on those long special periods of good settled weather where you can ski up high in the mountains in the morning, go climbing in the afternoon then have a BBQ whilst the sun is setting. Don't get me wrong I've had some great days out recently but they seem to be quite spaced apart.

Spring's face?!

Back on the skis.

I haven't ski as much this year as I did last year for various reasons, mostly as I've wanted to concentrate a bit more on climbing. It felt great though to get back out and have fun on the skis.

Big thank you.

I was so excited when I went to collect my delivery the other day. I 'd been looking forward to receiving this, and now I could finally get to play with my new toys. I'd like to say a massive thanks to Mountain Boot Company for supplying me with lightweight ski mountaineering equipment and footwear.

Some ice.

Photo credit; Jon Griffith

I managed to get a few good classic ice routes done at the start of February.

Carrington - Rouse

Last weekend I was at the Kandersteg "not so much" ice festival. It was a shame the conditions were really poor as I had arranged to stay on for a few days after with my friend Ben Winston to climb some ice. http://www.benwinston.co.uk/ The conditions were really bad so we decided to head back through to Chamonix. Ben had 3 days to play with and being a new father he has to savour and make the most of any free time he gets.