Berwick Sea Stacks

Today myself and Euan were out climbing two of the Sea stacks on the Berickshire coastline as part of the EICA's Sea Stack course. We were climbing with Suzanne, Alec, Andy and Greame. Th first stack on the hit list was the Souter. This 25m Stack is very impressive despite its small stature. We all climbed the Original Route (HVS5a) on the seaward side, which offers some excellent climbing with adequate protection in a beautiful setting. After a quick bite to eat we headed back to the cars and drove to Burnmouth to climb the second stack of the day. A 1km walk along the rocky beach takes you to the 50m high stack that you could see from the village. We climbed this one by the only climb in the guide (Gunsight Arete HVS4a,4c), which has a more adventurous feel due to some bold climbing on fragile rock which would become better with more traffic. Despite the vegitation the climb holds, everyone had an enjoyable day.

For more infomation on this course contact me or eica-ratho.com

Highest mountain in europe

Hello -this is my first post on the Hughes mountaineering blog. I have joined forces with Adam so this is what I have been up to.

Last month I was working for ADVENTURE PEAKS. I ran a trip to Russia to climb Mt Elbrus, the highest mountain in Europe (5642m). I had a good team comprising of John, Ron, Charles, Nick, Mark and Stuart; there was never a dull moment!! Any way after a slightly longer first day than expected we headed to our acclimatisation peaks. We only got up one (Kimarichi 4050) because of bad weather. So we headed up to the barrels which would be base for the next few days. We did a few more acclimatisation walks  and after some skiing and Cognac, oh and a rest, we made our summit bid. We all made it to the top  (along with about 200 other people), the weather was perfect and two of the team made an ascent of the secondary summit as well- good effort.  

We spent the last day visiting Moscow, which is a very stunning city worth a visit.  

Evening at the Hawkcraigs

Glenn and I were at the Hawkcraigs this evening with folks on an outdoor session with the EICA. Despite the poor weather we've been having the crag was dry and the sun was out. This is a great venue when the weather is like it is at the moment, due its quick drying nature and unusal ability to escape the worst of the weather. The pictures show Sarah and Ivan on the classic 3 star VS, Pain Pillar.