We have had a couple of weeks of torrential rain and temperatures in single figures which has limited play to training sessions and even some dry tooling. All good for general fitness. Summer is now back with a vengeance and its looking good for a mountain hit tomorrow so I’m psyched. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Blog
Alaska 2009
For this trip we based ourselves in Cordova, ski touring on the Heney Range and flying with Points North on primo weather days in the Chugach. I was joined by Paul van Lamsveerde, Pete Benson and Evan Cameron.
Alaska 2008 – Ruth Gorge
This was an amazing trip into the Ruth Gorge with the Benson twins and Nick Wallis. We were blessed with stable deep sluffy powder and enjoyed skiing in the Japanese couloir the West Face of Barille and some easier tours. We built a large snowhouse which was large enough for the 4 of us and made for a civilised dining. At nights the Northern lights shown brightly with orange, reds and greens, although with -30C temps we didnt hang around outside the tent for long. also snuck a couple heli runs in, be rude not to in AK!
En route towards the Moose’s Tooth
Trenching up Japanese Couloir
Rooster’s Comb 
Getting steeper in Japanese Couloir
Japanese Couloir
Orca Lodge, PNH Cordova
Kelly Gray looking after us
Our snowhouse in the Ruth Gorge
Hunnadalen Norway 2007
Hunnadalen valley is situated a short drive from Stavanger in the southern tip of Norway and holds a lifetime’s worth of rock to climb. Pete Benson, Guy Robertson and myself flew from Aberdeen to Stavanger and hired a car for a few days climbing. Expat Nick Ashton kindly showed us a round for a few days and allowed us to sleep on his floor. The locals had already picked off the pure ice routes but coming from a Scottish mixed background we were like kiddies in a candy store looking around at the potential for icy mixed climbing. The highlight of the trip was trying a 500 m gully system on the final day. Being with 2 mixed masters I decided that my share of the work would be the ice pitches. It turned out to be quite a route with 9 meaty pitches of Scottish VI & VII. Half way through the day it started to snow heavily and topping out in the dark we abseiled down a rock buttress to avoid the unstable snow that had built up. In the early hours we made the airport and had an hours sleep before flying back to Aberdeen and making it into the office for a day’s work. The route was called Ergopower since Pete had bought some cheap and nasty ergo tools on ebay which had him squeeling for traction on anything steep!
The gully line of Ergopower, VII,7
The first ice pitch
A cave pitch took us passed the gigantic boulder at 1/3 height. 
Guy leading a bold icy mixed pitch
Pete belaying and ready to run down the gully to take in the slack if Guy fell
At the top of the icicle
Thin ice on the gully wall to pass the next step
Snowing hard and arriving on thicker protectable ice, phew!
The guys looking at a bolted M venue
Rock and ice everywhere
New Zealand 2006
For this trip I hooked up with my friend and fellow Scot, Evan Cameron, who was living in Dunedin at the time. We travelled all round the South Island climbing in the mountains, sailing the fiords, swimming in rivers, sleeping on beaches, surfing, bouldering, walking. He had dislocated his shoulder a week before I arrived and carried a vial of morphine everywhere and gave me strict instructions on how to put his shoulder back in should it pop again.
The most vivd memory is getting caught in a storm sailing in the Marlborough Sounds and the boat getting knocked flat every five minutes with the mast in the water. I don’t think the boat owners ever sailed in bad weather because there was nothing to secure the drawers and pans were soon flying as the hull rolled 90 degrees. In the middle of the night one of the sail’s securing ropes wore through and the roller jenny sail got ripped open and immediately shredded. The next day dawned beautiful and calm and another yacht sailed past looking at our battered and tattered boat. Terrifying.
Bivi Site Below Malte Brune after Morraine Bashing up the Tasman Glacier
The Remarkables 
The Lake at Queenstown from the Remarks
Traversing the Remarkables After a Multipitch Route 
Bouldering Near Queenstown
A moments respite from the rain in our 1 man tent, Bevan Col, Aspiring
Camping Below Aspiring
On the summit of Aspiring
Descending Bevan Col in Heavy Rain
West Coast Fury, Charleston Crags
Payne’s Ford – Sports Climbing and Swimming Pools
The calm before the storm, we spent the next night with the mast in the water every 5 minutes
Stunning Organ Pipes at Lover’s Leap
The Darrens
Waiting for the rock to dry, Darrens
Trying to avoid the seepage
View West from Hommer Tunnel
Darrens Rock
Raining Again!
The Chasm
When it rains, it pours
No Need to Wash Dishes, Just Put Them in the Rain Outside
Looking for Rock to Climb in the Jungle?
Mitre Peak
Wye Creek
The Weekly Wash
Old Faithful, 1.0 Litre Ford Laser Estate Car
Siberia Flats, en Route to Mount Awful
Long walk on to find wet rock followed by a longer walk out
Frisby at Flock Hill
Christchurch Peninsula
Ross Hewitt Guiding 