How To Build Good Belays Part 1: Selecting Your Anchors

How To Build Good Belays Part 1: Selecting Your Anchors

You’ve made it – you’ve just climbed your hardest pitch ever, you were stretched to your max, your heart was pounding, but you did it. And now you need to build a safe secure belay so you can bring our second up. Many climbers find this one of the most challenging aspects of climbing, but by asking yourself a few questions, you can quickly and efficiently select your anchors and build your belay. 

Read More

Give Me Two Days – and I’ll Transform The Way You Think About Short Roping

Give Me Two Days – and I’ll Transform The Way You Think About Short Roping

Many things in climbing and mountaineering are cut-and-dried. A rope will take a maximum shock loading before it will break. Navigating off the top of Ben Nevis in thick cloud requires accuracy in the distance and the direction. But some things are more art than science, and short roping is one of them. Yet for a Mountain Guide it is literally the difference between life and death.

Read More

How to Navigate Like a Pro

How to Navigate Like a Pro

Using line features (paths, streams, walls, etc) as a primary source of info when navigating in the mountains is very common, but in reality they are more useful as a secondary source of info, and this is why:

  • Water courses can change according to the weather. Ever noticed all those extra little streams that appear after heavy rain? These won’t be shown on the map.
  • Paths can change course over time.
Read More

My top 5 favourite gluten-free dairy-free expo foods

My top 5 favourite gluten-free dairy-free expo foods

Being gluten- and lactose-intolerant means that I can’t eat anything containing wheat, oats, barley, rye, and milk or mild products. Lots of the usual expo food items are out for me – pasta, butties, cheese, chocolate, most breakfast cereals including porridge, and many of the standard dried expo meals. Over the years I have tried different combinations of energy-dense food that is compact, lightweight and low on packaging. 

Read More