Thursday 23 February 2012

Mini-update + ....

Still no photos from the boys so it's time to start unleashing the bad pictures of Andy!

The latest news is that they had a good trip to the Haffner Cave, sent some routes including Caveman (M10) for Andy and 2 moves from the top of Piltdown Man (M12) for Gordon. Planning on heading to the Cineplex pretty soon for some more awesome sport-mixed-ing.


So as promised........


This one is for Andy - just in case you are missing him!

Don't think you are getting away with it either LW!

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Careful boys!!


Andy, Gordon and Lukasz have been spending the last week nearly on a top secret photo mission for Petzl. So, no pictures for the blog I'm afraid or they'd have to kill you all! If Petzl didn't get to them first.
It's also been getting quite warm the last couple of days so as Bull River needs the river to be frozen this little story didn't sound too good!


"Belayed Gordon on his new route today. He just touched down on the frozen river when there was a massive roar, we both looked up stream to see all the frozen river lift under a massive surge of water from above - we both just looked at each other grabbed all our kit and ran! We think some ice must have released from above and dropped into the water creating the surge. All pretty scary but OK. Off to Haffner Creek tomorrow for a couple of days."


Hope there aren't any surging rivers there!!!

More when I hear the next.

Thursday 16 February 2012

Ecrin film...

So, I've been left in charge of the Andy Turner Climbing blogspot again, he might not trust me with it but if he will go swanning off to nice places then no choice I'm afraid!
Thought I'd start gentle though and warm up to as many terrible photos/films of Andy as I can find.
Here's the latest film from the Ecrin Ice Festival earlier this year, good french practice, particularly liking the section towards the end of the guy in the lime green suit getting soaked.........



Ice climbing Ecrins 2012 by tlcprod

Wednesday 15 February 2012

BMC International Meet...



Just thought I'd post this up, nice little film from the Winter Meet up in Scotland, look out for me and Jen Olson near the beginning, whilst Nick Colton is speaking. Welding in a runner - as normal!
At Heathrow airport waiting for my transatlantic flight right now, managed to get everything into the one bag allowance, just hope Gordon has the ropes sorted!!!

Well done to Dave Macleod and his Golden Piton award - it has been suggested by some wag on twitter that I ought to get a golden ascender award at the same time!

I'll be leaving Ruth in charge of the blog for the next couple of weeks, so she'll keep it up to date with what I get up to out there, and god knows what else, I'm not at all sure I can trust her!!

Friday 10 February 2012

Canada here I come....

It's nearly time to pack my bags for the next adventure. On wednesday I'm heading out to Canada with Lukasz to meet up with Gordon Macarthur - our local jedi. I met Gordon last year at Ecrin Ice Festival and he invited me and Lukasz out to visit him and go climb. He's been pretty busy this last few weeks hurtling around the world on the Ice World Cup roadshow but after the Romanian round this weekend he's heading home for a little while before the finale in Russia, a perfect opportunity to get a trip in.
Gordon has been developing a place called Bull River over the last couple of seasons and he's mad keen for more there and a whole load of other stuff around the area. Check out this video of last year at Bull River - definitely got me inspired.

Friday 3 February 2012

Castle in the Sky

Launching out into the roof.


Figure of Four-ing it up!
Total respect to Dave Macleod for his new route Castle in the Sky on Druim Shionnach out on the road to Skye.



Ruth and I headed up with him on Monday for him to give it a go and by an impressive feat of strength and agility he climbed it first go. 
I was hanging on a rope doing my best Lukasz impression and Ruth got the less glamorous and slightly more terrifying job of belaying.
Being in close proximity to someone trying really hard and looking so relaxed was inspirational and I'm now psyched to get myself fit enough to think about giving the route a go.


I think the thing I'm most worried about is the gear which didn't look great and I'm a whole lot heavier than Dave to be testing it!


Shame I've blown the on-sight!! (Yes, I am definitely joking there.)


Get along to Dave's blog and read what he had to say about it. And look out for Ruth's view on the Mountain Equipment blog soon.