Duncan ArcherAs previewed in my blog post a year ago, this has been a year of change. Pippa had decided the stresses of academic life need not be forever, so she started an 18 month sabbatical to see if a life in the outdoors would suit her, working as a climbing and mountaineering instructor. In May […]
After an inaugural annual review of 2021 I thought let’s do that again. So here we go… Orienteering has been somewhat selective this year. As I moved up to M45, I was super pleased to win the British Night Champs for the first time (and only my second ever British O champs title in any […]
In the absence of any one major thing to write about this year, I thought I’d write a post about everything that has been going on with Pippa and I. It has not been a great year regarding injury and illness. We have both thankfully dodged Covid (so far at least!), but the last year […]
After several months of lockdown it was late summer, and time for a holiday! We had been due to go climbing in Morocco again just after Easter, but obviously that was out. And despite quite a few days and weekends in the Lakes as lockdown eased, we were keen for a proper climbing holiday. The […]
“Safe Pippa!” I yell. They guy next to me at the top of the crag detects my accent and quaint climbing calls (not the American “On belay!”). “You don’t sound local?” he says. “No, we are over from England.” “Wow, have you climbing on the gritstone?” I mumble something about not really liking god’s own […]
“I think this is the right place?” We peer over the edge, contemplating a committing 90m free hanging abseil (so the guidebook says – our rope is 100m), onto a platform that you can’t see from above (hopefully non-tidal…), to do a three pitch E2, which some others did yesterday but said the bottom pitch […]
I reach up and my fingers feel around for the next hold. There it is, a small but super sharp edge. Foot up, rock over, stand up. I look down to see the rope stretching lazily down to my last piece of gear, several feet away. Confident in the positive holds I don’t even think […]
Following a summer of working too hard and not enough climbing, we decided to seek some rock climbing in the winter sun. Rather than follow the masses to one of the Mediterranean’s “traditional” sport climbing destinations, we were keen for adventurous trad. A recent article in Climb magazine led to booking a trip to the […]