Saturday 31 December 2011

El camino del rey, El chorro, close calls

A video of El camino del rey from my recent get away to El Chorro. The trip stretd with the plan of meeting Brad at 5am at bristol airport (with our flight at 6). I got there and called him for him to tell me "Fuck, I overslept. I'll be there in a bit" and hung up on me! He had to come from Taunton and I didnt think he'd make it. Luckly he was only a minute too late so running through security we made the flight! We only had 4 days away, and as our pickup from the airport got the time wrong, we ended up getting to the olive branch with effectively 3 days. The first night we met a lot of new faces at the olive branch, many faces we new already knew like top british climber, James Mchaffe and a few familiar Britolians!. The first day we decided to walk the famous camino del rey through the gorge. The path was built in 1905 and is an 'observation walkway'. There were people dressed as santa walking it too that day but I didn't manage to document that! :( With some very dodgy makeshift via ferrata kit we set off with our solo heads on. In all honesty the path wasn't too bad, much of it had fallen away leaving big gaps where you had to walk on thin train track beams with 100's of metres of exposure each side of your feet. The holes in path made me feel a little uneasy though, as if any step could push through the floor any moment!

Brad pushing it 

After the kings walk we hiked another 40 minutes towards El Makinodromo, a crag where there is one of the most famous routes in spain: 'Lourdes' (8a). I realised after 8 clips in, I wasn't up for it as the sun was setting, we only had two days left and more places to see. So ill have to be back next year with a weeks more time to have a good go at it! Apparently there can be as many as 14 no hands rest on this stalactite obstacle course.. although I think I only found about 2!
Lourdes, (the featured overhang)
The next couple of days, we went to the big cave at 'frontalis'. I managed to onsight Poema De Roca (7a) which reminded me much of DNA at kalymnos. Brad who has climbed his maximum RP of 7a set to work but fell near the end a few times. He ended up sun bathing for a couple of days which he seemed pretty happy about anyway! I was trying 'Veijo Traidor' a hard pumpy continental style 7b+ a few routes to the right. It was a brilliant line taking on 30 metres of overhanging rock with only one semi rest near the end before some hard clips and long moves through 2 finger pockets. I put in the draws and fell near the end on the first redpoint, the sun was setting again so we came back the next day before we had to drive to Malaga and jump on the plane. I had about 3 more redpoints at Vaijo Traidor, falling off one move from the end every go. You can imagine my frustration! I guess my endurance wasn't up to it from lots of bouldering, then a few weeks off before the trip.

On Vaijo Traidor
Off Vaijo Traidor
After a lot of misinformation at the airport, we ended up running to the plane with last calls for 'Tris West and "Bradley cox" even though we had been told we couldn't go through security until 40 minutes before the flight was set to leave! We had been waiting at a cafe for 3 hours just next to security! We got to the gate, I got through but they held Brad up, as the check in assistant didn't stamp his NON EU ticket. " You have to go back and get it stamped! " .. we both knew there was no time, and I made the tricky and probably selfish decision to go ahead on the plane "Brad call me if you get stuck in spain!". A few minutes later after he had managed to plead with the gate staff he made it onto the plane to my surprise! Even then the air steward was a bit suspicious why he didnt have half of his ticket (As the gate staff had torn it off). They let him on and he got sat on the plane with me taking the piss that we were going to start moving, then there would be a call for Bradley cox and the flight would turn round and he would be escorted off again! He wasn't amused.

Great trip in all, got lots of sun and unless I decide to go to Thailand next year, we'll be back for more ;)

More photos to be found on my FLICKR

Friday 2 December 2011

A few more from anstey's

Heres another video from the summer climbing at Anstey's with Sash, Brad, Laurent, Andy etc. I had to edit this thing twice due to it crashing the other day!


Tuesday 22 November 2011

Queens Sq Exhibitioon

Last night was the opening of our exhibition 'Depreciated skill' at the Bath literary and science institute on queens square. This for all of us but Astrid, is our first showing of work post-graduation. Joe Rawlingson took on the role of curator organising the space and gathering the troops, so a big thanks to Joe! It's almost entirely painting and much of the work shown is portraiture and still life with some of my abstract works mixed in there. 


There was a great turn out and the exhibition continues for two, possibly 3 more weeks from the 21st of November, so do the maths and if you think you have time, or you happen to be in Bath go and have a look as it's a really strong exhibition! I've started painting a series of pieces for the next exhibition, It's been good to keep the ball rolling since finishing the BA and to keep it going with some momentum!



