Ariege - Blank on the Map - an article I originally wrote in 2012

Binky on the classic (as in Front Cover) of Sabine (5c) at Auzat

Some climbing destinations broadcast their delights far and wide and are well know and secure on ‘the circuit’ but others can creep up on you askance, having been mentioned in passing in a busy pub or briefly alluded to in magazines. The Ariège was one of the latter, initially, I didn’t even know exactly where it was with any certainty, I had heard of huge routes on the Dent d’Orlu and a few Brits who had moved out to the area, settled in and never come home - but not much more.
A little research pinned it down to the French Pyrenees, close to Andorra and the Spanish border. A bit more digging found that RyanAir flew to Carcassonne, about an hour from the area, and as an underused route the prices were less than reasonable; late 2006 four of us flew in for a long weekend, (£30 return from East Midlands) to check the area out. Considering it was the 1st week in November we were impressed, gorgeous weather, quiet crags, granite and limestone to go at, in four busy days we visited four crags, did 30 routes and got a small feel for the area.
We were back the following Easter to do a bit more exploring, and then kept then popping in on a regular basis at least once a year.

Poisson d'Avril (7a) Calames

By 2011 I was at a bit of a loose end with ‘projects’ so contacted John and Anne Arran who I had never met but knew lived in the area to see if they wanted to help write a guidebook the Ariège - they were keen, so in February 2012 we loaded up the car and drove down spend a few months the area. In the event it was a great move - instead of the usual scenario of jetting off somewhere for two weeks, rushing around like mad dogs then heading back home to sort the mess out, we could take our time, pop out to take critical crag shots, or go back to check approaches etc as the book progressed.
John and Anne proved to be superb ‘checking machines’ doing 26 routes on one particularly intense day on Sibada - and most importantly, promptly writing up the information in a useable format. Many other locals chipped in with advice about routes and grades and things moved on nicely.
Long time buddy Colin Binks called in on a regular basis on his travels between the UK and Spain, and as winter turned to summer a large and jolly Rockfax/UKC team came out for an intense week's climbing and checking routes in glorious weather. By the autumn the book was well advanced, we popped back in for another week in the area in September (on the way to the Costa Blanca) help to tidied up a few loose ends. The book was published in December - possibly something of a record; less than 12 months from 1st keystroke to being on the shelves. So once again and just before Christmas, we trekked back across France again to spend more time in this great area - this time with a boot full of shiny new books.

Calames - plenty of routes (200+) to go at there

So what’s the area like? Quiet is the 1st word that springs to mind, and varied is the 2nd. Despite several large campsites in the main valleys the area always seems almost deserted. Apparently July and August are busy with holidaying French, but for much of the rest of the year, you will often have crags to yourself. The rock faces in all directions, there are routes from tiny roadside stuff to 20+ pitches. There is granite and limestone and gneiss, there are mega-caves and huge slabs. There is also a bit of trad around for those who like that sort of thing, on the Dent d’Orlu and Sinsat, though a bit of uphill hiking will be required. On top of the climbing, there is skiing, canoeing, caving plus, cycling (on and off-road) mountain walking and ice climbing and even Cathar castles to visit.  Of all the places we have climbed this is one of the most varied, especially when you consider that the area isn’t much more than 30 miles across.

As an added attraction, the main Ariège valley is at a height of only around 450m, but the surround peaks rise to over 3000m. Climbing and skiing are possible on consecutive days and the option of driving uphill to escape the summer heat is a real attraction. The 1st time we visited Andorra is was 14C at Chez Arran and -9C with a savage wind at El Pas de la Casa - we were seriously underdressed!

South Face of the Dent d'Orlu - 26 pitches big enough for you?

Main Climbing Areas (numbers refer to routes in the guidebook)

Calames - 190+ routes. One of the main venues in the area, high-quality limestone, with a full mixture from slabby to very steep, from 4+ to 8b+ and from tiny to seven pitches. The crag is south facing and can be very popular at weekends - once of the few crags you might have to share.

