Climbing

Felipe learns how to support Erik and be his eyes on tough multi-pitch routes throughout Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah, in preparation for their epic Patagonian adventure. 

When Felipe Tapia Nordenflycht trusts a blind stranger, the climber and adventurer Erik Weihenmayer, to belay his wife on their first meeting, it sparks an immediate friendship and soon they are planning the trip of a lifetime to Patagonia, Chile. 

Join Hayden, Bronwyn, Danford, Tyler and Jaron as they hack through dense jungle to reveal a big wall paradise in the Cochamó Valley, in Southern Chile.  

Rab athlete Tyler Allen seizes a rare weather window in the Patagonian Torre Valley to attempt a lesser-known route, the 700m “El Zorro” on Mojon Rojo.

In our 4th year of partnership with the Outward Bound Trust, we sent Equip volunteer ambassadors along with students from the David Nieper Academy as they embarked on a transformative adventure in the Ogwen Valley. These students pushed their limits through challenging outdoor activities and discovered the connection, challenge, and room for reflection that being outdoors offers.

Climb Kilimanjaro with confidence with this comprehensive guide. Learn everything you need to know about planning, packing, and hiking Africa's highest mountain.

Explore the thrill of combining winter climbing and paragliding in the Snowdonia region of Wales with these favourite "climb and fly" circuits. From the Central Gully on Ysgolion Duon to the Glyderau Ridge and beyond, experience the beauty and excitement of soaring over the mountain peaks. 

Rab Athlete Lindsey Hamm travels to Charakusa Valley, Pakistan to explore the big walls in the region. "Life first, Mountains second," said Ilays, our tour guide with North Pakistan Adventure (Trekking, Tours, and Expeditions)

Julia fulfils a lifelong dream of capturing an ascent of Dawn Wall, a 3,000 foot face in the Yosemite National Park, California. She shares her experience of documenting the trip through the lense, from its beginnings in Torredembarra Spain.

Inspired to take action on climate change after an awakening at Everest, Rab athlete Roeland van Oss sets himself the challenge of climbing all 4000m peaks in the Alps, while connecting the climbs by bicycle.

Shortly after moving to Washington in 2015, I began scouring the guidebooks for aid lines to free. There’s not many left, and I would later discover that this is not always the best way to find great new free lines. However, the aid line "Midnight Ride" (5.9 A4 600ft) on South Early Winter Spire (SEWS) jumped out. The route climbs a steep and clean face on SEWS just left of the classic route "The Passenger" in the Washington Pass area. For years I had been thinking about checking that face out, but never did until the summer of 2021. 

I can’t tell you how many times local climbers have twisted their faces at me, wondering how it is that I’ve ended up in the UK. So, what in the world is this California girl doing here, of all places? 

Angus Kille, Calum Muskett and Jon Gupta set off on an esoteric Matterhorn route , with all the ingredients of the proper adventure; fatigue, doubt, risk, mistakes and of course Jon’s self-proclaimed good looks and banter.

Rab Athlete Tor Berge recently journeyed to Jotunheimen for a few days of peak bagging, with his climbing partner Bjørn.

In December 2021, Canadian climbers Bronwyn Hodgins and Kelsey Watts made the first female ascent of El Gavilan (300m, 13a) in Mexico. This was the final step in Bronwyn’s multi-season effort to re-bolt the original 1990s Jeff Jackson line, making the route safe and accessible for future climbers.

After 10 years of pushing his climbing limits while testing gear for us, Kev Shields reflects on the evolution of his mindset during a life on the rock and what being bold means to him.

Searching for something that would push his climbing, Angus Kille found Esclatamasters. A 9a in the Catalan Pyrenees. All consuming, he learnt what it means to be a climber.

Tyler takes a trip home, to where is all began, the New River Gorge.

Canadian climber Bronwyn Hodgins became the third woman to free Golden Gate in Yosemite, California. Read part two, here.

In May 2021, Canadian Rab athlete Bronwyn Hodgins became the third woman to free Golden Gate in Yosemite, California. Read her story here.

Jacob Cook and Drew Marshall put up The Drop Bear, on the Prow Wall of the Stawamus Chief, on July 23rd 2021. This is their story.

You won’t find mountain adventures on a training board that has short and accessible as its design principles. But after months of substituting rock for plywood, I’m surprised at what I did find.

Coming out of a long winter of lockdown restrictions in Wales, it seemed apt that our project for this trip was called ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, an E8 on the remote cliff of Càrn Mòr in the north-west Highlands.

We caught up with Juho, a dedicated Finnish climber, Juho as he heads of to the Karakorum for some new routing.

I'm slipping... There’s a thin layer of dirt that covers everything: the climb, the gear, my whole body. My throat is dry, and my chest is heaving.

It’s 6am when the alarm starts to ring in the van. It’s still dark outside. The crisp, fresh air starkly contrasting the comfort inside our warm sleeping bags. Cristina reaches for her phone and turns the alarm off, wishing she had had a few more hours to sleep.

Jacob Cook and Bronwyn Hodgins went on an epic 40-day trip to Baffin Island. Their tale is one of adventure, new routing, and pink flamingos...

“I just looked at your MRI… and I had to triple-check I had the correct patient. The ankle on there looked like it belonged to a 70-year old” the doctor told me as he walked into the exam room. I’d been limping for nearly 6 months, since a bad sprain the previous summer, and had finally given in the wise counsel of my girlfriend and come to see a specialist.

Three hundred feet up the wall I weighted my toes on dime-sized sandstone edges. I was reminded of my ballet days on pointe -- the pain was torturous. 

