Northumberland with the 'Odyssey'

My first day with the circus

For the last week, I have been traveling with the moving circus, that is the ‘Odyssey’. Film makers at ‘Hotaches Productions’ have teamed up with climbers Hansjorg Auer, Caroline Ciavaldini, James Pearson and myself. The idea is to climb a lot of UK trad, film it, and hopefully make a really cool film with the footage. So far, in the endless battle with UK weather I think we’ve come out on top, having climbed/got footage every day but one, and that was a day driving. However, we have been very cold, climbing, filming and camping. I can’t remember a May in the UK that has been this cold.

It’s been quite intense climbing UK trad for the cameras, especially since I haven’t done it for a year. However, Caro and Hans have never UK trad climbed, so I only have to look at their efforts to see that I have no excuses.

So what’s been happening? We started with two days in Northumberland. In terms of climbing, the most productive event was James’ flash of Crisis Zone, E7 6C. Caro also showed amazing form at ticking off a number of trad routes, from E2 to E6, picking up trad skills at a remarkable rate. It terms of footage, perhaps the most productive event was catching Hans, James and myself take ground sweeping, neck-jerking falls off tiny pieces of rock. My fall off the ‘direct’ of Charlottles Dream (E7), Back Bowden was especially entertaining as I narrowly missed Hans’ head along with the ground. James’ fall off ‘Off the Rocks’ E8 6c, was also pretty brutal.

About to fall on Hans’ head, Charlotte Dream ‘direct’ E7

Although the rock in Northumberland is really nice and the movement pretty special, after taking 3 falls off Charlotte’s dream, fumbling a leap in to a pocket each time, I decided enough was enough and I didn’t want to break my ankles on a silly eliminates. I think the rest of team were also feeling a little tired of having too many close encounters with the ground, so we decided it was time to head south to North Wales .

There are pictures and some short clips on here https://www.facebook.com/hotaches

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