This week I’ve been running a Lead Climbing Course in Pembrokeshire, with Laura and Tony. We have had some mixed weather but on the whole its been lovely and sunny, perfect weather for a Lead Climbing Course in Pembrokeshire!

Lead Climbing Course in Pembrokeshire – St David’s Head

We have visited the fantastic Quartz Gabbro of St Davids Head, the pristine Sandstone of Porth Clais and Porth Y Fynnon, and the less visited crag of Pen Y Cyfwry. All great locations, enabling Laura and Tony to do some great lead climbs, look at loads of different set-ups, second and top-rope some harder lines and learn to abseil in to sea-cliffs.

Laura on her first trad lead climb at Porth Clais!

I’ve had a really fun week, am a little more sun-tanned, and looking forward to my next Lead Climbing Course in Pembrokeshire in a few weeks!

Tony seconding at Initiation Slabs during our Lead Climbing Course in Pembrokeshire

Its been a pretty hectic week here in Pembrokehire, with a couple of days giving technical advice, a trip to London to meet the team I’m taking to the Indian Himalaya in the summer, and lots of general admin! I started out on Monday visiting Newgale Lodge, previously a dedicated outdoor activity centre, now its owned by The Development Company, who as the name suggests run management training, but they also have an excellent variety of accommodation options for groups staying there, plus a High Ropes course. I was there in my role as Technical Advisor to inspect the kit that is used on the course, to ensure it was safe to use, but also familiarise Mike with operating the course so he can take his clients on it. We had Sian with us volunteering to try out the course, climb and fling herself off stuff for us! Mike refreshed his belaying and kit use knowledge, plus set up an abseil and looked after Sian as she tried out the course. It is hoped that more local centres might go and use this excellent facility so it gets the use it deserves, so I’m running another day for the guys next month to assess other instructors to use the course.

Technical Advice day at Newgale Lodge, Sian leaping on the trapeze…

A long journey in torrential rain the whole length of the M4 to meet they lads from the school in London (I use the term London for anywhere at the opposite end of the Motorway to us…) that I am going to India with in July and August. It was an opportunity to get to know each other and give them any kit, training or preparation advice they might have. They seem like a nice lively bunch so I’m sure it’ll be a great trip! We will be trekking for 2 weeks in the Himalaya, up to around 5000m.

Another Technical Advice day saw me at TYF, a renowned Outdoor Activity centre in St David’s. They had a bunch of SPA qualified staff that needed signing off to work outside of the SPA remit on the sea-cliff crags the centre uses with their school groups and clients on a weekly basis. The additional skills needed are knowing how to hoist a stuck person up the cliff, how to rescue an injured person, and how to get themselves safely up and down the crag. The skills are fairly technical, with good scope for badly messing things up if done wrong, so they had had a couple of days of training with their more experienced guides, who I had trained last month.

Technical Advice day in Pembrokeshire with TYF

Technical Advice day in Pembrokeshire with TYF

We had an excellent day visiting Porth Clais and Porth y Fynnon, the guys showed me that they have a good knowledge and understanding of the skills needed to keep their groups safe in the sea-cliff environment. They will undergo regular peer to peer observations and yearly sign-offs to keep current, safe and competent. And also hopefully make them safer , more knowledgeable climbers!

The SPA’s from TYF performing rescues on each other..

Climbing at Sainte Victoire

So the last few days of our French road trip we spent Climbing at Sainte Victoire. I found it really hard to find out any info on this area, close to Aix-en-Provence, and the Rockfax guidebook we had detailed very few routes in it, but somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain I recalled knowing it was supposed to be somewhere pretty decent… As we drove up towards Puyloubier, I was totally blown away by the sight ahead, a 600m rock face stretching a few miles, rising above a beautiful forest. I knew we’d come to the right place!

