Since my last California update, not much has happened. Water levels are poor at present so we seem to be spending half of our time searching out white water which is in ..
Continue reading..We arrived in San Francisco on a hot afternoon and I was glad to be off the plane and excited about my first time in North America. After sorting the hire car and bodging together ..
Continue reading..I’ve just returned from a weeks boating on Hawaii-Sur-Rhone. It was a last minute decision (that’s what happens when two girls try and decide on somewhere to go boating) so I set ..
Continue reading..After months of waiting I’m about to head off to California for 3 weeks to kayak in the Sierra Nevada mountains. A quick stop off to Alpkit on the way to LHR was required to pick ..
Continue reading..It was something like 18 years ago when I was first drawn into the giddy world of climbing. Early trips to the Peak District with Andy Simpson and Long Road Sixth Form College ..
Continue reading..With my race calendar looking decidedly thin on the ground and a few previous weeks of getting hammered at shorter distance events I decided it was time to get back to what I ..
Continue reading..We arrived Friday afternoon and hiked over to the car hire booth. I hadn’t even had the chance to stutter a word of Italian before our Panda was upgraded to a Volvo C30. That ..
Continue reading..Well I’ve been having an ongoing saga with my knees for quite some time! I had a fall at Stanage maybe three years ago where I broke a few things and since then I have been ..
Continue reading..The weekend started by being dropped off up at Cow Green reservoir by some very understanding friends (at 11 o’clock on Friday night), we then dragged our boats part way to the ..
Continue reading..The reason I am writing this is that Pete asked what we do on a trip like this, and couldn’t answer him immediately. That’s not because I didn’t know it’s just that it’s ..
Continue reading..5 years ago we registered a website. We were so pleased with ourselves that we decided to take a holiday in Sardinia. Our flight bags were stuffed with some sample Tshirts that ..
Continue reading..If you have never been or never even heard of El Chorro then this is definitely a venue worth checking out! It’s set in the south of Spain around 70km north of Malaga, a 4 hour ..
Continue reading..Just arrived in Dubai and given that it’s 1.00 in the morning it’s pretty busy, in fact very busy. I have a free internet connection - but why in the UK do we insist on charging ..
Continue reading..This is possibly the only time of the year that the mountain bike season takes a break… the winter race series are done… the few early year races have happened and we are a month ..
Continue reading..After no days off work since the new year the double bank holiday weekend was a good chance to get away and relax for a weekend. After a little searching about the internet for ..
Continue reading..A flyer from work on Friday afternoon saw a group of us heading north to Fort William for a weekends boating and the Paddle Sports evening of this year’s Mountain Film Festival. ..
Continue reading..Friday at the outdoor show with Alpkit consisted of breaking the till, adding money up wrong, staring at the big moving/spinning volumes in anxiety and anticipation, spicy curry ..
Continue reading..After picking Andi up in Nottingham we headed straight to the NEC to help on the Alpkit stall at this years Outdoors Show. The Friday is usually a quiet day but for some reason ..
Continue reading..On the 14th March 2009 paddlers from across the country gathered at Hurley for the selections for the GBR freestyle canoe and kayak team 2009. The levels at Hurley were far better ..
Continue reading..It has been a while since Alpkit Adventure have been doing any blogging. This weekend saw the trio return to adventure racing action at the Endurance Life Coastal Series and ..
Continue reading..CWIF is an international bouldering competition held at the Climbing Works, it attracts some of the top boulder’s from around the world like Jerome Myer and Tyler Landman.
The ..
Continue reading..Well its been a busy few months, I’ve moved down to Nottingham and started a new job, I’ve finally got used to work and have got used to 15 mile round trip on my bike, for ..
Continue reading..Power tools charged and primed, dungarees cleaned and pressed, blueprints rolled out on the drawing board.. with just a few days until this years Outdoors Show it goes a little ..
Continue reading..Plastic Fantastic was held at the Nottingham Climbing Centre on Sunday 1st Feb, it was a mixed discipline competition and also a first for the climbing wall. It incorporated a ..
Continue reading..We have had our fair share of weather over the past week. I guess it started a week ago when we flew out for the ISPO trade fair in Munich. The snow had hit the south on the day ..
