2009 in brief..

Has it been this long? Oops!

In short.. I've had a few amazing trips to the Peak, my first day on sandstone - top-roping on Harrison's Rocks in Kent - and I went to beautiful Lulworth Cove to try my hand at Deep Water Soloing - excellent! I spent the winter getting strong and the summer getting weak.. so now I'm trying to get strong again..



There's too many photos to put up, but this quality video courtesy of award-winning trailer maker Ben Knapp explains the vibe of this year's climbing so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NzgYEkzCsk

I'll try to keep updates more regular!!

In the mean time.. ROCK ON!



P.S. It is with great sadness that I had to say goodbye to Tanya Coles - the good lady in the above video - who has emigrated to Australia to take on bigger and better rocks! Tanya - we shall climb together again! Miss you xx)

The ONLY way to start 2009!

2009 started off in the best possible way - by heading up to the Peak District. At the very kind hospitality of James Berman and all his family - including his grand-parents! I was treated to the best start of a year I've ever had. A couple of days bouldering in the Peaks! : ) Thank you family Berman! (Check out their lovely house!)

It was ridiculously cold so I packed my thermals & I was very glad to have them. The days actually warmed a little and we were graced with some pretty beautiful weather, but as the sun went down it got properly cold!

The first day we went to a rock called Trackside - a beautiful boulder with loads of great problems. We didn't rock particularly hard - it has to be said, but we did have a lot of fun and managed to avoid most of the patches of ice!

Trackside boulder. Me failing to climb Strawberries (lame!).

After a good lunch of leftovers from the night before and a bit of soaking up the beautiful view, we went on to Birchens edge, where the bouldering wasn't great - but we did find a rock called Victory to climb - what could be better! : )

James rocking my new Christmas bouldering mat, with Victory & Nelson's column in the background (left hand one of the 3 boulders).

James taking command of Victory!

The next day we went to try our hands at some traversing on limestone. This time the location was not quite so beautiful - somewhere just South of Mansfield - but it was great to try some other sort of rock and the traverse was a good challenge (for us, at least!).

James nearly at the end. I got hot & manned up... ...but still failed!

HAPPY NEW YEAR ONE & ALL!