Round up: Best of 2024
It the midst of a busy Christmas period last year, I neglected to write a round up for 2023; it however wasn’t a classic year (although I did go on my first high altitude expeditions for a while which included skiing some 5000m peaks in Peru with one of my best mates JV). 2024 was incredibly varied and I felt like for the first time since 2019 I’d managed to get the right balance between life and work.
Rock climbing high above the Atlantic, thanks to Megan
JANUARY - I’d nipped up to Scotland a few times between november and early january for good snowy conditions but spent the most part of January in south africa with my dad and brother as a pleasant change from the cold. Managed a few ascents and some climbing on table mountain to keep my legs spinning!
Skinning up Ciste gully; I managed 8 days of skiing in a row
FEBRUARY - was the time to get stuck into scottish winter. I worked various mountaineering and climbing courses and spent some time perfecting my scottish skiing on a backcountry ski leaber training (subsequently completing the assessment at the end of the winter)
Smiths route on Ben Nevis, my last climb of the winter
MARCH - is like the promised land and this year Scotland delivered superb days in spades. I completed mountaineering days such as tower ridge and the aonach eagach, went skiing in various places and climbed some super ice. Every year I add to my ben nevis repetoire; I particularly liked No.2 gully buttress.
Becky loving the views skiing in Arctic Norway.
APRIL - after a hard season in scotland, I look forward to some sort of spring skiing or sunny rockclimbing. this year we opted for ten days in arctic norway. This has become popular in recent years for sea to summit ski touring. we had some brilliant days out around TROMso and on the Lyngen peninsula.
Another glorious piece of work for Jagged Globe. An inversion on the Cuillin Ridge
MAY - is often a month I go back to scotland. I had two amazing weeks (with amazing hot weather), the first guiding a skye cuillin travsers and the second working on the cape wrath ultra.
Joining my Dad for a day as he cycled across the Cambrian mountains on a bigger multi day journey raising money for Epilepsy Research
JUNE - tends to be my month or so of delivering outdoor education in north wales. The benefits of living here really come to focus in the summer as the opportunities in the evenings to go climbing, cycling, or down the beach are endless. Some great adventures were had but the showery cooler summer meant less time in the sea than normal.
The year wouldn’t be complete without a shot of Nella!
JULY - was a varied month of teaching climbing and outdoor education. My top moment was a week on arran working for the RAF. Whilst the weather was challenging, we had some great days out mountaineering.
Climbing in Pembroke (admittedly this shot was from early September)
AUGUST - was the rock climbing month. I had some great climbing work with young people and succeeded on a few personal climbing goals.
Cycling on quiet coastal roads on Mull
SEPTEMBER - featured a rather big milestone; i hit the big 4 0. I really wanted to mark this in some way so we looked at a few options for some scottish adventuring. On a week of glorious weather we bike packed around Mull (and a few other islands) enjoying walking up ben more (my last island munro) and swimming in the sea.
Sunshine on the river
OCTOBER - we had time for another tip top scottish adventure; a spey descent in a canoe. This is a brilliant journey especially as the river was at a nice level and the autumn colours were stunning.
Blurry but one of my favourite shots of our diving experience
NOVEMBER - at the start of the month I managed a professional goal which was to deliver a mountain leader assessment in the RHINOGau. these hills have some of the roughest terrain in wales. I followed this up with some time in the Peak on a first aid trainers course, some time down in devon for the coasteering symposium and a return to wales for some storms!
My favourite route in Morocco, the alpine Pinnacle ridge. Ending my rock climbing year as it started in Africa!
DECEMBER - the first couple of weeks were a chance to do some final work for the year, both in the outdoors and in the arb world and then we went on a climbing holiday to tafroute in morocco. what an amazing place. We had single pitch cragging days, a few days of multi pitch climbing and some big alpine days out.
It’s always incredibly hard to condense a years worth of adventures into a few photos and paragraphs. This year really has been great in terms of personal adventures and work goals. As ever thanks to all my clients, employers and friends for such great days in the outdoors