Continue reading..Well this was to be one of the most action packed weekend I’ve had without falling off or injuring myself. Despite having a 20 hour drive at the start, with my friends fast asleep ..
Continue reading..The adventure in the Alps with Alpkit was an amazing experience. I got the chance to try many new things in a relatively small period of time. Thus making the trip to the Ice ..
Continue reading..The weekend the 17th/ 18th January was the first British Climbing Team Training of the year. This is when everybody gets to meet this year’s team members for the first time and ..
Continue reading..There comes a time in a mans life when he has to prove to himself he is a man. This happened to me at the ICE festival. For the past few years we have been the only people to ..
Continue reading..When I casually mentioned to friends and family that Alpkit were taking me to the Ice Festival in January and that it would involve a bivvy at around -15 degrees the responses all ..
Continue reading..This trip was a true team bonding experience, while also giving my Supersofts a chance to come out of retirement for another shot at the big league. 5 of us hit the road early, in ..
Continue reading..A couple of Mondays ago was the first round of the Sheffield Walls Bouldering League, so some of the Nottingham Junior Team and I (and a few parents) took a trip up to The Foundry ..
Continue reading..So we popped out to Fontainebleau for a few days which proved to be a mistake…
It rains a lot there! All in all we had a day and a half of climbing, although I managed to get up ..
The Tyne Tour is an event I have been attending for years. It’s an event that gets better and better every time and never disappoints. This year was no exception.
After a few ..
Continue reading..I guess you heard about the OMM. We started early, before the rain… so perhaps went for fast and light, rather than taking a bit more kit. It was very windy on the tops and we ..
Continue reading..Last sunday was a fingers up against pessimism day. I was desperate to go climbing this weekend. The weather report on Friday made Saturday look like a wash out, and a windy one ..
Continue reading..For the last six months I have been riding to work (nearly) every day as training for the End 2 End. I’d like to think that it was my dedication at getting fit and in ..
Continue reading..Ahhhhh. How my stomach musles still ache- but, I shall be super strong with incredible core strength!
This weekend I attended the British Team Training weekend in Sheffield.
It ..
A sunny September weekend saw paddlers from all corners of the UK heading to Northampton for the ever popular Nene Freestyle event. The course and gazebos were set up, the sun was ..
Continue reading..At the Festival of Freestyle I was receiving phone calls the whole weekend from friends out on rivers throughout the country so I thought Id take the opportunity to catch the last ..
Continue reading..After a summer travelling around Europe paddling on beautiful blue water with mostly nice sunshine getting back to the UK was a bit of a shock. We arrived back to miserable rain ..
Continue reading..The weather is pretty tasty in Yosemite National Park right now, there is no way I am going to start complaining about clear blue skies and temperatures in the 30s after the ..
Continue reading..So the Monday after the BBC’s we were all packed up and off on the 21-hour journey to the well dreamt of Val di Mello. My Dad and Karl drove through the night with a couple of ..
Continue reading..The BBC’s feel like a distant memory now. A busy five weeks later and I’m going to try to remember it all.
The qualification round started and ended quickly. I felt strong and was ..
This was started with the Tout a Bloc climbing fest, a fest that was amazing not just for the competitor but for the spectator as well, with so many hunks and honeys and ..
Continue reading..It’s been a busy week for Alpkit over the last week or so. Ken and I went down to Devon for the 2nd Hard Rock Fest and Pete Dollman joined the company last Monday to help us out ..
Continue reading..The Hard Rock Fest, now in it’s 2nd year is small, friendly and probably the best conceived climbing festival in the UK. It is the festival we want, it’s based somewhere we might ..
Continue reading..Amber joined us at the start of the week. In this short time she has proved herself to be an able member in the Alpkit team, quickly learning to never bite postie, to laugh at ..
Continue reading..Moggy at the cattery, CHECK. Fridge defrosted, CHECK. Passport in top pocket, CHECK. Car full of ‘essential’ gear, CHECK. August is holiday time for most of us and with two short ..
Continue reading..Saab Salomon Mountain X Race
Back home and sitting at our desks, it’s hard to recount the events of the past week. A week of extreme physical and emotional highs and lows, ..