Alliat - 125+ routes. Another limestone area, with a selection of cliffs scatted across a wide hillside. The crags get afternoon shade which is useful in hotter weather. Many of the best routes are in the upper grades, with the big wall pitches of the Passe Murailles and the fine sculptured lines of Le Livre being the showcase venues.

Auzat - 185+ routes. A lovely set of granite slabs and buttresses scatter across the hillside above the old aluminium smelter. A good set of grades, lovely rock and even some small multi-pitch climbs all add to the attraction of the place, as do the easy accessibility and tree-shaded bases.

Sinsat - 190+ routes. The spectacular rocky mountain that runs along the side of the main for several kilometres has a full range of climbs broadly split into single pitch routes down by the river and bigger ‘mountaineering’ type routes higher up the hill.

Dent d’Orlu - 30 routes. A huge granite peak, and a summer-only venue. There are a trad and bolted route here up to an astounding 25 pitches long, and many finishing on the summit of this spectacular mountain. Early starts and the ability to move quickly are a good idea here if you don’t want to spend a night out or get caught in an afternoon storm.

Logistics:

Season: climbing is possible year-round and although snowy weather can make things tricky in the depths of winter there are many south-facing cliffs. Summers are hot, though the option to go high is available.

CC on Los Bire Fireal (5c) at Sinsat

Getting there: Flights into Carcassonne and Toulouse are good options, being about 1hr 15 min from Tarascon sur Ariège. Perpignan and also Girona and Barcelona are options, being 2 - 3 hours drive away. From Calais it is about 12 hrs drive to the Ariège - a night crossing to St Malo is a good option, leaving an 8 hr drive through western France.

Where to stay: As mentioned there are many campsites in the area, several of which have cabins and/or caravans to rent - check out the Tourist Info.  Several ex-pat Brits have good accommodation in the area - a web search for Base Calames Chez Arran, La Gite de Borde, My Pyrenean Adventure and The Forge is a good place to start.

Guidebook: Rockfax France: Ariège (£24:95 -312 pages) by Chris Craggs, Anne and John Arran was published in December 2012
and covers the majority of the good climbing in the central part of the Arège valley and several of the outlying cliffs. It includes 25 crags and almost 1400 routes. It also covers brief details other activities available in the area including cycling and snow-related activities.

Some you win.......

The last two Septembers we have had great trips to the superb granite slabs of the Handegg area in Switzerland, and we fancied sneaking in one more. We are due out there on Sunday but in the event the forecast for whole of next week looks atrocious (though we still have the flights) so for the 1st time in 25 years we have cancelled - bugger!
We have looked at the options, but all of the Med is still far too hot, and the high hills far too unsettled - so it looks like we will be stopping at home.
I have been working flat out to get Peak Limestone ready to hand over so at least the pressure is off there. As ever Graham and Dan (the Parkes Twins) have helped get more shots for the book, we have visited some pretty esoteric places in our travels!
Anyway we are heading back to Kalymnos in four weeks so that is something to look forward too.

I had a days driving up at at Croft Circuit in North Yorkshire, under the auspices of the AIM 'Skills' programme. The weather was kind and it was an excellent chance to see what the Sti could really do; 300 bhp, four-wheel-drive and fat tyres all add up! The fact that we could raid Colin's garden on the way up and visit my parents for fish 'n' chips on the way back were bonuses.

Update: the forecast for the Alps is much better again - trip back on!

Sharp Shooting

A long dry spell, the lack of leaves on the trees and some days with high milky clouds has given us the perfect opportunity to start getting stuck into sourcing crag-shots for the new Peak Limestone guide. I knew there was a reason we came back from Kalymnos early.
It has given us an excuse - if one was needed - for some lovely walks through Cheedale and Water-cum-Jolly, there were even a few climbers about making the most of the dry (but cold!) conditions. I have to admit that paddling across the river below Chee Tor was certainly enervating enough for me!
Another week of the current kind of conditions should have the job largely sorted. The fact that the spring is a month late has been a bit of a blessing - we just need to make the most of it before we head off to France.

