Archive for free climbing

the (In)accessible Pinnacle

Posted in Mountains, Running, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2026 by xi'an

While I already climbed the three northernmost peaks of the Cuillin ridge in August 2017, the eight other ones remained to be visited, with the most tantalising of them all, the Inaccessible Pinnacle! Also known as Sgùrr Dearg. And The Pin. The ICMS workshop was a unique opportunity for this. Which called for a guide in order to maximise the chances of success and also minimise the weight of my bag. In retrospect, given the wet and windy conditions that day, I could not have climbed the Pin by myself… There was no technical difficulty, plenty of holds for feet and hands, and the two pitches were quite short. But climbing with wet gloves, frozen hands, and hiking boots, under a strong wind,  made it a wee bit challenging, with the protection set midway by the (free-climbing) guide reassuring. The abseil was short (20m) and straightforward, even though the gale was pushing us sideway. It took less than one hour from the bottom of the pinnacle to the top and back to said bottom. Luckily, there was no other team before us, as we passed two of them on the hike up, and thus we did not have to wait in miserable conditions. And, bonus!, we were finished early enough to scramble to the nearby Sgùrr na Banachdaich (with some route finding skills required from Adam, my guide, in the relentless mist) and be back at the car in less than six hours. A terrific experience, fully enjoyed, if sadly missing the views (and hence the pictures!) since we stayed in the cloud the entire day. It is most unlikely that there will be another ICMS workshop to visit the other Skye Munroes before I retire!

to the top

Posted in Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 30, 2026 by xi'an

a journal of the plague and chaos year

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, Wines with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2025 by xi'an

 Read a novella, The Alchemist, by Paolo Bacigalupi, which has some interesting premises and an original universe, but looses depth half-way to end up with a lame happy ending. Not to be confused with the best seller with the same title, by Paulo Coehlo. And the second tome of Le Chevalier aux épines, by Jean-Philippe Jaworski, which I preferred to the first one, as it is told by the (anti-)hero of Gagner la Guerre. And the “dystopia”  Marine Le Pen présidente, which is a scathing critique of the shallow program of Le Pen’s party, but terribly lacking in the story itself, both dull and unrealistic. With most surprising appearances of Nicholas Khaleb and Yannis Varoufákis… Also read a masterpiece, Solo faces by James Salter, a 1979 novel on climbing solo until one looses faith and confidence. Mostly set in the British community of Chamonix, with a clear impresison of 1970’s France, great paragraphs on climbing episodes, multiple dimensions and depth of the central character, who remains a mystery till the end. Plus What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman, which has some redeeming features but drags much too long to an unsurprising ending.

Made a first jar of roasted almond butter, then a second, and it is likely to become a weekly “chore” along my skyr fabrication (which works most of the time, unless I seed it with the wrong type of yogurt). Recycling the whey in different ways, from the sweet rice pudding with matcha powder to buckwheat galettes, taking much less time than the earlier brunost!

Watched on Netfilx a terrible movie called the Electric State that offers no redeeming feature despite drawing on a massive budget of $340M to support its robotic animation. No depth, no irony, no fun. (And seemingly a complete departure from the original book that is all the opposite!) I also rewatched the second season of Kingdom the South-Korean “period zombie” series, believing it had just come out, until the final episode when I realised I had already seen it…

the alpinist [film review]

Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 1, 2023 by xi'an

Watched (with supplementary oxygen) The Alpinist in the plane to Jeddah. It is a documentary (made by the same filmmakers who filmed the Dawn Wall) about the amazing Canadian alpinist Marc-André Leclerc, who died in 2018 on the Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska, in an avalanche, after achieving extraordinary complex solo climbs as eg on Mount Robbson, Cerro Torre in Patagonia. These are winter climbs, partly ice climbing, where no repetition is possible and where the objective conditions (hence dangers) may vary considerably. In that regard, these achievements could be argued to go even beyond Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of El Capitan, where Honnold practiced the route over and over before making his successful free solo attempt. (Obviously an inhuman achievement when considering the hardest bits are at least 7c!) Watching Marc-André Leclerc when mixed climbing is just as heart stopping as watching Honnold rock climbing. He must have been incredibly strong to master these monstruous icy walls and maintain his absolute vigilance in each crampon move, in each ice-pick placement. Sadly it ended up with an avalanche… I obviously enjoyed X’ing many places I had visited, like the approach walk to Robson (in 1991!), the Three Sisters of Canmore [below], and routes of Squamish [above]. (I wonder who filmed during these non-advertised climbs. For instance, he told no one except his partner when he summited Mount Robson. In some cases he was clearly self-filing at lower intensity points, but in others it could have been an helicopter (or a drone?). In this respect, but by far not only in this respect, his blog is definitely worth the read.)


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free solo

Posted in Mountains with tags , , , , , , , , , , on September 21, 2021 by xi'an