Only a small part of Mount Sainte Victoire

Mini epic on our first day Climbing at Sainte Victoire…

We only had a few days here and we were definitely due a rest day (but needed a rest week!), but got straight on the rock.. A mistake in hindsight! We went to one of the areas where there were some easier mutli-pitch routes, hoping to get a couple of the classics done. Route number 1 brought a quick learning curve to the state of much of the bolting on Sainte Victoire…

Climbing at Sainte Victoire, my last bolt was about 10 meters below me here…

Sparse to say the least! Fortunately the route was straight forward, but the last pitch didn’t appear to be bolted at all! Up I quested, fortunately with a couple of slings I could thread, but the ground was easy so I wasn’t too bothered, there was however, no bolted belay station (as we had become accustomed to seeing), so Putting in a natural belay, I brought Sophie up. We realised we were much higher than the top of the route should be, so I traversed across to a solitary bush in the hope we could abb off it… After getting plenty of scratches from the aggressive bush I was happy that we could abb off it, and I knew we’d reach one of the abb points we had passed below, as we could get down 60meters in one go. Once down on a thankfully decent bolted abb station, our damned ropes wouldn’t pull through! So up I went, back to the aggressive bush 60 meters above. Now the top section was a roof, and the ropes were for some reason wide apart from each other, making it impossible to get up them, fortunately there was a scramble round to the right that led to the bush, it however meant I had to come off the rope and solo, a very long way off the ground indeed. But I like that sort of thing so I wasn’t too bothered. I adjusted the ropes so the know connecting them together was way down below the roof, and surely of no issue to pulling the ropes, it meant I had to pass the knot on the abseil but that isn’t a problem if you know how…

So back down with Sop, I went to triumphantly pull the ropes and continue our decent – dam. Still stuck! Up again, another 60 meter of ascending the rope, another solo around the top, change of plan. I decided to go off a different part of the bush, giving a slightly cleaner pull line, but I really couldn’t see why it wouldn’t pull before, but I had spied way off to the side another belay station, and saw if I could get to that it would definitely work out. I opted to abb on one rope, as I could see it was less than 30 meters way. In the process of sorting the ropes a massive block was dislodged, off it trundled as I yelled below at the top of my voice. It bounced and echoed down, smashing the ledge only a couple of meters away from Sophie, thankfully no-one was at the bottom of the crag, it would have been terrible…

So after an “interesting” diagonal abseil (when I use the word interesting, that usually mean pretty difficult and maybe a little dangerous…!) I was at a decent belay and could get down to Sophie (who was totally unperturbed by the events of the last hour) no problem rand then down to the ground in a further 2 long abseils. Mini epic over…

Abseiling going right at Sainte Victoire!

Not to want the day to end on that note we did another multi-pitch “sport” route. Now this was a really good route, but my arms were shot after all the rope trickery and ascending on the last route, so I didn’t climb it in the finest style! The last pitch again proved to be “un-sporting” with 10 meter run outs above the bolts on mildly technical ground. A good adventure! And an uneventful decent of a few abseils, no stuck ropes and no loose blocks!

An aching body forced a rest day for the next 2 days, and with visits to Aix and Decathlon we had a lovely relaxing time. We really wanted to finish the trip on a high so we decided to have a go at “The Grande Parcours”, a 17 pitch route all the way up the cliff. Wanting to scope the decent out to avoid any epics after what would be a long day, we scrambled “The Trace Noir” to familiarise ourselves with the route. A great way up the mountain in its own right, and to a lovely summit, of Mount Sainte Victoire…

Scrambling the Trace Noire on Sainte Victoire

Alas, after an excited evening packing, the day dawned with winds strong enough to stop you walking, let alone climb 600 meters. So taking the sensible decision,  we spent the morning climbing some of the nice (and well bolted!) easy routes at the base of the cliff.  I was gutted we didn’t get a chance to attempt the most famous route in this amazing area, but now we’ve sussed out the place, we’ll hit the ground running on any future visit and I’ll be back for sure! No matter how well prepared you are, sometimes things just don’t go the way you want!