Click here for directions

For a few more photos of the night check out my FLICKR

Artists showing:

Astrid Foreman- www.astridforeman.com 


Patrick Houghton

Monday 5 September 2011

Devon's dreaming

First time down to Anstey's cove and I was really impressed with the quality of the routes. Andy was working cider soak 8a, Sash was on Just revenge and I got straight on empire of the sun, the classic 7b (not +). A couple of whippers later and It went and then had some goes on just revenge with the others. Sash was doing very well on it, with a unique and solid way of doing the crux, hopefully it will go for him on his next go/session. It was like spain had come to the uk for a weekend. Brilliant!

Andy was close on Cider soak with some good red point efforts and doing it in healthy overlaps. The question is will he delay his ferry to font for another go??! ;)

Heres a video of me on Empire of the sun
(A little bit of glare and the wide angle distorting the whole thing, It's all a learning process!)




Taking the 'Wanger' on Empire's crux

Devon's dreaming

Sash doing very well on Just revenge 7c+

Andy Freeman on Cider Soak

A night in Dartmoor

Working Just revenge 7c+

No fear Szere on Cider Soak! 8a



Tuesday 23 August 2011

DurianRider

Here is a talk by Harley 'DurianRider' at the Woodstock fruit festival on fitness on fruit. Fantastic knowledge and a clear and strong talk on the subject. Drink more water, eat more carbs! =D



Sunday 31 July 2011

climbing again..


Kalymnos, Greece
At last.. University has finished and I've picked up a whole load of shifts at TCA for the next few months, so I guess that's my summer! Luckly.. cheddar and portland isn't far away which is great for sport climbing, had a really good few weeks down the gorge, and will be sessioning some slightly harder routes this summer in preparation for a month away in innsbruck and kalymnos! Although there are very limited amounts of tufas in cheddar :(




Anyway here are my efforts on Valley of the blind, just after my shift we drove down and it went first go, it was a hard warm up! I'm making a habit of warming up on my projects at the moment.. time to push harder perhaps!

excuse the rubbish quality, canon is taking forever to fix a dead pixel in my 60D so shot on the phone.


..And a couple of photos working the moves


 

                                              Credits to Archie for the photos!

Thursday 14 July 2011

VEG GARDEN

So It's really hot outside today, I sent out a load of messages to see if people were up for cheddar today as I fell of the last move of my project on Tuesday with Robbie! I know it will go first time next time, it's just a case of getting there. As i have no wheels (other than my bicycle, which would take far too long and i have no guarantee of a belayer) I decided to whip up a Vegetable bed!

I looked through lots of youtube vids, articles and so on but I soon realized that the logistics would be costly and again, 8 foot planks on the bike just isn't practical!

Anyway, here are my efforts! 



A veg garden made from:
Tomo and Lucy's Wadrobe 
Ikea Cd Rack
Old steps stored at the top of our garden
And a few screws!!



More photos to come as the bodge job progresses.

So far I will be planting beetroot, red lettuce, green lettuce, perpetual spinach and whatever else can grow at this time of the year!


And there is the result :) The spinach is almost full size now. Love it.

Thursday 23 June 2011

Bristol does fontainebleau sping 2011.

So here it is.. After many days worth of hours of rendering, exporting troubles, uploading troubles, codec troubles and re-editing and almost deleting the thing! I present to you, our Fontainebleau video 2011! It's my first climbing video and I've learned a lot! Psyched to make another one.. not too soon though, I need to leave the seat in front of my computer and go climbing again! Enjoy =D

Sunday 12 June 2011

Watch this space!

I'm currently editing a short film from our bouldering trip to fontainebleau, France. I've had to learn final cut, which at first was a bit mission impossible, and then get the suitable plugins like TWIXTOR for those super slow motion shots.  Watch this space, it should be done later this week after countless hours of editing.

Saturday 11 June 2011

Cutting Shapes


A few photos from the degree show - Bath Spa University. A great night marking an end of an era, but the beginning of new directions in my painting and creative work.

Click here For more photos of my work from the night and other students!
I showed a lot of work for this exhibition. I could have hung perhaps 5 - 6 and given them a lot of breathing space, however I wanted to show paintings in relation to one another, reflecting elements of abstraction and colour.

Here are some close ups. All of them vary from 40 x 40cm to 60 x 60cm and are mostly made up of enamel, acrylic and eggshell paint on MDF. They are all up for sale so please email or call me on 07584063895 if you're interested. I'll be continuing the painting now I have finished at Bath Spa and have an exhibition at the Science Institute of Bath in October / November. I'll update once i have exact dates.


Saturday 2 April 2011

Birth of a new blog

I have decided to create this blog to document my paintings, photography, raw diet recipes and to generally share my vibes!