Roam Mountains

Supporting women to gain the skills for the mountains is a big part of what I do, not only by supporting women learning skills on courses but this year I’ve written multiple references for women, given work opportunities to female instructors and observing opportunities to trainees.

Climate Action. Protect Our Winters is a fantastic organisation to get involved with whether it is educating yourself through their Carbon Literacy Course or getting involved in their campaigns. Check them out and give them a follow Protect Our Winters UK

Stay humble and keep learning. We are never bigger than the mountains and there is always something to learn. Learning can also happen from through many channels. I keep learning via formal CPD, through my personal journey developing my own climbing and through listening to and observing those I’m instructing. It’s sometimes overlooked that we can learn from people less experienced than us but this isn’t true but does require an open minded.

A lot of gear maintenance and repairs can be simple with a little knowledge. For more complex jobs I like these local businesses Llanberis Resoles and Repairs & Alterations

Everyone can contribute to a safety culture in climbing, whether it’s reporting near misses, wearing a helmet sport climbing even if no one else at the crag is, insisting that knots are tied in the end of ab ropes when your partner says it’s not necessary and creating an atmosphere where everyone feels able to speak up if they have a concern.

Finally, having more in life than climbing. Defining self-worth and identity around climbing isn’t a healthy way to live life.

Do you agree with these? What would your ‘kinda chics’ be?

Having just arrived in the Alps we were keen to get climbing, if a little tied from the drive. The weather forecast was for rain and possible thunder storms the next day. The forecast kept changing with the rain starting from as early as 8am to as late as 3pm.

We opted for a 5 pitch sport route with a 25 min walk in through the forest. Critically, it didn’t top out and had rap stations. We could escape off the route easily if required. This also fitted with our energy levels and head space after the long drive.

Unfortunately, the rain came at 11am whilst we were on the second pitch. However, this didn’t matter we could rap off. No dramas, we enjoyed coffee and cake in very good boulangerie. A route to come back for.

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How to improve your climbing without getting stronger 👇

1. Having fun is my absolute number one thing to improving anyone’s climbing. Many things about having fun whilst climbing which are important. Some of these include the brain having positive association to climbing, learning from play by trying different ways of doing things, and helping maintain motivation.

2. Being self-conscious about what others think, which can feel particularly at busy crags or climbing walls, is a barrier to trying hard or even turning up. Honestly, no one cares don’t let it get in the way of your climbing.

3. Grades in climbing can be a double edged sword, we can fall into a trap of attaching our self-worth as a climber to this little number and letter. We climb a high number we feel great, we don’t achieve a particular number we feel bad. Remember if you’re out climbing you’re are lapping everyone on the couch and return to Point 1.

4. Clearly there’s so much that can be written about technique but the best advice I’d give if I had to summarised it in one sentence is to work on improving one technique at a time. Don’t try to change lots of things at once, our brain generally can’t cope with that.

5. We all know that fear doesn’t improve climbing and there is lots written about that and whole courses on it, but one hack I teach those I’m working with is to reframe fear as excitement. Commonly people tell themselves to relax but this often isn’t successful as this emotion is far from what you’re feeling. Instead, excitement is a closer emotion to fear, but a positive one. Plus climbing is meant to be exciting, rather than relaxing, and fun, remember climbing is meant to be fun, refer to Point 1 again 😃

What would be on your list?

I managed to squeezed in three new routes with before leaving Antarctica. In true Antarctic climbing style we drove skidoos within a 10min walk from the base of this great crag.

Conditions are still lean with unconsolidated snow but this crag proved to be unusually solid compared to what we’d otherwise encountered and enabled us to put these new routes up.

Great to share the day with Katie after a great season working together.

Short Days III * The left most gully. (Pic 1)

Long Nights IV 4 *The gully immediately right of Short Days. (Pic 2)

Meteorite Shower IV 4 ** A sustained mixed route.

R Coles and K Comer 08/04/2026

The humble pyramid tent.

Steadfast in a storm.

Serene lit up under the stars.

These tents are home to British Antarctic Survey field teams deep in Antarctica throughout the science season and base camp for winter climbing and mountaineering recreation trips.

And were our inspiration for the pyramid stage!

Some photos from a trip out with Ethan last week.

Stunning weather but a storm at the weekend had sculpted the snow into large sastrugi making difficult surface conditions for travel.