Well bolted perfect rock, Climbing at Sainte Victoire

Climbing in the Calanques

Our next port of call on our French climbing trip was all the way down by the Med, to go climbing in the Calanques. Soaring limestone cliffs above the crystal clear sea below, what more could we ask for? Amazing food by the sea and decent weather, oh OK then!

Big cliffs climbing in the Calanques at En Vau

We had decided to stop for a quick hit at Chateauvert on the way down from the Verdon, and the climbing was excellent, but there didn’t seem much reason to linger there in between stints at world renowned venues such as the Verdon and the Calanques. We arrived in Cassis late in the afternoon, and immediately saw the pretty little towns potential, only a 20 minute drive out to where the crags are, plenty of awesome eating options with tables on the marina, and a few pretty decent boulangeries!

Climbing in the Calanques with the Med below…

For our first experience climbing in the Calanques we opted for the classic area of En Vau, having seen the pictures and read the guidebook it seemed like best bet. We heeded the warnings of leaving nothing valuable on display in your car and left the carpark for the 40minute walk to the beach, where we had a nice leisurely breakfast and took in the solitude (it wasn’t to last!)

En Vau in the Calanques

We really wanted to do 2 long routes today, as we were only spending 1 day climbing in the Calanques and we wanted to make the most of it. As Sophie was a little intimidated by the area it was up to me to lead all the pitches, which I never complain about! The two routes we did were incredibly polished as belies their classic status and the many thousands of people who had climbed the routes before us… The polish didn’t detract though and they were utterly brilliant, steep, sustained and the views exceptional. We had lunch on the now crowded beach below and after I’d eaten all the baguette I could manage, we headed up to do our second route, a quality six pitch 5+.

Climbing in the Calanques

Once the climbing had been done we swam in the (still fairly chilly) Med as the last rays of sun kept us warm, a perfect way to soothe the muscles after a day of 13 pitches in the sun! Then the long trudge back to the van before a leisurely beer on the waterfront at Cassis… I would definitely recommend the area for a climbing trip, with plenty of towns and cities nearby to occupy you too, but for us it was off to the next climbing venue!

We’ve been in France for the last few weeks, climbing in the Verdon was definitely one of the highlights! It was a hell of a drive from Pembrokeshire, being over 1000km, but once we were there it was clearly worth it! Being Sophie’s first big climbing trip abroad, we opted to not get drain get into the Verdon gorge itself, and instead spent a few days getting used to climbing in the Verdon on some of the more amenable outlying crags…

The view from the Verdon outlying crags

Basing ourselves around the Lac de Sainte Croix, a lake this hard to believe is man made, we spent the first few days climbing at the single pitch crags that were in our Rockfax guidebook for the area (the Cote D’Azur) – now we definitely missed a trick not buying the specific guidebook for the area – there’s an unbelievable amount of rock here!!!

Climbing in the Verdon Gorge

It was a top few days climbing at crags such as Les Hauts Vernis, the sun shone, the Rock was great and the crags always empty! With some more confidence and having had too much fun exploring around, we decided to head to the main gorge itself.

Warming up for the Verdon Gorge

Spending the day driving around and sussing out the area is very worth while. As you cannot see the cliffs as the road goes along the top, you need to know the abseil or scramble descents. Standing on top of the gorge with 300m of straight air below us and the gorge floor, Sophie realised this was a pretty big step up to what she was used to!

Abseil access into the Verdon Gorge

Being on a tour of the whole region, we decided not to spend too long climbing in the Verdon gorge, as it’s worthy  of coming back for a trip itself (can’t wait!) so we did a few of the easier more straight forward routes, but with a view that’s far removed from any UK setting, warm and sunny, vultures soaring around and fairly friendly yet adventurous sport climbing – this is a destination I’m looking forward to spending more time in!

Big exposure climbing in the Verdon