from Ian Parnell Photography
Last Friday saw a post Christmas shake-down at 'dry tooling central' aka White Goods. Even 3 moves into my warm up I knew which one I was of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Totally flat and fat! Mr T claimed to feel the same but he still quickly dispatched White Goods and then set about Left Over Goods the very stern roof testpiece at the lefthand side of the main crag. A big effort on multiple figure of fours into fig nines saw both Andy's axes left abandoned near the top of the crag and his forearms ...
published: 4 months ago
|
downloaded: 4 months ago
|
36 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
Recently my job as a climbing magazine editor has been particularly frustrating. Despite a rather late start to the winter season it seemed everyone was making up for lost time with a string of very tough sounding new routes and repeats of several of last years hardest routes. Finally just before Christmas I was able to stop reading about everyone else's fun and get some action myself. I hooked up with Greg Boswell and James Dunn hoping for a few days high standard adventure, unfortunately as soon as I ...
published: 4 months ago
|
downloaded: 4 months ago
|
35 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
Interesting day at White Goods today with Andy Turner - Shock Horror! there were other people at the crag, in fact so busy it felt like the catwalk at Malham on a bank holiday. Well perhaps the only similarity was that everyone was hanging off their respective routes ' sur le chien ' so to speak. Learnt a few things today. I've been using my fig fours to traverse round the Edge bouldering wall and with three of the four sides overhanging it's not easy. In fact going by today's routes it is somewhere ...
published: 5 months ago
|
downloaded: 5 months ago
|
8 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
The Foundry are starting their indoor dry tooling routes tonight. They've set 8 routes this year - so I'll report back whats the score. In the mean time here is a vid of me on the first set of routes they put up 2 years ago. Ian Parnell Dry Tooling at the Foundry Climbing Centre (M7+) from Foundry Climbing Centre on Vimeo .
published: 6 months ago
|
downloaded: 6 months ago
|
12 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
Part 2 of my 'adventure break' was something of mixed success or rather a mixed disaster. Things started well with a return to Ladram Bay with Jon and a mighty new route on the Lost World stack. Realistically it's probably not the best route in the world. In fact it's probably the second worst. It did have a nice finishing mud arete though And some entertaining gear - this is part of the belay - there was no crack before I placed the warthog. How we laughed... Then after a very long drive we arrived at ...
published: 7 months ago
|
downloaded: 6 months ago
|
28 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
Having managed to get a precious slot of free time I'd hoped to go to the Alps but somehow despite planning 4 months in advance I failed to convince anyone to commit to a climb with me! But never fear there are adventures aplenty within our own shores. So I'm halfway through a two-part 'UK choss -o dyssey'. For Part One I linked up with my fellow Climb editor Dave Pickford. First for a 1000ft plus traverse of Avon Gorge's main wall. The Equator is a 12 pitch historical classic which we managed in 7 ...
published: 7 months ago
|
downloaded: 6 months ago
|
30 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
I'm lecturing in Keswick next Tuesday (4th Oct). I'll be doing a few new things based on beautiful 'failures' plus a fresh look at Annapurna III. All for only £4! Just to wet the appetite heres a few pics. 7.30 at the Queens Hall at Keswick school more details here www.keswicklecturesociety.co.u k/
published: 7 months ago
|
downloaded: 7 months ago
|
19 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
Today was a perfect blue sky warm autumn day and I had a free day to go ...Yes Climbing! So where did I choose ...Cloggy? Scafell? Gogarth? er, no... the quarried tip-face of White Goods. Rich giving Jazz some beef! Rich lowering off - Jazz having returned the beef with interest
published: 7 months ago
|
downloaded: 7 months ago
|
33 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
I've always needed goals, aims in life, little targets - all very un-zen I know. But I struggle for motivation and get a bit lost without something driving me on. Luckily I've two interesting possibilities on the horizon. The first hopefully a return to Chamonix and the Alps, and a chance to hook up with Jon Bracey, who I climbed the Grand Couloir on the Plan with in the Spring. The ticklist as ever is enormous, it would be great to make it one or two routes shorter. The other trip is a maybe for January -
published: 8 months ago
|
downloaded: 8 months ago
|
43 views
from Ian Parnell Photography
'Lets see some of that old magic' was a phrase Matt Dickinson used to me on one of my first ever expeditions - the first ascent of The Thumbnail, a giant sea cliff in Greenland. I was trying to gather my nerves to lead a bold looking blank wall about 15 pitches above the fjord but despite Matt's encouragement I ended up bottling it and handing over the lead. Matt committed and found surprisingly reasonable climbing opening up the way to the upper headwall of the route. That was back in '99 and whilst the
published: 9 months ago
|
downloaded: 9 months ago
|
48 views
