Croisantwich, burritos, bishop and IV

America, America! Currently chilling in Santa Barbara, living the student life. 

Arrived in the LA and stayed in the most sketchy hostel of my life, basically it attracted unsuspecting travelers and the down and outs of LA, got an amazing nights sleep and was awoken and 4 in the morning due to a fight going on outside with pool furniture. 

In the morning I got on a plane and headed to Reno to catch a bus to Bishop. On the way I experienced the most ridiculous breakfast of my life a croissantwich, croissant egg, cheese, sausage and hash browns, ridiculous!! 

Bishop in the most amazing place, massive massive boulders with beautiful mountains in the background. It is however extremely hot and all the climbing was hard! Got to see some audacious ascents by George, and had a pretty sweet time. 

On the way back from Bishop we headed to Death Valley, to check out the dessert, it was HOT! 40c at night, we camped out on the dunes and saw the sunrise, which was pretty sweet.

Am now in Santa Barbara hanging out in Isla Vista, the uni area of the town, student life is very special, everyone lives right by the sea and cruises around on skateboards and bikes, it is a very good way of life! 

Hanging out here for a couple more days then heading to San Fran and then onto Yosemite and Toulumne, can't wait.

Photos to follow

J

Troutdale Pinnacle

After a pretty depressing weekend in Glasgow doing nothing. I got picked up from Penrith and went and climbed troutdale pinnacle with my Dad.

I have been wanting to do this route for years, and for one reason or another have never made it there. It was totally worth it, probably the best climb I have done in the Lake District, a little polished but other than that absolutely fantastic. It had everything you could possible want, interesting moves, exposed moments, good gear, strenuous moments it was fun from bottom to top and in beautiful weather to.

I wont dwell too much as I don't have pictures. Looking forward to my next Lake District Classic Rock tick.

j

Tilberthwaite

Its been ages since I have added a post on here. Basically my life was taken over by coursework and exams and I did nothing other than that.

Anyway once I got that out of the way I headed back to the Lakedistrict to try and find a job and get a bit of climbing done. The weather wasn't super kind to me but I managed to get out a couple of times, twice to Badger Rock where I have got a couple of on going projects, and got beaten by midges.

And once to Tilberthwaite Quarry. My first slate experience, and the conclusion..... its ok. I guess we weren't in the best climbing mood at the time but we got a couple of things done, had a go at a E2 which was basically two boulder problems with easy climbing in between. The E2 grade is extremely dubious since it was semi bolted. Tried a couple of other things and got attacked by midges some more. In fact the midges won again with at least 50 bites on one arm!

Dave did a rather scary E1 and I dangled off a rope photographing the experience:



Bring on California!

J