Year 8 of the Blog

2013 – another year of adventure and another year of the blog! It’s a shame that many of the blog’s regular authors have found themselves short of time to write a few words and share their photos. I guess it’s a reflection of modern day pressures on our time that finds us preferring to tap away on Facebook instead. 🙁

However, there has been loads going on. Here’s my annual round up of what stood out for me…

Thailand
Laetitia and Pete kicked off their new year with an amazing trip to Thailand – rock climbing alongside the Adaman Sea and sight seeing in Bangkok.

Lots of Skiing
Loads of skiing in Kentmere (surprising), Chamonix (of course), Mayrhofen, and on Mont Blanc…

An Awesome Scottish Winter Season
The harsh winter made for possibly one of the best Scottish winter seasons and certainly the best I’ve known!

Epic tales from the Frendo-Ravanel
Jon placed himself in mortal danger solo on a classic Chamonix area winter route!

Continuing Spanish Cave Exploration
Colin and Jim continued with their dedicated exploration of the Matienzo cave system in Spain. Anyone who questions the dedication required to be an exploratory caver need go no further than reading these reports.

Running
Anna keeps on enjoying her competitive running and I hear that even Ian is thinking of taking up competitive running. We’re looking forward to the UTMB draw results…
And, I wonder if they will give Rachel and Richard a challenge one day?

Work might suck, but not for Richard
It seems that while most of us suffer with the drudgery of turning up at work every day Richard just gets to travel the world attending various exotically located conferences. Well, that’s the impression one might get from his excellent posts…

Amazing Summer Weather – for once!
Following on from the most amazing winter season 2013 delivered a late but fantastically sunny, hot, and dry summer. Brilliant for rock climbing! Who could doubt that Britain offers some of the best traditional climbing in the world when the weather is a good as this?

Setesdal, Norway
Richard, Paul, Pete, and Laetitia made a trip to Norway to sample some slab-tastic granite rock climbing. Superb long (up to 800m long) routes, but being all based around long sweeps of slabby rock they were all very samey!

Moroccan Rock
Elsie and team continued their exploration of classic rock destinations with a trip to Morocco…

Red Rock, Nevada
Red Rock is supposed to be “one of the top five rock climbing destinations in the USA”. It’s certainly one of ours and Terry’s favourite US destinations. However, our plans were a little tempered by all-time record low temperatures.