Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tim Neill, Keith Ball and I walk the steep path – a brushed boot track leading toward the North Face of The Aguile de Midi. This is almost my first time in the summer months among mountains that are so familiar in winter. I … Continue reading →

British traditional rock climbing addiction is over. Hello to the mountains and all that comes with it – waiting-out conditions, weakness on rock, (although some would say I have never been strong) and a tad of suffering. Sitting here in Chamonix … Continue reading →

The Pull of the Moon. (A work in progress)  The sun wraps its warmth around Rhyolite. Shadows bend. Ferns fidget in the breeze. Even though it’s early, inside the hut everyone has left. One fully charged Bluebottle is my companion. The … Continue reading →

    Last summer, for three months, I tried the Euro sport climbing thing. Sounds amazing doesn’t it – perfect weather, perfect evenings while camping and drinking cheap red wine, miles of pristine limestone – but to tell the truth, … Continue reading →

A haunting layer of cloud trickled over the Paps of Jura. Flowing from the hills, driven by the breeze, it crawled across the North Atlantic. Rathin Island blurred. Wispy white tendrils of wet entered White Lightning Amphitheatre and butted Fair … Continue reading →

 [James McHaffie at Dorys in the days he took a bottle of beer to the crag.]  Bobok. 2004 Walking with James McHaffie along the top of Craig Dorys having once again left behind the dark quarried slate piled high above … Continue reading →

[pic: Al Powell and Jules Cartwright looking in awe at Teng Kangpoche Northwest Face, Nepal. ]   April is the cruellest month. * The Great Orme poked into the troubled sea. The sky was solid grey. On the horizon a … Continue reading →

  Ticking. Locked inside bone, how is that voice to be quelled? Talking. For some the voice is quiet. For others it yells. Sometimes the voice yells helpful, positive. Sometimes it screams destruction. Sometimes it waits and whispers in the … Continue reading →

  At times, things appear to naturally occur in clusters. I’m sure this phenomenon has also been noticed by some think-tank people, who no-doubt will be paid vast amounts of money to give this theory a title but I have … Continue reading →

In the winter of 2009, as high pressure sat firm and fixed over Scotland and low pressure dominated in the French Alps. Pete Benson and I, both resident in the Chamonix Valley, took the unusual decision to fly from France … Continue reading →