I've had quite an interesting year with a good mix of trad and sport action.  First off it was the Hell's Wall success with head-points of Inferno E7 6c then Bleed in Hell E8 6c.  I followed this with a trip to a very hot France and Spain, with the highlight here being a 2nd red-point ascent of the 40m stamina route Coliseum F8a, at Rodellar (awesome route!).

Once back in the UK I did a bit of trad in preparation for our Ireland trip.  This was mainly on the Yorkshire limestone, knocking off several E4's and E5's, including the amazing line of The Overlap, E5 6b at Kilnsey.  Ireland was a massive success with some amazing weather and four areas visited - Fairhead, Muckross (Donegal), The Burren then The Mourne Mountains.  I enjoyed stacks of classic E4's and E5's and even had a quick top-rope on Divided Years. Once home again it was back to Yorkshire with a mix of trad and sport.

My main objective was The Thumb F8a at Kilnsey, a route I've wanted to do for years.  Unfortunately, the move over the roof at the end is pretty damn hard for shorties and when I'd looked at the route before I couldn't touch this move.  However, I had a closer look this year and found a solution which was fairly powerful but worked.  After falling off this move on the red-point a number of times I eventually ticked the route.  Although I only get the 8a tick it is certainly up there with some of the hardest routes I've done. We celebrated this success with a trad weekend down in the south-west, where I enjoyed several E4's at Sharpnose and then Eroica (E4) and Darkinbad (E5) at Pentire.  I've wanted to do Darkinbad for ages so this was a real highlight of my summer.

Since then I've enjoyed a mix of sports climbing and bouldering as the Yorkshire limestone has been wet then dry, etc,etc.  I did manage to nip down to Kilnsey and tick the link-up route Complete Control F8a first red-point.  This was more my style being more crimpy and less steep and burly. We're off to Spain shortly for a few weeks in search of some warm sun and long routes so looking forward to that.