Peter writes I have climbed and scrambled all my life. At an early age I began climbing all round Britain in the Lake District, Peak District, Wales and Skye in Scotland. When I was a bit older I managed to go to Fontainbleu in France and the Dolomites in Italy. This was good because I got to climb on all different types of rocks in lots of different places. 

To start climbing outside first in lots of different places was good because now I do all sorts of different climbing, like traditional (outside placing gear), sport climbing (outside clipping bolts) and inside on the wall. This is better because it gives a different variety of climbs.

When I was nine, I started getting more into climbing and then when I was twelve I was the youngest boy to be picked for the Junior British Climbing Team. It was great to be picked and made all my training seem worthwhile.

Climbing is really good fun for everyone, because there are lots of different areas of it so you can pick the one you like the best. It is also very different to any other sports or activities you might have done. If you do come to the Peak Centre you could try their climbing wall or even go out on one of the local crags. Both are great fun and will give you a idea of why I like climbing so much.

See you at the top!

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Why don't you take a look at KATY'S DIARY and PETER'S DIARY to see what they have been up to!!!

Katy's Diary
At the beginning of the year in February half term we went to Spain to climb near Benidorm in an area called Costa Blanca. This is a popular area for sports climbing and we had 6 days of sunshine. We visited a variety of crags including Toix, Gandia, Altea, Sella, Murla and Alcalca and ticked a number of really nice routes. The rock out there is limestone so lots of edges and crimps which suits my type of climbing. Gandia was the steepest crag we visited when we were there, and was like a wave of rock on the edge of a hillside with a variety of angles. I redpointed a 7b+ here first go, it was just off vertical and a really nice sustained crimpy route.

Then in the Summer we had a week in Dijon, central France and Fontainebleau, near Paris. In Dijon we visited the crags Remigny, Bouilland and Fixin. Remigny was a really good crag, containing a slabby area with easier routes on and then a steeper area, which was good for training. The week we were in Dijon because it was mid-summer was boiling it was about 30+ degrees, which is very hot and greasy for climbing in, so we had to find shady crags. Font was much more suitable weather compared with the heat we had in Dijon, we had one day of rain, and the rest of the time it was warm. We climbed at Le Cul du Chien, Bas Cuvier, Trois Pignons, Apremont and a new area, which I had not visited before called Canche aux Merciers, this was a big area and had a large choice of problems which I enjoyed, it was also the last day so a good end to the trip. It was nice to train and chill out before the World Youth Championships at the end of August.

The World Youth Championships in Austria at the end of August, this was a 3 day competition, 2 days of qualifiers and a day of semi-finals and finals. The wall was the steepest I have ever climbed on in a competition, it consisted of a variety of steep featured walls and a main horizontal roof in the centre. Unfortunately I had a very bad competition, and didn’t as well I would of liked and finished in 40^th.

I then had a few months of no climbing trips or competitions, which gave me some time to focus on my training, and at the beginning of December I had British Team Trials. First was the Junior leading trials which I finished in 3rd and kept my place on the team. The weekend after was the senior bouldering trials, in which I qualified for finals in joint 1st and finished 2nd overall. I was also selected for not only the team from this competition, but to enter The European Championships in March at the Birmingham Outdoors Shows at the NEC. Katy

Peter's Diary

2006

Spain

The first trip I had this year was a trip to Spain in February. I went to Costa Blanca and got to crags such as Sella and Gandia, which was great. In Spain I did two 7b+’s (‘Enya’ at Gandia and ‘Kina Borregada’ at Sella) but mainly just got a lot of climbing mileage in.

France, Dijon.

The next trip I went on was to Dijon in France and again it was sport climbing. This was a great trip with loads of great three star routes. When I was out there I did two 7b+’s and onsighted two 7b’s. On the last day in Dijon we went to a crag called Fixin where I did a 30 metre 7c called ‘Pianissimo’ on first redpoint. After climbing at Dijon for a week, I had a trip back up France to Fontainbleau. Although I’m not as strong at bouldering, Font is always a great place to go so I just stuck to some of the classics such as the ‘Cull de Chien roof.’ For the first time this year I could easily reach the pocket on the roof and did it. Also on the last day at Font I did a 7a+.