Another Baby Put to Bed

Western Grit is just about packed up and ready to go to the printers, and should be out in about a month, which is bang on schedule. It continues the approach we used on the Lofoten guide and despite some initial worries it looks quite superb - Jack Geldard has even suggested we might get 'done' for making the crags look too good!
I have lost track of how many guidebooks I have written now, but there is absolutely no doubt that if Ken Wilson and his cronies hadn't stuck their oars in and managed to sink my little black and white Gritstone Select guide that I wrote for Cicerone Press, then I wouldn't have called Alan James around for a meeting on April 1st 2001. I wouldn't have gone on to win three awards, pack in teaching and spend the winters in nice places working on more guidebook; funny how things turn out - cheers Ken!
We have three more weeks down here to get the final few shots for the Cote d'Azure guide, then I want to reacquaint myself with the Verdon. We have booked into a place in Moustieres for a couple of weeks so that should be good.
Then there is the summer - where to go?

Halfway House

Eight and a half weeks gone - that flew by - and eight and half to go; bugger! Dave Gregory has gone home and of course the weather has turned from mixed to sparkling. After dropping him off at the airport we visited La Trinite, an old disused quarry on the outskirts of Nice. It might seem like an odd choice of a crag for a selected climbs guide, but it is a perfect 'airport-day' venue - 10 mins from the airport and with parking close by.

The brouhaha about the French guides continues in the European climbing press - a few folks have got their knickers in a bit of a twist over it. Fortunately, as Walt Unsworth told me many years back after a similar furore over my tiny Costa Blanc guide (some things never change!), all publicity is good publicity. We have now had more coverage that we could ever have generated ourselves; enquires about when the books will be out and what the actual coverage will be have gone through the roof!

Three (***) Stars

We (myself, Dave and Steve) had set off for Wimberry, but once over the hill, the clouds were lowering and there were spots of rain in the wind. We stopped below Alderman for me to get a crag shot and it looked so inviting we decided to head up there without further ado. Dave and Steve had never visited the place and I had done precious little there. The grind was soon over and we zipped up Great Slab, two pitches and three stars (at least in my guide!), the first a pleasant and mild slab, and the second a steep strenuous and tough jamming crack. 

I did a bit of soloing, then we skidded back to the car in heavy shower and tootled round to the interestingly named Running Hill Pits, a series of quarries above Diggle. I have climbed there a few times over the years but had never done THE low grade classic - Plumbline VS 4c. Steve dispatched it in good style, Dave and myself nipped up it (superb actually) then we toured the rest of the quarries so I could photograph them for the new Western Grit.

Heading back to the car it rained yet again, but we didn't care, only a gentle day but two three star routes I hadn't done before - now that is a rare event!

The Shining

Work on Western Grit continues at a steady pace, though the thought of making the dark cliffs of Kinder and Bleaklow look as attractive as Lofoten's granite peaks is a bit of a daunting one. A 4:30 start from Sheffield caught Wimberry bathed in morning sunshine about a month ago, but Kinder North and especially Shining Clough have been preying on my mind!
Last night the forecast was to clear up before dark despite it having been a cloudy day to I took the weather lady at her word and tootled round to Longdendale at seven in the evening. The walk up seemed shorter than I remembered it, I even found a decent path all the way to the cliff this time. Right on cue the sun pierced the banks of cloud out west and illuminated the main face and that was it; job done. So I guess its Kinder next!

Party Time

That's that then! Time to reflect on a superb three weeks in Lofoten, the highlight of which was probably Friday 13th. We had a gentle day scoping out Alan and Mark as they steamed up Vestpillaren. They were on the top of Festvågtinden at 6:30 and still made it to the Nord Norske Klatreskole at five minutes to eight, just in time for the guidebook launch.