Continue reading..After leaving Bremgarten early due to high water levels we eventually found the internet in Liechtenstein and realised that rivers everywhere across Switzerland and Austria were ..
Continue reading..After weeks of river running I was itching to get back in my playboat again, especially with the World Cup fast approaching. Our travels took us northwards in Switzerland to the ..
Continue reading..What do people do at the OutDoor trade show!
The OutDoor trade show is where all the worldwide brands go in Europe to show off their products for next season. It is an ..
Continue reading..Since arriving in Austria we have seen water levels fluctuating quite a lot. The weather hasn’t been so good and we have had several rain storms bringing the rivers up. As the ..
Continue reading..Finally training has begun for the World Cup which is now fast approaching; we have been based in Austria near Hamming on the Inn. Have paddled a few runs and there is still good ..
Continue reading..I’ve been out in the Alps now for 5 weeks and the time is flying past so quickly. We are currently at Bremgarten near Zurich getting some training in for the World Cup, which is ..
Continue reading..Here at Alpkit GHQ the cars days are numbered as more and more often you’ll find the car park empty and sweaty cycle tops airing outside.
When it comes to to-ing and fro-ing ..
Continue reading..There are 15 mountains in Wales over 3000 feet. Unfortunately they all lie just within walking distance of one another. The Welsh 3000s challenge takes in Crib Goch, Snowdon, the ..
Continue reading..Zermatt, what an incredible place. At first however, I wasn’t convinced. We arrived late one evening and were told that we couldn’t drive to Zermatt itself as no cars are ..
Continue reading..I have been kayaking in the French Alps several times before but even still this year the water levels were a shock to the system. We arrived at the beginning of June on the day ..
Continue reading..Not perhaps the most daring of deeds, indeed probably one of the most un-daring, chilled of this summer’s deeds….
On 2 July I escaped from Alpkit HQ for a grand day out in ..
Continue reading..A month ago Jim asked me if a wanted to go on a Jumps and Drops mnt bike course at Llandegla, my initial thoughts were that I didn’t really need to go on a course. I have been ..
Continue reading..The day started well. We’re up in the alps helping Jason (editor of Canoe Kayak Magazine) photograph the Guisane. The upper was much longer than we all remember. Heavy rains just ..
Continue reading..Time to test the fitness – my first Olympic Distance race of the season (1500m swim, 40km bike, 10km run) was the South Cerney Classic organised by votwo events, which took ..
Continue reading..In usual fashion the 69er crew rocked up to the Mountain Mayhem site near Ledbury, in glorious weather – after getting our base set up (we chucked our bags into the race pit ..
Continue reading..I took advantage of a week off school by jetting off to sunny and extremely hot (around 30 degrees feels extremely hot when you live in England) Kalymnos with my parents and Scott ..
Continue reading..My first olympic distance triathlon of the year took place on the 1st of June at Rothervalley. The race consisted of a 1500m lake swim, 40km undulating bike and a flat 10km ..
Continue reading..Saturday saw the third, now annual student boater cross on the l’argentiere slalom course on the Durance River in the south of France. The event is raced over a tricky section of ..
Continue reading..Friday (13th) saw the first ever Slope Jam on the Fournel River, France. The section paddled consists of four artificial weirs ranging in height from 1m to 3m and due to recent ..
Continue reading..Great to be doing my first blog post for Alpkit. I recently won the Mazda Blenheim Triathlon - the second biggest triathlon in the UK, after the London Triathlon. With 5500 ..
Continue reading..Nothing gets you ready for the day ahead better than a good nappy change, it ranks alongside a strong coffee to get going in the morning… well maybe not quite, but Liz and I have ..
Continue reading..We have to admit we are a little outside of ‘the scene’. Despite early ambitious attempts Ilkeston has failed to become the extreme capital of the UK. The dry ski slope has fallen ..
Continue reading..With a cool beer in hand, I settled down on the sofa in order to look through a few emails before starting on the never ending DIY chores. My wife and I moved into our house in ..
Continue reading..The British weather has been typically grim recently; this is beautifully demonstrated by the heavy shower outside my window right now.
