Month: February 2011

Well after a 12 hour drive up to the great north west of Scotland and an unconfortable night dossing in the fiat punto. I got up early and walked up slioch.

After the weather of late i was expecting more snow. There wasn’t much until high on the hill, although i was hit by a few squally showers. The snow has obviously turned to slush att some point and between the summits had turn back to a sheet of ice.

Anyway another nice day on the hill i am now sat in the comfort of the kinlochewe hotel ba . The have a great and good value bunkhouse at 13 pounds a night.

Well, I head back off up North Tomorrow, hoping that the wind will blow itself out before too long. The plan is to spend a few days up in the great North West, before heading back south to Wales, where I am working at the weekend for Plas Y Brenin on there “Big Accoustic Walk” 12th-13th Feb. I just hope they don’t want me to sing along, as I am tone deaf!

Although I have experience of instruments on mountains, we did take the train, and I hope to god that the clients keep thier clothes on! I am sure there is still room on the weekend, so if you like music and walking the weekend could be for you, as there is a variety of levels catered from gentle walks to high technical! I hope I get the gentle stroll from cafe to cafe! Or the brews cruise as I like to call it!

I was thinking of writing an article for my blog on the top ten climbing inventions of all time. Loosely the theme is technology rather than say training. As such I have given a list below, but I am keen to hear your ideas.

1. The Carabiner
2. The Nuts, wires and Hexes
3. Camming Devices
4. Sticky rubber
5. Kermantel Rope
6. Slings
7. Harnesses
8. Belay devices
9. Ice Axe
10. Crampons

What would your top ten be?

A few years ago I came across the term digital native, for someone who has grow up entirely in the age of digital transistors. The cut off date is somewhere around the late 1970’s so somehow I have made it into the digital generation. However comparing the technology back then, when up had to walk to the TV to change channel to one of the three options, rather than press a button and scroll through hundreds of channels of nothing in particular, the difference is immense. My first computor a ZX81, you should google this bad boy if you have not seen it. It had less storage and power than the TV remote control.

You had to programme the games yourself, which took a week, and then you could make a block move across the screen and either crash into the floor or land on the moon, or more to the point the bottom of the screen. So whilst in theory I am a digital native, I was blown away the other day when my friends kids pick up my phone and started to play with it. Apparently at the age of two, most kids can master the Iphone, if I had seen an Iphone when I was two I would have thought it some kind of which craft. Although this is a theory that any suitably advanced form of technology will appear like magic, hence why when we conquer the world, our fire sticks or guns were pretty devastating.

Another friend, a well known Mountain Guide had to do a review of avalanche trancievers, his test was to hide another transciever somewhere in the house, and see how long it took his son to find it with the ‘digital avalanche transceiver’ without anyone instructions, other than handing it to him in the ‘find’ mode, suffice to say, if your going to get buried alive, make sure your mate has a digital transceiver.

There is an excellent cartoon, that shows a boy and his father. The dad turn to the the boy, and says “if you build my website, I’ll do your homework!” I just wonder how long before technology starts to plateaux out, and those struggling along in the shallow end of the the digital pool will get swept under the in the current of pop culture.

So what are you digital native or digitally naive?

Sorry for the tagental rant

Obviously this is a popular question that I am getting asked all the time, and the answer really is that I am not too sure. I had absolutely no sense on how things were going, until I sent Franco at pesda press an email to enquire about sales, he was busy calculating the figures, and I managed to sell just over 500 copies between when the book reached the shops around October to the end of Decemeber. Now I am no wizz but for a new book in a niche market, with lots of other options in the ‘How to Climb Harder’ genre, I really think that is no too bad at all. In fact I am made up that I have managed to sell that many in such a short period of time.

It would be great hear any feedback, I have had a few nice emails from people who have enjoyed the book. So please, if you have read or had a long browse of the book. What did you like about it, What didn’t you like about it, Who would you recommend the book to and why?

….or if you haven’t brought a copy yet, then click on the book on the top right and take a look at the sample pages.

I am also starting to offer rock climbing coaching courses based on the lessons in the book, so if you are keen to find a coach to help you climb harder than visit my coaching blog or snowdonia mountain guides website.

I guess for those who often sit in an office looking at my blog, they must think that I live the life of reilly. I am out on the hill nearly all the time, have long holidays and never rarely seem to actually do anything that resembles the average 9 to 5 grind. Which in part is true. As a freelance instructor operating in hub of outdoor learning that is Snowdonia, I can tell you that getting work can feel very competitive. The average leader of a group on the hills round here probably has at least an MIA and years of experience.

As such from time to time you have to spend a bit of time looking for work and creating opportunities. So whilst I was down from scotland I have spent the last few days trying to get some work together. I now have a few days at Plas Y Brenin later this month, as well as some other days starting to come in. It a side of the work that I am not the best at, as I simply hate to pester people for work, however at this time of year you need to start to look keen, and get your face about.

So today I have email some images about the internet, UKC used one in a news report, contacted my publisher about the sales of my book, which seems to be going well. Although I know a lot of people out there are ‘going to buy one soon’, get out there now as there is no time like the present to start working on those improvements. I also ran into Andy Newton in the high street, and he has an ML training on the horizon that he’s like me to work on. If you’d like to book on a course with me then you can visit Snowdonia Mountain Guides.

All in all the work front is looking encouraging for this time of year, and it will be nice to have some money going into my rapidally diminishing reserve of cash. Afterall I have to find a place to live at the beginning of march!

I was realiably informed by a resident of Nant Peris, who over the last few years has used that highly accurate and reliable scientific tool a calender to not down when the first rays of sun hit there house. As although not in the arctic north, Nant loses direct sunlight for two months a year. The concerned residents of Nant peris noticed that the sun hit there house two weeks earlier than usual, prompting investigation by the the authorities.

This news comes in the aftermath of the town in Greenland where the sun rose two days earlier than normal. Here the phenomenom was put down to a change in the horizon, caused by global warming. Greenland is about 3-5 degrees above is normal average temps, and rain rather than snow has fallen in some part for the first time in history.

I wales the early sun in Nant Peris was put down not to the rotation of the earth or a change on the horizon, but instead it was suggested that the sun coming out early last week was due to the bright clear weather, as usually the valley is lost in cloud and rain until april!