Exploring and learning while out on outdoor adventures.
An AAC(UK) scrambling day across Kinder Scout There are probably easier mornings to choose for taking a group scrambling on Kinder Scout. When I checked the mountain forecast the evening before, the message was fairly unequivocal: heavy rain through the morning, strong winds early on, low cloud over the higher moors and then, hopefully, a …
Continue reading “Leading Crowden Clough Scramble Kinder Scout Day for Austrian Alpine Club”
It was barely an hour into our day at Blacktoft Sands when my son was invited to look through another birder’s telescope. Somewhere across the mud and shallow water of Marshland lagoon was a bird no bigger than a sparrow. With a little help finding the right patch of mud, there it was: a Little …
There are probably easier ways to prepare for the second day of a data conference than setting an alarm for 5:35 in the morning. Especially when the previous evening has involved a Databricks social, followed by MotherDuck’s Duck In, Duck Out afterparty, and you’ve only arrived back at your hotel after 11pm. But this was Big Data …
Continue reading “Big Data London Sunrise Run 2026: A 5K Through Hyde Park”
Sometimes the best trips begin without much of a plan. We left home with a car containing a two-person backpacking tent, sleeping bags, a small gas stove and enough equipment to wild camp if necessary. From the library I had borrowed maps and guides covering Arran, Bute and the surrounding area, supplementing the pile of …
Continue reading “Isle of Bute and Cowal Road Trip: Ferries, Walks and Wildlife”
Sometimes the best days out are the ones where you don’t really have a grand objective. You just spot an opportunity, head out and see where the day takes you. This particular Sunday started with yoga and a cooked breakfast before we locked up the house and walked down to Chesterfield to catch the 9am …
When people ask how I got into winter mountaineering, the honest answer isn’t about climbing harder routes or collecting impressive grades. It was about repeated exposure, poor weather, failed objectives, and slowly learning to make decisions that kept people safe. This is the story of how that happened, traced through the Scottish mountains between 1998 …
Continue reading “How I Became a Winter Mountaineer: Ten Years of Scottish Winter Mountaineering”
Tuesday 28th of September to Friday 31st of September I sometimes think there are two kinds of British climber: those who have climbed on Lundy, and those who have not. Before you go, the island has an almost mythical quality. It sits somewhere out in the Bristol Channel, appearing in guidebooks and climbing stories as …
Continue reading “Climbing on Lundy: Devil’s Slide, Scrabble and Formula One”
The Scramble of Doom If I had to choose one surviving piece of paper to represent that whole period of my life, it might be the Warwick Mountain Walking Club poster for the Week 6 Trip – Patterdale, Lake District. At first glance, it is just another student club handout: a university logo at the …
Introduction This is the story of the twelve months between completing my Single Pitch Award (SPA) training in May 1998 and returning for the assessment in May 1999. It draws on my climbing logs, supervision records, diaries and contemporary accounts written by friends. Together they preserve a surprisingly detailed record: not just of what I …
Continue reading “From SPA Training to Assessment: A Climbing Log, May 1998 to May 1999”
We set out for Scotland with little more of a plan than to get to the coast and visit castles. I had been looking at castles, coastline and islands: perhaps Bute, perhaps Cumbrae, maybe Culzean, perhaps somewhere farther west. South-west Scotland seemed to offer an appealing concentration of all three without requiring the long haul …
Continue reading “South West Scotland with Kids: Castles, Coast and Great Cumbrae”