The grit was made famous worldwide after the movie “Hard Grit” was released in the late 90’s. Whenever I travel abroad, the moment it becomes obvious that I’m British (which is generally instant), I am queried about grit… Almost as if this island we live on is just one massive gritstone blob bobbing in and out of the sea :P Well I have a confession to make folks, I’ve not really spent much time on the grit… In fact my time on the grit can be narrowed down to half a day at Stanage bouldering and another spent top roping... Continue reading

Last weekend we made yet another trip down to that old haunt of ours - The Yorkshire Dales! It gave us a strange sensation of "déjà-vu" as me, Robbie and Will Carroll drove down on the Friday evening. Almost one year ago we had climbed and camped together surrounded by the stunningly beautiful landscape of the Dales. Our aim for this year's trip? To spend 3 days focussing our efforts on completing some new and exciting routes whilst avoiding rain and midges. Unfortunately, it is near impossible to avoid midges at this time of year in the UK, yet on every other... Continue reading

Hey Guys! The last 3 days has been fun from start to finish. Nat and I have been away on a short trip to the UK sport climbing mecca of Yorkshire. As much as we love hopping on planes and jet setting off to sun baked crags in central Europe, we still find ourselves coming back to the land of puddings, rippers and grumpy farmers. To be frank, you can't go that wrong when you've got a 30minute drive radius from three of the biggest and best limestone crags in the country (Kilnsey, Malham and Gordale). I have spent only a... Continue reading

This weekend was our last in plum jam lovers country. After a whole month of camping, I can tell you we are both looking forward to getting home for a bit of rest (even If it's only a day for me). After my successful ascent on "Zoolook" (8a), I turned my attention to another popular Malham classic, "GBH" (8a+). After having a bit of an epic on "Zoolook", I was a little worried as to how "GBH" would feel. I think though that our previous rest day did us some good as we weren't nearly as tired as when we where... Continue reading

The last few days have been very productive and exciting for me, as we come to the end of our trip to Yorkshire. Yesterday I ticked my project "Zoolook" 8a (just after Robbie - team ascent!) - a route which had taken a fair bit of patience to learn the sequence and cope with polished footholds! The route finally went down on our 3rd attempt of the day - something just seemed "right" and both of us focussed on doing the move rather than worrying about our feet slipping! Straight after ticking "Zoolook", Robbie put the clips in "GBH" 8a+ and... Continue reading