The evening was a great success, the beer flowed, yarns were spun and Thorbjørn was the perfect host - my glass never got less than half empty all evening. Sadly Arild Meyer couldn't be there (a bad back from too much DIY) so we called in for cakes and coffee the next day, after clipping a few bolts at Finvika, just to say hello.

The party wound down at about 2:00am and "Lutta's Taxi Service" ferried everybody home, before we bedded down we checked out Vagåkallen bathed in the early morning light - quite superb. 

Serious Arctic

Back to Lofoten one more time, only on this occasion we flew, clutching a bevy of copies of the new guide. One hour thirty, Manchester to Oslo, one hour fifteen Oslo to Bodø, a three hour drive to Skutvik and a two hour ferry crossing to Svolvaer. It sure beat the usual five day trek to get here. Two months earlier then usual it is all a bit strange, lots of snow on the mountains, a daytime high of 7 degrees at the moment, and the racks that cover the island decked out with cod, looking like miles old grey socks drying in the wind - very pungent!

Sherri caught SIX cod in half an hour fishing in her favourite spot, and we had a pleasant day doing the great classics of Gandalf and Gollum - we had the crag to ourselves, which was great!

Busy Boy!

Three books published in less than two years - and all fat ones at that! Eastern Grit was a rewrite, so that was less of a task but Northern England and Lofoten Rock were done from scratch. Working on two books in parallel was quite an undertaking, but having both volumes roll off the press just a couple of months apart has been great - all three are crackers too! My bookshelf is starting to creak and crack a bit!
What I need now is a bit of a vacation, well at least once I have got the Western Grit rewrite out of the way - should only take about eight months!

Sun Rock - that'll do nicely!

A cracking week in the Buis area has really zipped by and this morning we tootled down to Nimes to drop Dave Gregory of for his return flight to the UK. It was damp and cool, a huge contrast to roasting on Ubrieux yesterday evening, mind you, I for one am not bothered, a couple of days rest and a chance to get on with putting the final touches to Lofoten are both needed.

Stopping at ClimbFrance has been great, Ollie has kept us supplies with wood for the stove, the hamlet is superbly quiet and of course we never drove more than 8 miles all week to access some really great cragging. Having kept half an eye on the frequent snow showers in the UK has made it all the sweeter.

Christmas Aniversary

I think it was 1987 we first went abroad for Christmas, to the Costa Blanca and that was a revelation. Previous years we had been to Scotland, Pembroke, Cornwall and done a lot of caving. We usually manage to get something done though it was always a battle - Spain changed all that! Twenty years on it remains one of the most eagerly anticipated trips of the year - well along with Easter, Whit and the long summer break!

This year we are headed down to the Nice area for something a little different, I have climbed there quite a bit over the years, but don’t know it anything like as well as the Blanca - and a change is a good as rest!

If you are headed to there Blanca here is a small update to the Alcalali section of the guide on my RockFax blog http://blog.rockfax.com/ (download it via the link at the bottom of the entry) - there has been a lot of development there including a superb crop of new routes. There have also been problems generated by the routes on the far right which overlook the gardens of the villas - avoiding these would be a positive step.

Enjoy your break!

Back to the Printers Again

Back to Clearpoint in Nottingham to see the presses rolling with Trad + (and add a few last minute corrections - try doing that with a printers in China!). They have a new printer for doing the proofs and the colours were quite superb - at Clearpoint they take always a real pride in giving us exactly what we want - which is great. The large image shows the printing room with its huge presses and the smaller one a sheet of 32 pages out of the book. Trad+ - fresh off the press.

Then it was on to Cordee in Nottingham (I knew that the SatNav would come into its own) where we had a very useful meeting with Richard Robinson and picked up 30 boxes of books (filled the estate car to the roof!) before cruising back to Sheffield managing to avoid the worst of the traffic. A useful day’s work, I pity the folks who travel the motorways on a daily basis!

