Adamants Expedition, 2018
In August, 2018, Bronwyn Tarr, Rowland Penty Geraets, Keith Lenning, Sasha Moore, and myself heli-lifted into the Adamant Range, a remote subrange of the Selkirk Mountains in wilderness of British Columbia, Canada. We spent two-weeks repeating lines and climbing a new route (Tin Man, see blog) before being forced out by deteriorating weather.
The expedition was largely a success, despite some close calls, particularly that Bron fell in a crevasse and had to be rescued! Nonetheless, the expedition was a success: We put up a new route, had some fun on old ones, and all came home safe, if a little more worried about loose rock than when we set out! See our trip report in the blog.
Getting dropped off at our basecamp spot on the Austerity Glacier by helicopter: Awesome.
Orabeskopf Face Expedition, 2017
In July, 2017, myself and my climbing/life partner, the lovely and tenacious Bronwyn Tarr will travel to the high fastness of Brandberg Mountain in Namibia's Namib Desert, where we will try to climb a new route up Brandberg's Southern flanks – the Orabeskopf Face.
Our dawn shadows on the approach to To Bolt or Not to Bolt on the Pontok Spitz, Namibia, 2016.
Spitzkoppe, Spring 2016
In April, 2016, Bronwyn took me to the country of her birth – Namibia. As a climber, the first thing I googled was whether there was any climbable rock. In turns out there was! The Spitzkoppe Formation boasts climbing for all levels – bolted, trad, sport, multipitch – all in an otherworldly, prehistoric setting (the caveman melodrama 10,000 BC was actually filmed there?!). I fell in love with it, and with climbing in the desert. We vowed to come back stronger and try to develop some new routes in Namibia...
Brandberg and the Orabeskopf face, 2017
After training for a year, endless googling, pestering local developers with rookie questions, buying a Bosch rotary hammer, learning to aid climb, contacting previous expeditions to Namibia, and talking to local Namibian climbers, we decided to make climbing a new route on the Orabeskopf Face our main objective.
With the generous support of the Irvine Travel Fund we will travel this July to the Brandberg. With a vertical relief of 400m, the steep granite of the seldom visited Orabes face can be found a day's walk from the nearest road, and 2 hours from the nearest source of water. We will live under it for a month, carrying in everything we need to survive, clean, and equip a modern line up the remote desert face. As of 7 June, I'm still tallying how much it will all weigh, but suffice it to say, it will be a suffer fest, we will face unforeseen adversity, and we will grow as people and climbers, I'm literally counting the days.
Check our blog for updates, when possible!
Spitzkoppe pictured from the top of Pontok Spitz as a rare desert storm blew in and we prepared to rappel down. To give a sense of perspective, Spitzkoppe rises 700m from the desert floor. We don't have pictures of Brandberg – we haven't been there yet!