News

I popped down the road this afternoon to have a look and a climb in the new Beacon Climbing Centre with my son and his friend. The place is located on the Cibyn Industrial Estate in the old Barcud TV studio and I must say it is stunning. Steve and Gill are rightfully proud of what they and their team have achieved over the last year or so. 

Well, it's been quite a busy couple of weeks as I've been away with my good friend Dei and his son Dom to the Alps. We started out travelling to Tasch (which is the village just below Zermatt) to get in some acclimatisation on some of the peaks and crags in the area. After a week in Switzerland we travelled to Chamonix to make an ascent of Mont Blanc (4810m) which proved to be quite a challenge due to poor visibility, strong winds and the wind chill but it worked out in the end as the weather cleared to give us fantastic views. Here are a selection of the stuff we got up to. You can also check out Flickr for more of my photos of the trip if you're interested by clicking here. Klattersteig above Zermatt Breithorn Summit 4164m Mont Blanc summit 4810m Klattersteig above Zermatt with the Breithorn in the distance Sport climbing in Randa. Ohne zu Vergessen 5c+

I was running an SPA assessment over the last couple of days. I had three candidates - Anthony, Jason and Alex. We travelled over the Holyhead Mountain on Wednesday so that we could cover personal skills such as  leading Severe graded climbs, placing protecting, belaying, joining anchors as well as personal abseiling. Thursday was over at the Upper Tier of Pant Ifan to look at group management skills including bottom top roping, problem solving and group abseiling. It was great to be out in such good weather despite the weather forecast being bad at the start of the week. It was absolutely cracking on both days and although it was busy on the crags of Holyhead Mountain we had the Upper Tier to our selves all day which was very unusual. Off to the Alps now so see you in a couple of weeks.

I was out and about over the last couple of days running a Single Pitch Award training course with 4 people and despite the weather it work out really well with almost dry rock yesterday at Lion Rock. It the evening we went up to the Beacon to have a look at the skills required to safely run sessions on an indoor climbing wall (and also to see the place before it moves in a couple of weeks). Today was a bit of an unpleasant start with low cloud and heavy drizzle but it soon cleared by the afternoon to give a dry and fresh day over at Spotty Crag near Fachwen. To view more photos of the course click here.

Apart from some assessments for PGL at the start of the week it's looking like it's going to be a pretty full on week. I was working for the AALA conducting an inspection of an activity provider over in the Bala area today.   After sorting out the management interview I was off with a group up Arenig Fawr AND it was dry over that area and only entered the rain again when I headed north to go home. 

I was out with Andy, Tim and Ed today to look at the skills involved with short roping on rocky terrain. We went up the NW Face Route and played around in the rocky area just before Seniors Ridge. We looked at may aspects of short roping including client care, body position, taking coils around the body and locking them off, anchors, looking after two clients etc. AND it was dry all day but cold.