However, today was beautiful, so some ..
With university finally finished for the year, a group of us headed up to Scotland for our annual summer kayaking trip. The group consisted of 5 experienced paddlers and 9 ..
Continue reading..The 2008 freestyle kayaking season kicked off with a short journey from Teesside to the mighty Washburn River. The Washburn is a fast flowing, shallow river which is fed from the ..
Continue reading..With Jim offering us a go in Pyranha’s new playboat, the Rev, Nic and I eagerly headed to Alpkit’s Nottingham headquarters to pick them up. With no rain about to try them on ..
Continue reading..The weekend of 11/12/13 April saw the annual BUSA Canoe Polo Competition at Hatfield Water Park, Doncaster. It is an event that sees teams of five chasing a ball around a swimming ..
Continue reading..If the forecast was to be believed we would have been better staying at home doing DIY, however it had been a busy week and we just needed some outdoors time, we decided to risk ..
Continue reading..Spring has finally come to Alpkit HQ, regenerating Alpkit staff morale and stimulating early season training on the makeshift AlpLine. We are kind of learning with every fall but ..
Continue reading..The plan was to circumnavigate anglesey, like all best laid plans, the weather had something to say about this!
On the drive across from Nottingham the weather had steadily ..
Continue reading..I picked up a Pyranha Rev last week to test before we order them for the Alpkit team. I’ve paddle it a couple of times just down the road at the National Watersports Centre with ..
Continue reading..An under strength Alpkit team arrived at the doors of the Climbing Works. Beth had deserted us for a team that actually stood a chance of winning, Ashleigh was poorly and couldn’t ..
Continue reading..Now, I realise that striclty speaking this does not constitute as part of my climbing experiences, however, I shall continue. Earlier today I had my first snowboarding lesson. I ..
Continue reading..Well, I arrived at the Outdoor Show 2008 a bit later than the rest of the Alpkit group because I had to go to college on the Friday morning. When I got there Beth met me at the ..
Continue reading..After a long drive from Teesside we finally arrived at the NEC on Friday. We had come along to help on the Alpkit stand and with the ‘have a go’ canoe sessions. Friday was pretty ..
Continue reading..The 14-16th March saw the Outdoor show take place at the Birmingham NEC. We went down for the weekend mainly to help out at the Alpkit stand and also we took our boats to help out ..
Continue reading..Hundreds of eyes stared at the looming, suspended structure. How could this be a indoor climbing wall?! The unusual obstacles ahead set the adrenaline flowing. Suspended above the ..
Continue reading..When I first began at Alpkit, I mentioned to Nick that I was planning on doing this year’s End 2 End on the Isle of Man, which is where I hail from. This 75km mountain bike ..
Continue reading..This weekend saw the National Student Rodeo 2008 at Nottingham. The biggest freestyle event in the world, with student paddlers from all over the country.
The weekend started ..
Continue reading..It has been a busy week at Alpkit HQ. I flew in on Monday evening fresh from a couple of days climbing in Val di Mello with perfect 22˚C temperatures and clear skies. My first ..
Continue reading..Blue skies and sunshine; it seemed too perfect. The first time out for ages and we were off to Beeston. Upon late arrival we quickly mounted the cool rock and belayed from the ..
Continue reading..1st of March saw a sunny dry afternoon with no water and a bad ear, so we went biking! Dalby Forest in North Yorkshire was a great destination loads of single track and some ..
Continue reading..When I first moved to Italy I immediately decided that I would learn to snowboard. So I bought myself the kit and got out on the slopes. One weekend after the other I visited ..
Continue reading..Sometimes opportunities present themselves and you have to grab with both hands. Nick and I had arranged a meeting in N. Wales on Friday morning. Up early we were on the road ..
Continue reading..4.30 AM is not unusual for an Alpine Start however hanging around in a cemetery car park felt a bit strange.
I had arrived first and there was not a living soul in sight.. I ..
Continue reading..Jim and I had a meeting in Llanberis (nudge, nudge, wink, wink…more of this soon). On the way back we managed to get a little product testing in, well to be honest it was a bit of ..
