One definition for an expedition is ‘a journey or voyage undertaken by a group of people with a particular purpose, esp. that of exploration’. [caption id="attachment_1817" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Images provided by The Expedition Consultancy[/caption] Exploration and discovery are great reasons to embark on a climbing expedition; to...
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Congratulations to Natasha Brooks, winner of first prize and People's Choice Award in the Women in Mountain Adventure Film Competition. The film is a beautiful exploration of her life long love of wild swimming in the lakes of Snowdonia. Thank you to every filmmaker and person...
Read MoreBy Jacquie Budd // Emma Twyford counts as one of the UKs most well-climbed climbers. We've recently written up an Inspirational Women page about Emma and following on from this I've spoken to Emma to ask her a few questions on behalf of Womenclimb readers. [caption id="attachment_1889"...
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Our community is kept alive with your input. No matter what your level of experience, it's likely that you have something useful to share in the community. If you’d like to get more skilled at writing or to share your knowledge, skills or experience...
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Emily // Womenclimb is my passion. I want to do it right. Whatever right is. I want it to be the best - the best information, the best content and the best place for women who climb, because I think that women deserve the best and...
Read MoreAbout a week ago I received a tweet from @WildlifeSamus, with a link to her blog post, questioning the validity of women's clubs and it gave me food for thought. Why do we have women's clubs? Here are my thoughts // by Emily Pitts: Women’s clubs do...
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By Dave & Maiju Lucas // The climbing press and media are full of accounts and images of very impressive first ascents by the climbing gurus of the day, just take a look at the press of recent days and you'll see it splattered with...
Read MoreThe Expedition Consultancy – or TXC – is run by Dave and Maiju Lucas. Maiju is the perfect role model for women wanting to step into the unknown and become an adventurous climber having only started climbing herself a few years ago. Dave has spent...
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By Maiju Lucas // Statistics show that although rock climbing is still a male dominated sport when it comes to the number of people participating in it, the number of women involved is steadily growing. However we at the TXC do not really see this...
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Nominated for Trespass Blog of 2014 in the Climbing category, we need your votes to win: www.trespass.com/blog-awards-voting Womenclimb is run by real women who climb year round. We don't currently receive any income or payment for the blog - it's entirely self supported, so being nominated for...
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After reading an article in TGO magazine early last year I decided to become a Munro bagger. This is not as creepy as it sounds. A Munro is a mountain in Scotland of a height of at least 3,000ft and there are 282!
The article in question was on the Charlie Ramsey Round, a fell run challenge covering 24 Munros in under 24 hours! However I am not a superhuman and neither was the author of the article who wrote about walking it in 4 days. Even this looked like a challenge, a beautiful, tough wild camp challenge. It was a good 12 months before this plan came to fruition when I convinced my dutiful and just as unassuming partner to do it with me.
Day 2 – Just because the tunnel has corners doesn’t mean the light isn’t at the end!
I woke in high spirits and opened the tent door to a view, which made up for our unfortunate start. Directly facing Ben Nevis I squatted over and tried to wee into the wind (a shewee would NOT have been great in this situation! it was far too windy and I fear it would have created a sprinkler effect upon leaving the spout).
Day 3- The hard way may be hard but it’s so much more fun.
The next morning we were both sore and stiff after sleeping on some awkward rocks but got going after a bowl of porridge and sultanas (and a call of nature!). I found the first 3 hours of the day quite hard physically due to my legs being so tired from the day before and starting immediately on steep downhill loose rocks. However, once I found my stride again it was as if my legs we reborn and I was ready for some more Munros!
Womenclimb contributor Bethan Thomas is doing a Masters Degree in Psychology. Her area of study is climbing psychology and gender. Here's the blurb about her research: Exploring the role of gender in predicting the relationship between self-efficacy, death anxiety and impulsive sensation seeking in high risk...
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As you may know Gwen is one of our heroes. She is truly inspiring in her approach to life and climbing achievements. She sent us some beautiful photographs of her climbing to share - an insight into a world of barefoot and nailed boot climbing,...
Read MoreIt's our FIRST BIRTHDAY this month and we have some great prizes to give away...
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Climbing means something different to everyone. Sometimes I come across climbers who can’t get their heads around other people who only climb indoors. Others wonder why anyone would venture outside, when you can stay warm and dry in a climbing centre. Others still are unable...
Read MoreHave you got a great adventure story to tell? Ellis Brigham have teamed up with the Outdoor Adventure Guide and are offering the chance for one lucky person to have their adventure published in their next magazine. What they're after: Roughly 500 - 1000 words on an adventure you've...
Read MoreSo, things have been quiet at Womenclimb. But why? The site started, with no content, in June 2013. We had an inkling that women would like our site and our ideas, but we didn’t realise quite how much!! It seems that you really love it –...
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Today, something interesting popped up on the Womenclimb Twitter feed. I had to take a second look at the strange image with which I was presented. Was a climbing website trying to promote climbing, a sport which has freedom of thought and being at its...
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In an interview with Katy, we get to the heart of her passion...
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Katy Stocks is a collector and researcher of women’s mountaineering literature.
A shelf full of women’s mountaineering literature… a delight to see.
Her passion for women’s mountaineering writing has led to a 25 year endeavour to catalogue Women’s Mountaineering literature across the globe. Katy’s work is an inspiration and she hopes to encourage more women to write stories, short and long, as well as poetry and biographies of the mountains, their people and the exploits.
Our friends at Ellis Brigham have posted our Guest Blog Post - Ten Winter Climbing Tips, which you can find here: www.ellis-brigham.com - ten-winter-climbing-tips Stay safe and enjoy the winter, women. Emily Sign up for our Newsletter Other posts you might like...
Read MoreThe results are out and Womenclimb team women came first to seventh in the beginner's category, with Beth Thomas taking first place, Katharina Lauer second and Magda Bo, third. What a success. Well done everyone for taking part. Check out the full results on the Rock...
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If you’re new to Winter Climbing, you might want to get into a routine of asking yourself key questions, before a climb, to prompt yourself to stay as safe as possible.
We’ve compiled a list of some important questions:
Gwen Moffat is an inspiration. She began climbing just after the war, leaving the army to live a transient life in hills, cliffs and mountains of Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and far beyond. She became the first British female Guide. She lived on a boat with...
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By Hannah Thomson // There has to be no giddier a team than two girls from Hull finding themselves in a rental car on the Spanish coast on a Sunday morning in March on their way to climb in Costa Blanca. Lydia and I had met working at Rockcity Climbing Centre the previous winter and, after hearing rumours of sunny sport climbing abroad, we booked flights to Alicante and worked out the rest afterwards. We found cheap accommodation at the Orange House near the village of Finestrat and hired a rental car from Alicante airport which made getting to the many crags a piece of cake. That, and we had managed to borrow a guidebook (from the 80s) and commandeered a SatNav. Oh, and a brand new 60m rope belonging to one of our friends.
As 2013 draws to a close it may be time to think about the year ahead and your goals. It's all too common to start something with good intentions, but not continue past the first few weeks or the first month. So what motivates us? Interest Choose something...
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When starting out climbing it can be incredibly confusing trying to decipher what people mean when making reference to the types of climbing you can do outside, in winter. Here we try to demystify some of the terms.
Winter Climbing can be defined as climbing, in winter conditions, using
Winter Climbing has its own grading system. The Scottish System is different to the system used in continental Europe. Rather than expanding on this here, I refer you to the Mountaindays website, which has a good clear explanation of Scottish Winter Climbing Grades and Alpine...
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