The forecast for the weekend was poor so on Friday I went a walk with Dave Gregory. I had hoped to get up to Kinder to photograph the south side crags for the new Western Grit, but in the event it was cloudy. Instead we started from the Surprise View car park, went down through Lawrencefield and Padley Gorge and over to the Tegness Quarries, a place I hadn’t been for 30 years. We returned via Longshaw and quick loop into the upper end of Padley Gorge again. I told Dave about our travels the previous day, and in contrast we didn’t see a soul all day - though I bet the motorways were still busy!

Different Worlds

It is probably many folks idea of paradise, 30 degrees every day, sea warm enough to swim in, hotels right on the beach, amazingly cheap - what more could you ask for? On the other hand a different perspective may see it as a sweaty, barren, over-crowded holiday camp in the sun!
The hills are something different, over 6500' it is cool up there, with swathes of pine trees, masses of cliffs and small towns with shady corners. I suppose it is good that different folks like different things or the hills would be as crowded as the beaches!

I managed to track down what look like the four main climbing areas;



Crags at Ayacata

1) Fataga: - a bit like Arico on Tenerife - accessible and about 70 decent looking sport routes with afternoon shade.

2) Ayacata: nice roadside crag, not many equipped routes, but the ones here look worthwhile and quite high. LOTS or rock in the area.

3) Roca Nublo: the 80m spire of rock visible from much of the island. About 20 routes, some quite large. Cooler than the other cliffs.

4) Tamadaba: supposedly the main climbing area on the island - but - two hours from the coast and a huge and utterly confusing area. It is basically a high plateau with the cliffs around the rim and approached from above. Very difficulty to find your way around - could do with a decent guide!

The Galloping Guidebook Writer

Photo: Colin on Tom's Peeping VS 5a (or E1 6a?).

Deadlines, the weather, partners, home-life, other jobs - some juggling was needed as the autumn rapidly approaches and so does the printing date for Northern England.
A cast of thousands was assembled to get the final few shots and do some last minute checking.
In the event (and as ever) it fell to myself, Alan and Colin to spend a couple of frantic days. Day 1 was Scugdale, Park Nab and the Wainstones, completed just as the cloud motored in and the temperature plummeted. We bumped into a Cleveland MC meet and discussed the guide/photos/which cliffs were in an out etc. all in an amicable fashion which was nice.
Day 2 and we drove through heavy rain to emerge in bright sunshine just south of Bellingham, the days was spent on Callerhues getting trashed - the grades were as anomalous as we had expected - and more so in some cases - all will be revealed in the new guide.
Then it was off to Causey Quarry to catch the last rays of the sun before heading for home - back into the rain!

Back to the Gritstone Grindstone

Well it looks like we brought the summer back with us! I spent a hot sunny and sweaty day tramping around the Staffordshire gritstone area taking crag shots for the next version of Western Grit, it will be a while yet though!
Ramshaw and Hen Cloud were deserted, but as ever the Roaches was busy, despite it being a mid-week Thursday - there was the obligatory group of school kids polishing Chalk Storm and its nearby routes, and as to the lady who suggested that I should ask before taking photographs - well excuse me - I will ensure that you are digitised out of the crag-shot!
Three hours and 185 shots later I headed for home!

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?

In Deep Water

Mike Robertson's superb looking Deep Water is about ready so it is back to ClearPoint, the printers we have used for a few years now, down in Nottingham. It is getting to be a regular habit nowadays, but its great to have the printers close enough for us to go and check the books before the presses actually begin to roll. At less than an hour to get down there we feel it is time well spent.
After a thorough check that all the corrections have been done and no last-minute errors have crept in, Alan signs off the sheets and its all systems go. The half million pound machine starts to roll and the book appears in all its glory (well as big confusing sheets actually).
Its should be in the shops in a few weeks.
We bid farewell, but should be headed back in just over a month for the Pokketz printing.