Continue reading..Well the Alpkit Bouldering League has come to an end for another year and we’ve been more than happy to give some support again. Thanks to Derek and the team for putting on the ..
Continue reading..Saturday 2nd February saw us travel down to Corby, the epicentre for UK single track, to attend the annual Singletrack Magazine awards. We were unexpectedly up for Best Software ..
Continue reading..So the weather has been pretty good the past couple of weeks out here in Lecco. My time here is coming to an end so I have been pretty keen to make the most of these final days. ..
Continue reading..
Since my last California update, not much has happened. Water levels are poor at present so we seem to be spending half of our time searching out white water which is in condition.
Since leaving Chico we have travelled much further south. The weather has massively improved and the temperature has rocketed but there is less water left in the area. We managed to chat to some locals who recommended a section of the Kaweah River known as Hospital Rock. This took us inside the Sequoia National Park, a beautiful area with towering rocky peaks surrounded by wooded valleys. Once at the put in to the section we bumped into 3 Americans who were also getting on and decided to join forces. They had heard about some falls above the normal put in so we decided to hike up and investigate. If what we found was typical of the run ahead we were in for a long, hard day! We started on some nice slides with sticky holes interspersed with several small drops. The river went on and gained in gradient and the drops increased in difficulty. It was a fun river that kept you on your toes with the continuous boulder gardens hiding many undercuts and siphons along the way. It finished with a bang though with a slide-drop combo. While inspecting this final drop one of the local boys taught us an important lesson in Californian granite. He got a little close to the slide onto the wet granite and slipped into the flow. Managing to stay on his feet he ran in the flow and took a leap from the lip of the fall to clear the boulder strewn right side. Although safe this did land him in the cave at the base of the falls which required a tricky climb out from behind the large boulder we’d been inspecting from. After all running the fall we headed off the river after a hard days paddling; it had taken us 6.5 hours to cover just over 4.5 miles!
It was then time to say goodbye to two of our crew, one who’s heading home, the other to West Virginia for some work, and move on to our next area - the Kern River drainage. This was the first time we’d seen a lot of boaters in one place and again local knowledge in the bar has put us on to some good runs.
With a week of my trip left I am hoping for colder temperatures as the recent hot spell is keeping the high Sierra runs such as Upper Cherry Creek too high at the moment. Fingers crossed I’ll get lucky with it in the next few days.
Ed’s note: Photos courtesy of Phil Higgins. You can catch more or Phil’s photos in his Facebook gallery.
We arrived in San Francisco on a hot afternoon and I was glad to be off the plane and excited about my first time in North America. After sorting the hire car and bodging together a roof rack we headed out of the city stopping for supplies on the way. After checking into a motel we checked water levels and we were a bit disappointed to find a lot of rivers not running. It had been small snow pack this year and the runoff for a lot of rivers had already ended.
We decided the best way forwards would be to seek some local knowledge so headed to the first kayak shop we could find. We left with some recommendations and headed to our first river, the Tiger Creek section of the North Fork of the Mokelumne. This was a fun class 4 warm-up run with nothing too serious on it. The next day we awoke early and headed to South Silver Creek. After walking up a steep valley and bush walking the last 200m we rounded a corner and we were presented with the most incredible series of falls, all of which looked good to go. The river reminded me of the Etive tribs, just much, much bigger. The river was quite busy with several local groups on who were helpful showing us the lines.

The South Silver was an awesome creek with long slides and several tricky drops which required multiple moves. All was going well until towards the end of the section one of the guys in our group managed to get pinned in an inconspicuous looking rocky rapid. We managed to get him out of his boat fairly quickly but his boat refused to move. After trying to pull in all directions we set up a pully system to help us. With three of us pulling on the rope we managed to rip an attachment point out of his brand new boat! However, this did twist the boat into a slightly better position where we were then able to pull it out by hand. After a few hours in the sun the dent in the side of his boat soon popped out so all was good again. After hiking out of the river we headed back into San Francisco to meet up with the rest of the group at the airport.
Next up was the Lovers Leap section of the South Fork American River. This was a really good section with plenty of continuous read and run boulder gardens with the occasional tricky rapid thrown in to keep interest.
