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Accident on the Cyfrwy Arete
The Cyfrwy face of Cader Idris. The route takes the left ridge.Climb the Great Gully. A casual remark of Mr. Syme's revealed the fact that Mr. Warren was a rising surgeon on the staff of the London...
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Roger Hubank's North Wall...Reviewed
140pages: Perfect Bound Paper Back £12.99; e-book version £4.99.Roger Hubank is one of those seminal figures whose writing en-riches the climbing scene. He has published five novels so far, and North...
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Grandad Calling
I wake up to a video on Youtube of an old pal talking about climbing the crux of one of my routes in North Wales. It amazes me that anyone can talk their way up a route, move by move in retrospect,...
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Mastermind: Mental Training for Climbers...Review
5.10 Teamsters pose in front of Gullich and Albert poster ‘Man knows more than he understands’ Alfred Adler.This is the third book published by the Cafe Craft organisation covering training systems for...
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Undiscovered Wales
Dduallt: Looking out towards the AransIt was late one night, as I was re-checking the galley proofs of the seventy-eight chapters making up Classic Walks, when the phone rang. Jim Perrin was on the...
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Rock Around the Block
Most sports have sub-cultures. It is rumoured that Subbuteo table football has a national league, and some people go canoeing along underground sewers. One spin-off from rock-climbing is the rarely...
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Freddy Spencer Chapman: A life less ordinary.
‘We Can Be Heroes, Forever And Ever’David Bowie.Who in the annals of the climbing world, a history that includes a Pope (Achille Ratti), a King of the Belgians (Albert 1 who died solo climbing in the...
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Death,Logging and Life
Necramass‘If the word ‘death’ were absent from our vocabulary, the great works of literature would have remained unwritten…creativity and pathology of man are two faces of the same medal, coined in the...
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The Last Blue Mountain....Reviewed
The Last Blue Mountain: Ralph Barker. 232 pages Paperback Perfect Bound £12.99. Re-Published by Vertebrate, Original in Hard Back by Chatto and Windus 1959.‘I must go where the fleet of Stars is...
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Snowscape
El Capitan-Original Photo- Mike MurphyAn Open Letter From Ed DrummondThe following relates to an attempt in October, 1984 by Ed Drummond to solo El Capitans's North America Wall, and his rescue,after...
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Hard Rock 2020.....Reviewed
Hard Rock. Great British Rock Climbs from VS to E4, compiled by Ian Parnell, made up of 288 pages with colour illustrations throughout. Case Bound, Hardback with Jacket. £39.95.‘It’s an old Ken Wilson...
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Climbing Ethics: Living in the Past.
Original High illustration: UnattributedA casual bystander might be forgiven for not being able to differentiate between a free-climb and an artificial climb. On a hard modern route on a crag like...
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Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage: Vertebrate reissue reviewed
Nanga Parbat Pilgrimage: Hermann Buhl (translation by Hugh Merrick).448 pages; Perfect Bound Paperback: £9.99. Black/White photographs.‘My thoughts, my dreams, my whole life were nothing but the...
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Ode to Covid 19
virus daisy (Girona flower festival)For sure people are in need of a melody. Have you noticed the tunes of nostalgia on the radio? Rousing eighties rock to energise the soul and fortify the spirit with...
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Pen- Y- Gwryd...The Early Years
The history of the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel, founded nearly one hundred and forty years ago is closely interwoven with the development of rock-climbing and mountaineering and with the great figures...
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Raven Seek Thy Brother.
When I was climbing constantly, from 1973 to about 1990, if I saw a raven cruising above the crag before I started up a route, I used to say. 'Raven. seek thy brother'— an Arab saying meant to ward off...
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The Hendersons
Rungneet tea plantation in Darjeeling: Photo Streather Family CollectionOver the years, in expedition accounts from the 1940s and 50s, I’ve come across frequent references to the Rungneet tea...
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The Final Pitch
Paul Williams classic shot of Trevor Hodgson on The Rainbow of Recalcitrance I’m writing this on the other side of the world from that Welsh mining village. The sun is rising up over the Bridgewater...
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Seven Climbs....Reviewed
Seven Climbs by Charles Sherwood. With 192 pages, including 2x16 pages of colour plates plus black/white photographs. A Perfect bound paper-back, £14.95.‘The whole thing is little more than a...
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Tibet's Secret Mountain: 2020 republication...reviewed
Tibet’s Secret Mountain: Sepu Kangri. Chris Bonington and Charles Clarke. 228 pages, including 16 black/white photographs. Perfect Bound Paperback. £12.99. Vertebrate Publishing.‘In Xanadu did Kubla...
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