Busy, Busy, Busy

Beach-walks, hill-walks, exploring, bouldering, researching, climbing, writing, editing, photoing and photoshoping.

Projects and places; Lofoten, Mallorca, The Peak, Lancashire(!), Catalunya, Verdon, Kalymnos, Cote d'Azure. Planning, travelling, book reviews, more climbing, sorting, shuffling, blogging, hiking, logging, chainsawing too.

Publishers, printers, deadlines, places to go, people to meet, rocks to climb and books to write, awards to accept - how did we ever have time to go to work!

Its a tough job, but someone has got to do it - glad its me! ;-)

Something in the Air

It is beginning to feel like spring is just around the corner - the mimosas are in all their full yellow glory, there was even a Mimosa Festival last week-end, and suddenly the place was heaving! Not really sure where everybody appeared from though, and of course they have all vanished again. Also it is warming up nicely, it was up to 15 degrees today.

We have continued to explore this delightful area, interspersing short local walks with longer trips away working on the book. A big day checking the state of the bolts on a couple of hundred of the routes at Sainte Victoire was the most recent.
Now there are only seven weeks left - its almost time to start planning again. I quite fancy returning to the Verdon on the way home, its years since I have climbed there.
Then there is the summer - maybe we could make it back up to Lofoten just one more time!
I'm glad to say that the autumn is already sorted though - it just has got to be back to fabulous Kalymnos - spending five and half weeks there last year was brilliant, I think maybe we need to stay a bit longer this time though!

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!

Whether or Not?

The same old pattern repeats itself, with a regularity that is almost unbelievable. Colin went home after a rather unsettled spell and we were blessed with three and a half weeks of glorious sunshine. Dave Gregory arrived a week ago and we haven't seen the sun once since then! It may actually be the longest unsettled spell that we have had down here in over 20 years of regular visits. We have managed to climb and to get some walks in but it has been very much dodging the showers and grabbing the our moments as and when. It would appear that the weather Gods thought DG was going home tomorrow, as the forecast is much better, lets just hope its right before he has to head of back into the snow!
At least the poor weather has given me the chance to really get stuck into the Cote d'Azure guide, it is already looking really good, another award winner on the way maybe. Oddly some souls are trying to whip up resentment against it amongst French climbers - sad small minds!

Guidebook Writing - Sheesh

Another lovely forecast, I decided to head for Chateauvert to take some shots and do a few routes. It is a great spot, big pitches and excellent rock, plus it gets all the sun that is going. I had already tried to photo the crags from below, but the valley is just too narrow and there are so many trees in the way. I checked the map and Google Earth and it was obvious that there was a road/track on the opposite side of the valley, though it was a few hundred metres back from the edge.
A couple of false start with the sat nav (really rough dirt-tracks shown as 'roads') and we got fairly close. It took three separate trips over two hours, heading into a complete wilderness (dense vegetation, fallen trees, briers, thorn bushes, loose rock, big drops) and two false starts before I finally located a jutting promontory that gave me the shots I wanted. By the time I got back to the car I was bushed (physically and metaphorically) and settled for a gentle drive home! We stopped briefly in Correns to photo an astounding mural on the wall there - superb.

The Blue Coast

Awoke to a damp morning today, the first one for two and a half weeks. It is so easy to slip into a routine and forget all about the UK - though an occasional glance at the BBC News (gloom) and weather (double gloom) brings it all back.

Had a trip up to Sainte Victoire the other day - what a crag, only two other teams on the whole place. I first visited the place in the summer of 1981 (with Pete Livesey's little French guide - it was mega-hot and we interspersed climbing with days on the beach (tough eh?). The high-light was a dawn start to do the Grand Parcours, the 15 pitch outing that climbs the central feature of the mountain from base to crest - magnificent. The place has pretty much dropped off the radar for UK climbers, what it needs is a decent UK guide!

Logging and Blogging

Four weeks down here already - time really flies! It has been a bit cool and unsettled, linked to the huge high pressure system that has been giving the UK some proper winter weather. Colin came just before Christmas and we managed 50 or so routes whilst he was here - which is 50 or so more then we would have done back home!
Colin also built a substantial wood-pile that should see us through the cold days ahead - not that there are going to be too many of those I trust! Mind you the current record low was -3.5C so that is pretty cool.
We have continued to explore the area - and very nice it is too, there are some right posh houses hereabouts - most of them are empty though!
I have handed Western Grit over to Alan and he he making all the right noises - I have a few more bits and bobs to tidy up but really it time to get stuck into the Cote d'Azure guidebook.

Inevitability as most as soon as Colin departed the weather really perked up, cloudless blue days and crisp cool nights. So a bit of cragging was in order and we spent a hot(!) few hours on the Pilier de Soliel down at Dramont. There are a few other decent looking routes down there too - must get back asap.