I’m back in the office now after
nearly 13 months of voluntary unemployment spent travelling and climbing from
Thailand to California to the Lleyn Peninsula. The desire to take a break from
work such as this had been brewing for such a long time that to think it’s now
been and gone is bizarre.
January
January was spend in Borneo/Malaysia
and arriving Thailand. This photo is from a fairly small, but possibly the
best, night market we found on our travels. It’s in the town of Kota Kinabalu,
mine and Cat’s first stop on our SE Asian tour. There were amazing avocado
shakes, loads of fresh fish and squid, and tasty buffets of unknown things for
not many ringits.
February
Most of this month was spent at
Tonsai, of which this photo was taken. I had a really great time in Tonsai,
even though I’m sure it has changed a lot over the last couple of decades of
popularity, I still found a really nice place to spend time and to climb. The
climbing is good, even though not likely to be world class, and then there’s
the sun, beaches, cocktails…
March
After Tonsai things got a bit more
hectic, Bangkok, Hanoi, Cat Ba, Saigon, Phnom Pehn… we were on the move a lot.
As we were travelling north through Loas, we rented motorbikes for a few days
to go and tour an area we’d heard of called the Bolaven Plateau. This ended up
being one of the highlights of my time in SE Asia.
April
After getting back from Asia I was
around the UK for most of this month, mainly resting after having spent a few
months away and getting ready to head out to Yosemite in May. I can remember a
few good little climbing hits, one especially good weekend in Pembroke
discovering the delights of Range West with Caff. And, Sam had a stag-do! So I
thought I’d use this photo of him downing an old speckled hen with snot running
down his face after doing a bike race in terrible lycra.
May
This was a totally awesome month in
Yosemite. We checked out a new line that proved to be way too hard then turned
our attention to Salathe Wall. We spent 3 days on the wall up to long ledge and
then 4 days camped near the top of El Cap trying the headwall. It was amazing
to try this pitch even though it proved too difficult in the end. It had
already been a good trip, but we had time for more and so went for a look at El
Nino. Doing the first three pitches in advance, which were some of the hardest
face climbing I’ve ever done, we freed the rest of the route in three days.
This photo is me and Caff just topping out on El Nino.
June
June was another month that was
mainly spent in the UK, catching up with friends, family, weddings, and a bit
of climbing. One great day was had with Reeve, Lindy and Cat up at the Cromlech
doing Cenotaph Corner, Lord of the Flies and the route in the photo, Atomic Hot
Rod.
July
I flew to the Chamonix to meet up
with the most ambitious climber ever, Musket, to try all of the hardest routes
in the Alps. Aguille du Fou might not have actually been too hard, but it was
too dangerous and unpleasant to access with bits of ice hitting us in the face.
The Fiz, however, was too hard, but also really amazing climbing. In the photo
Calum is flashing on second a particularly desperate 7c pitch. After getting a
beating and with the weather being crappy, we headed to the Gorge du Verdon to
try some more routes that were too hard for us :)
August
Me and Cat met in the Pyrenees to do
a really, really long bike ride in terrible weather that broke us both for a
while. After we’d recovered from that we went and climbed this really
stunning mountain called the Vignemale. This is the best shot I could get
because we approached and descended mainly in the dark! It was a great day out
on a stunning peak.
September
This was a month involving a bit of
time in the UK, Mallorca and, in the photo, kayaking in Sweden for 8 or 9 days.
We were really lucky with the weather, it looked like this the whole time. It
was good fun choosing amusingly described islands to paddle to, explore and
camp on.
October
All of October was spent in Yosemite
Valley and it was as good as always, except maybe a bit hotter. We started by
ignoring the heat and set off on Freerider anyway only to find that hours in
rock boots, climbing and hauling all day in blistering heat wasn’t fun or
conducive to success. Running out of water was also pretty rubbish. We decided
to wait for it to cool off it a bit before trying again. We were on it second
time around and this is a shot of me and Reeve the morning after topping out.
November
At some point, and in a frantic rush
before the storm, we left Yosemite. I’d been down from Freerider about an hour
and felt like shit, pretty grumpy too, but it was all good because we were off
to Bishop. Met a great bunch of folk camping at the pit and spent the next few
weeks getting beasted at the Buttermilks. Here’s Reeve about to tickle the
finishing jug on Stained Glass.
December
Finally back in the UK, no more
trips and totally broke. Job hunting was an urgent priority, but the weather
was pretty good back in Wales and it was great to be back and get out on Lleyn
with Calum and Caff. This is a photo from a day we tried a new line on Cilan
Head, I’m crawling along a rubbly ledge and have just pulled a peg out of the
cliff.
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