On May 9th, Hayden Jamieson and Aaron Livingston free climbed El Cap’s Freerider in under 22 hours. This had been a long term goal for Rab athlete Hayden. It is a benchmark in big wall free climbing. And their decision to both free climb the route makes it all the more impressive.

It was the start of January 2019. The world had no idea what was about to hit it. It was only weeks later that the World Health Organization would declare the outbreak as a global health emergency, and a few months later that the virus would hit the Americas. All eight of us sat on the big bed, gossiping about boys, relationships, menstrual cycles, tinder dates… the whole deal. We took turns sharing stories while the rest listened curiously, giggling like little girls at a sleepover. This was nothing like any climbing trip I’d ever been on.

Rab Athlete Sylvain Thiabaud opens Montecristo N°4, a new mixed route in Maurienne’s secret valley.

In October of 2020, my friends and I were looking for new places to visit to celebrate that we could travel again after the first COVID-19 lockdown in Spain. We had been climbing a lot around Barcelona but we felt like it was time to organize a bigger trip.

I don't remember if I read it in a book or saw it in a movie, but it has always fascinated me that a trip doesn't start when you get your packs ready, but when you dream it for the first time. In my case, the trip to Madagascar began in 2007 after the radical opening of the route “Hijos de la Pedri” in Tsaranoro valley by my inspiring friends Talo and Palan Martin.

It all started exactly 27 years ago, when – during his first adventures in this North face – Manu Pellissier began to dream of a mixed line through this huge limestone face. Luc Mongellaz had also visited this face already, attempting the first winter ascent of the North West pillar in 2017, which was stopped just below the summit after a fall of his partner.  

Follow Rab athlete Greg Boswell and Marz McInnes (plus Floki and Kida) as they chase a spell of unusually good weather around the Highlands, and experience everything that Scotland has to offer.

In February 2017, Bronwyn and I packed our lives into our red van and drove 4000km across the Canadian winter-scape to Squamish, BC. We’d never even visited the town but decided it would be our new home - granite pilgrims from the East.

Lake District rock climbing offers something for everyone. From beginner trad climbs through to some of the hardest routes in the country, there is both easily accessible, roadside cragging and long days on the mountain crags. The bouldering also gives a wide variety of rock types, grades, and locations, and there is quality sport climbing in the South Lakes too. 

It’s surely every climber’s dream when facing parenthood – now I’ll be able to take my kids climbing (or sometimes – now I’m going to have to if I ever want to get on the rock again!) When and how can be fraught with options and the risk of putting them off for life! Every child is different, and how and at what stage you introduce your kids to climbing will depend on your own experience and confidence. Here are some thoughts and top tips from my own experience with my daughters and working with client families.

It all started with a plan. A plan to get out again and finally touch some rock.

When I arrived in Alaska for the first time four years ago, my mother and I flew through the mountains. I remember how good they looked, but I wasn’t ready for an Alaskan-level mountain. They all looked so big, steep, and gnarly, even the small ones. I was an amateur at the time, but was so enthralled by what I saw that yet again, as I have done before, I pushed everything in my life away and decided to move to Alaska the next spring. I wanted an authentic relationship with the land and for the last four summers I’ve grown just that.

Honza Navratil fell in love with Aiguille Dibona after receiving a message from his friend. In August, he spent a week exploring the Ecrins National Park in the French Alps where he ascended the needle of Aiguille Dibona.

“Have you always progressed in your climbing?” I was asked by my friend, Louis, at our local climbing wall. As we were talking about grades, it would have been easy to answer that my progression had been steady up to a point.

In the first of our series of Local Climbs, Angus Kille tackles the iconic Quarryman for a big-wall training challenge just five miles from home.

My home is Bergen, Norway – otherwise known as the city between the seven mountains. It is here that I grew up with a family who took me to the mountains or the cabin every weekend and every holiday. With that, I was trained from a very early age to take active breaks from a busy everyday life.

Crack climbing, for me, has been all about performance for a really long time. I’ve been on that incessant drive to push my own standards, establish things that are at the limit of the genre and in the process of that, do quite a few first ascents! 

Since getting out to the crag or your local climbing wall isn’t possible at the moment, we’ve compiled some of the great climbing training videos produced by our friends at Lattice Training which cover a series of exercises you can do at home.

La crête de Cuillin, sur l’île de Skye, est redoutée par bon nombre de grimpeurs de munros potentiels, et j’en faisais clairement partie. Surnommé le « Inn Pin » (aussi connu comme « the Inaccesible Pinnacle », en français « le sommet inaccessible »), c’est le seul munro qui nécessite d’être équipé d’une corde, et bien que son ascension ne soit pas particulièrement difficile en soit, elle se situe certainement en dehors de la zone de confort de nombreux randonneurs. Même si cette ascension n’est pas très technique, comme c'est le cas pour de nombreuses autres parties de la crête de Cuillin, la véritable mise à l’épreuve consiste à gérer l’exposition, et on comprend aisément en quoi la moindre erreur pourrait être fatale. La crête était pour moi un réel sujet d’inquiétude, compte tenu du fait que j’étais habituellement seule. Comment allais-je m’y prendre ?

The Cuillin Ridge on the Isle of Skye strikes fear into the hearts of many would-be Munroists, and I was certainly amongst them. The infamous Inaccessible Pinnacle (the ‘Inn Pin’) is the only Munro which requires the use of a rope and, although not a particularly challenging rock climb per se, it is certainly outside the comfort zone of ma

There is an old Chinese proverb which says that a journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step. This became something that I thought about many times over the summer as I undertook Project 282: almost four months spent climbing all of Scotland’s Munros, in one go; unsupported and self-propelled.