Lofoten - reprise

Great to be back in the 'Magic Islands' and so far (3 days!) the weather has been kind, in fact almost too hot! We spent the first evening poking around Paradise, and yesterday on Pianokraken, where 8 pitches were dispatched in good order. Highlights were the excellent jamming crack of The Piano Player (6 - about HVS 5b) and the superb finger crack of Tapir (7- maybe E3 6a) - good to report Colin is going as well as ever!

Northwards

The North Sea ferry was a little bumpy (just for a change), but we arrived at Bergen OK just before sundown. A two hour drive got us to Gudvangen, where it had just stopped raining for the first time for four days - the waterfalls were spectacular - as the photo shows.
A cruise on the Nordlys, up the Norwegian coast under a clear blue sky - apparently whilst still raining in the UK - was excellent, we crossed the Arctic Circle whilst we slept and arrive in Bodo a few hours before Colin jetted, from Edinburgh via Oslo. We spent four days climbing in the area, the shot is of a typical Grade 7 route at Bratthammeran. After getting suitable rested we drove on north to Skutvik to catch the two hour ferry crossing to Lofoten - it was was clear blue and flat calm.

Pokketz Rockets Rocks!

A quick mid-week visit to Birchen was in order - Mr Gregory was desperate for a day out and his car was playing up - so I took along a copy of the brand new Pokketz guidebook to give it a quick test-drive (test-climb?).
The volume performed as expected, locating the routes was easy AND it fitted snugly in my trouser pocket. We did a dozen routes and at the end of the session the guide had performed admirably, which is more can be said for the climbers - they were a little worse for wear (combined age of 128 probably had something to do with that!). We showed the book to a few other climbers and the response was favorable - and although there may be no need to carry the book up a 10m gritstone climb there is obviously potential on mountain crags and sea cliffs - anyone for a Gogarth Pokketz?

Northern Soul

After weeks (and weeks) of dodgy weather, the weekend held the promise of something just a little better, so Friday night we skipped up to Colin's and Saturday Bruce joined us for a day on Highcliffe Nab on the North York Moors, it was a breezy squally day, with impressive shower clouds being pushed along on the wind. We only got wet once though, checked out some good routes and got all the photos I needed.
Sunday was better again, Colin had an afternoon appointment in Scotland so we galloped along to Hadrian's Buttress, and zipped up it (Severe!!!), he headed north and we walked out via the Roman Wall.

On to Causey Quarry for a bit of bouldering, one last photo-shoot, then its back on the road to Sheffield - as successful a weekend as we could have hoped for.