After this we had a bit of a rest day and prepared for a 3 day trip on the Middle Fork of the Feather River. After loading our boats up we drove the 6 hour shuttle and set off down stream. This trip took us into a beautiful gorge and away from civilisation. The two nights camping by the river were fun with us cooking on open fires each night and then curling up into my bivvy bag hoping there’d be no hungry bears in the area. The paddling was also amazing. The river had countless sections of class 4/5 read and run rapids with a few requiring us to jump out and scout our lines. This really is a fantastic run that I’d recommend to anyone heading to California.

Well, after a night of karaoke and beers in Chico we are now chasing water southwards looking forward to more classic paddling.
Ed’s note: Photos courtesy of Phil Higgins. You can catch more or Phil’s photos in his Facebook gallery.
I’ve just returned from a weeks boating on Hawaii-Sur-Rhone. It was a last minute decision (that’s what happens when two girls try and decide on somewhere to go boating) so I set off by car with Flea and caught the ferry from Dover. Flea did some good driving and we were at Lyon by 2pm the next day, so we went straight to the wave and after a quick look jumped on for a go.
This was the first time I’d been to a big wave like this and what can I say it was as good and better than what I had excepted! I was nervous the first time but soon got used to it, it was very hard to catch due to the water level and recent changes to the river bed, but once on it, it was awesome. The next few days fell in to a familiar pattern… drive to the wave in the morning (via the supermache to stock up on baguettes and cheese for the day) paddle for a few hours, get off for a few hours, laze around in the sun, then jump back on for a few hours before heading back to the campsite for pasta and veg.

On the Sunday we went to the local slalom course for a change of scenery, which had nice hole at the top of the course but was very shallow and we left with slightly lighter boats due to the amount of plastic left behind. The next few days followed the same pattern, back at Lyon, plus one episode of getting lost on Lyon’s fantastic public transport system! Then I had to leave Flea to it and get the plane back home to go back to work :o( and already thinking about where my next trip would be to??? :o)
After months of waiting I’m about to head off to California for 3 weeks to kayak in the Sierra Nevada mountains. A quick stop off to Alpkit on the way to LHR was required to pick up some shiny new kayaking gear and a nice new Alpkit synthetic jacket to try out. We had a bit of a kit shuffle when the union rules kicked in and the baggage handlers refused to transport our kit heavy overweight boats. About to board now, I’ll keep you posted with our progress.
It was something like 18 years ago when I was first drawn into the giddy world of climbing. Early trips to the Peak District with Andy Simpson and Long Road Sixth Form College were followed by expeditions with my folks to North Wales and Scotland. Hours were lost in long sweaty sessions at Kelsey Kerridge sports centre or crimping small edges at Long Road bridge. Rather disappointingly I did not fulfil my destiny and become world champion.. in fact what happened was that my level plateaued out and I was climbing HVS / E1 with modest regularity after a couple of years.
Then, inspired by posters of Catherine Destivelle and Isabelle Pattisier, came a few trips to France and Spain. Fr 6a / 6b with the occasional lucky break on a 7a. At this time there was no great enthusiasm to get a tick, I either flashed the route or frigged my way up and moved on to something else. It wasn’t until I moved to Italy, and one of my friends David suggest we try actually working some routes that my attitude changed.
I was living in Lecco at the time and it gets awfully hot in the summer so the season was spent at the shady Campelli crag. We worked through the grades; 7a, 7a+, 7b, 7c. One route at each of the grades, no time to mess around since I didn’t know how much longer I would be there.
It had gone well, and with no specific training other than normal bouldering sessions at the local Gamma ‘bulder’ wall, lots of long walk-ins and lots of time spent on the routes my eyes were opened to what my body could climb if only my mind was switched off.
Back in the UK and the sport climbing kind of came to a halt. Work commitments had increased, the weather wasn’t so easy, the trad climbing wasn’t really keeping me fit but I still wanted to get myself up an 8a.
So along comes Dan from Up to Summit with some big ideas. Since injury he has been working on some training plans and suggested I try one out. First of all I needed a gladiators name.. mine was to be Guinea Pig..
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