The Last Top of 2007

The last day of the year and another glorious one so we decided on a walk up to one of the tops in the Massif de l’Esterel, a range of granite hills right behind the house. The Pic du Cap Roux (1620') fitted the bill, and gave us a pleasant three hour round trip, with great views out over the Med, and from the summit, along the coast to Cannes and Nice and on to the snow-plastered peaks of the Alps Maritime over 50 miles away. The ever-keen (ever-green) Colin and Dave Gregory arrive tomorrow (along with the rain if the forecast is to be believed) so we will doubtless be going climbing whenever possible.

That's Better!

After a few cool days, the forecast was right on button and we woke to be greeted by wall to wall blue sky. I decided a gentle day on St Jeannet might be the ticket to ease back into things - the last time I touched rock was a cold grey day on Burbage North well over a month ago!
St Jeannet and its soaring rock faces dominates the country north west of Nice, I first visited the place with Graham back in 1984 and 85 when we did amongst other routes the magnificent La Mafia. With eight pitches up to 7a+ it was described in Pete Livesey's guide of the time as "very difficult to free climb" - after a winter training in the garage we were ready and we managed to storm it - all free, of course.
Today's plans were much more modest, with short and easy pitches a gentle 20 mins from the car. Who cares that they were easy, six routes in the sun were pleasant enough - and every Renaissance has to start somewhere!

Relocation, relocation, relocation

Sherri packed in work (for good this time), left school at little early any by 5:00 we were in Hull ready to board the Pride of York. Considering it was the middle of December, the crossing was as calm as you could have wished for - though Zeebrugge was a shock, foggy, -5 degrees and everything covered in hoar-frost. Things went well enough until Sally SatNav blotted her previously good record and took us towards Paris; by the time I realised what the game was - it was two late! The three hours spent crawling around the Periferique were a lesson never to be forgotten - Hell on Earth. Eventually we got on the E6 and 53o miles from Zebrugge, and several hours late we booked into a hotel in Chanas - knackered!
The next day went better and by 2:30 we were in St Rafael having passed some fine looking cliffs on the way down - the most interesting of which (consulting Jingo Wobbly) were at Orgon, looked well worth a visit some time soon.
In a re-run of last year the rain started when we were about an hour from the pad - never mind though - a couple of days rest are what we need for starters.
Then the sun came out - lovely stuff!

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!

Northern Rock

The only half-decent day of the week prompted Alan and myself to go a do a little bit more checking for the Northern England guide. We were a bit tardy at actually biting the bullet and getting away from Sheffield and by the time we got to Caley it was almost midday. Conditions were not too bad though and we galloped round the boulders, sketching, checking and photographing a variety of bits and pieces.

Heading back towards the car it was obvious from the thunderous black clouds rolling down Wharfedale that Almscliff (Destination II) was going to be wet! We tooled up to the parking and it was already hammering down, though brighter skies to the north tempted us onwards to Brimham where the sun came out for the 1st time. As anyone who knows the place well will testify (though not as strongly as those who don’t) this is one crag that will tax any guidebook writer’s skills to the max - suffice to say we are working on it! After a complete tour of the place we joined the queuing traffic on the A1 heading for home.

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!

Autumn is Here

A few cold crisp days was enough of an excuse to get away from proofing Trad+, tweaking Northern England and working on Lofoten. Friday was especially nice, myself and DG (Dave Gregory) dumped a car at the Surprise View then drove round to Moscar Top and walked back over Stanage - a gentle seven miler. The day was brilliantly clear but the NE wind had a savage edge to it, mind you it was over our shoulder most of the day, so that was nice!

I took a few photos of the ‘water-holes’ carved in the boulder above the northern end of the cliff - done to provide water for the grouse apparently, over a hundred years ago. It looks like there are 33 of them - they are all numbered, but quite a few are no longer visible, doubtless they have become overgrown. They are beautifully carved with elegant curved channels carrying the water into the central ‘basin’ one day I am going to try and find them all - I might even draw a map!

Heading past Higgar Tor we encountered a couple of folks with five BIG dogs, three Rotweilers and two Alsatians, roaming back and forth, we mentioned the presence of sheep on the moor - but, as ever, they assured us that ‘their’ dogs didn’t chase sheep!

Sunday was a bit greyer, but Colin and Mark were down from North Yorkshire, and decided on Burbage North, which as it turned out was a good choice, what with the wind still nagging out of the north west.

I never cease to be amazed how busy the Peak is at weekends, a cold grey day in November and I ended up parking over near Higgar Tor! The climbing was good if a little chilly, certainly way better than being indoors - and the valley was buzzing - walkers, climbers, boulders, bikers - all out making the most of the Sunday.

I watched with dismay as a dog chased sheep down in the valley bottom (so maybe some do!) before heading back to the car, where to my surprise the thermometer showed a chilly 3.5 degrees - amazing we got anything at all done really!