By Lisa Seems fitting to write this report tonight under my duvet when this time last week we were slogging up the path in the rain and pitch black to reach the CIC hut. I travelled up with Lorna, Michael and Susan but because Michael took so long doing his hair we left late and didn’t arrive at the north face car park until 9.30pm. The long walk up was worth it, we were met

By Simmo Day#0: 20 September depart Bristol – London – Paris – Lourdes: Train – Walk – Train – Tube – Train (I knew the script from last year). Rained on getting off the train in Lourdes… the only time that I felt the rain all week. Day#1: Cauterets to Refuge Wallon Sunday as per last year: take the bus to Cauterets with it’s terrific stock up market. This year though I head out and

By Billy Great weekend at the Cairngorm Meet, lots of teams out climbing in the spindrift on saturday and a good windy walk around the Cairngorm on sunday. Everyone was well behaved ( ? ) and made the best of the weather and conditions. Im sure everyone has a story to tell but my memories are of freezing belays,dropped mitts,good banter,too much whisky,blue skyes,great company and having to pish on a frozen HMS before leaving

By Peter Matt,rich and myself (Pedro) went for a day up to glencoe,the plan was the gorms or west,we decided the Coe and go for dorsal arête,grade 2.big rich picked me up at 7.10 with Matt in lovely Dumbarton and we hammered up west along the beautiful Loch Lomond on a fairly calm clearish day with me getting a little travel sick (we cars :@) Matt swapped seats with me.forecast in the area was heavy

By Simmo Day 0: Train: South Wales – London – Paris – Lourdes via Eurostar and the TGV (something like 10 hours travelling time). Day 1: Pont d’Espagne to Refuge Oulettes de Gaube. Took cheap bus from Lourdes to Cauterets, and teamed up with an Aussie couple to share a taxi up to Pont d’Espagne. Put the waterproofs on for the trek up in the cloud, but after half an hour we were out and

By Florian Last Sunday Alika and I sallied forth on an adventurous expedition to Cerro de Punta, highest peak of Puerto Rico. The proud king of the Cordillera Central wears a crown of rusty antennas, adornded with gems of razor wire and mighty signs that read “danger, high voltage, keep out”. As a mountain Cerro de Punta is not to be underestimated, since the road that leads to the top is very technical and full

By Helen Moore July saw the Alps in stupends glorious weather, snowy peaks bathed in sunshine, still deep deep snow remaining from the long and hard winter, and a beautiful adundance of meadow / upland glen flowers…… The first week in Chamonix, with 2 3,500mtr snow and rock peaks for aclimatizing: ‘petit aiguilles vert’ & ‘table couloir on aiguelle du tour’ (AD-), with a fab rock ridge and a 15 mtrs knife edge snow ridge!

By Richard A good trip to an excellent venue last weekend. There were overnight frosts and some cold winds but on Saturday we climbed in warm sun at Kyloe. Fabulous fish suppers in Wooler, and the pub turned out to be decent on Saturday night. There were no crowds, polished rock, or massed tourists : We saw only seven or eight climbers at Kyloe, and I wouldn’t have imagined Bowden was busy the next day,

By Kevin Mont Thabor is situated in SE France near the Italian border the area is liberally supplied with huts well away from commercial ski developments and with moderate altitudes up to 3000m it makes an ideal early season ski touring area. Our tour took started from Valfrejus over the Col Fontaine Froid to the Magi hut then over a couple of cols with a steep ski down over recent avalanche debris to the very

By Ivonne The CIC hut meet saw Aaron, Michael, Florian, Luca and myself travelling and walking up on Friday evening. Only five other climbers stayed in the hut and they were as determined as us to give the winter another chance – and probably the last one for this season 😉 Guided by the recent blogs we chose climbs for the next day and pulled straws – sorry forks!!! – for the two teams. Early

By Michael A short report on the weekend meet at manse barn. saturdays weather forcast put a bit of a dampner on the meet but it didnt stop it by any means. florian, alika and jules headed up on friday as arranged. on saturday they met with florians friend guito and his girlfriend, they then proceeded to walk up the pap of glencoe, a big well done to jules for completing this so sone after

By Burly Given that I’m sitting around the flat bored I thought I’d knock up a short trip report for the Braedownie meet. We were promised an indian summer with a hut just across the road from a wide variety of rock climbing routes. Unfortunately while everywhere south of the Lake District appeared to enjoy an indian summer the Cairngorms were enjoying two days of solid rain (the second of which wasn’t even forecast when

By Martin We got to Greenland OK and did our airdrop onto the glacier, then headed for our landing site just off the glacier ….. that’s where the problems started. The pilot did not feel it was safe to land at the proposed landing site (too many boulders), so he landed about 14km away on a flat strip of tundra/plateau. Crucially, as it turned out, the new landing site placed a river between us and

By Kevin The trip started with a warm up on the Tete de Coleney in the Grande Massif which gave superb views of Mt Blanc.Tete de ColoneyWe then headed over to the Wildstrubel which is situated in Switzerland north of the Rhone Valley and South West of Kandersteg where we spent several days ski touring from the Shwarenbach Hut which was reached by cable car and ski from Leukerbad. First day was a short trip

By Florian Yesterday the LMC celebrated its annual Burns Supper at the Stirling Castle Pub, and I learned many useful things: 1. The pudding race has a chieftain, and it tastes great. 2. Scots never say bricht and brocht for bright and brought, except when they quote Robbie Burns. 3. Russian songs are beautiful, especially when they are being translated from Russian to Usbek to English and back to Russian. 4. Richard is a great

By Richard The meet happened, and to all those who said it’d be wet, it wasn’t, at least not all the time, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons bothgave very pleasant climbing conditions. None of us – me, Joe and Rob, Veronika, her mate Vera, and Sandra L – climbed on Saturday though as it was nice and sunny and we all piled down the beach, me and the boys going in in wetsuits for a

By Richard The weekend based at Onich was terrific, and I’m sure Russell would have been delighted that we all had such a good time in his memory. I don’t intend to monopolise the write-up of the weekend, and it’d be great if others would put in here a few details of what they got up to and how they enjoyed it. Suffice to say my first experience of Tower Ridge was tremendous, and apologies

Sharp unpolished bolted limestone…..Blissful! Hot Hot Hot! sun shine & dry! One mile of bolted crag behind us and the sea in front, a great setting. lovely brand new & great quality routes on sharp unpolished bolted limestone. 7 days of climbing with the ‘Fat boys climbing club’ (my Huddersfield climbing mates), grade pushing, ice cream eating (a theme seems to be developing in my trip reports!), pizza consuming, wine drinking & a wee bit

by glaramara I shall keep this brief. Due to moving house and losing lots of climbing partners recently, ended up doing the annual pilgrimage Alpswards with the GF. We began in the Escrins, based at the mosquito cursed campsite in Ailefroide. We humped up to the Ecrins refuge at 3175m in 30 degrees heat. The plan was to climb the Pic de Neige Cordier 3463m, then the Roche Faurio 3730m to acclimitise. The Pic was