10. Back to the Lake District Pt II (Oct 21)

The original plan was to go to Nepal for a month to climb Cholatse, a formidable, technical 6,000m within sight of Everest; a mountaineer's mountain and a far greater technical challenge compared to Everest. However, once again it was not to be, so as a more localised plan B, I tapped up my good friend Matt Brook for the second instalment of our Lake District adventures together.

Rather than give you chapter and verse, it's fair to say that the weather was wet, the climbing (when possible) was fun and when I come to try "dry tooling" again (essentially rock climbing with ice axes and crampons), I won't leave behind the metal spacer for my crampons which converts them from dual to single front points (front spikes), the omission of which had me slipping around like a cat scrambling up a fence, as I desperately tried to find a way to fit my front two crampon spikes into holes in the rock face that were only wide enough to take one... (see video below).

Needless to say, the trip was brilliant fun, fantastic for the mind and soul and being back in the mountains again has certainly recharged my enthusiasm for the big one next Spring...