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Rock Face

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Passionate About Inspiring Others

With over thirty years climbing experience all over the world and over twenty years experience of instructing I can help you along in all your climbing and mountaineering skills and needs.

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I started climbing in the mid 1980's with my dad and was quickly hooked. Growing up in York perhaps wasn't the ideal location, but the local climbing club was really active and there was little stopping me getting out on the rocks several times a week. Thursday was Almscliffe evening, but Tuesdays and the weekends were for different crags. When I finished my A-Levels I took a year out as a voluntary instructor working at Bewerley Park OEC on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and this started me on my path to becoming an instructor. Upon the completion of that year I moved to Staffordshire to attend University, I had seen pictures of the Roaches in books before, but until then I'd never actually climbed there. I've never looked back; and although I'm still a Yorkshireman at heart, the Staffordshire Moorlands are my home.

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Shortly after moving to Staffordshire I became actively involved in working on the then "new" BMC guidebook to climbing in the area. This really allowed me to delve deep into my passion for the area and to uncover all sorts of gems. There were still plenty of new lines to climb, testpieces to be repeated and bouldering was still in its infancy. The friends I made then are still my closest today, forged in that fire of excitement around new develpment. I have subsequently gone on to work on numerous guidebook teams in the production of climbing guides and records.

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In addition to working on guidebooks, I also took on the mantle of becoming Voluntary Access Officer for the area and I continue to work alongside the various bodies (especially the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust) involved with the Roaches area striving to maintain a balance between our interest in the area as climbers and other users as well as preserving and promoting the natural state of the landscape as a habitat for wildlife. 

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Qualifications

Experience

  • Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor (MCI)

  • PGCE Secondary Teaching

  • Safeguarding Training

  • Current DBS and Enhanced Disclosure

  • First Aid at Work and First Aid Trainer

  • Hill, Mountain and Rock Skills Provider

  • Indoor Climbing Assistant Provider

  • BSc (Hons) Applied Geology

  • 16 Years as Outdoor Education Coordinator and subsequently Head of Outdoor Education for the Roaches School

  • Youth Trad Climbing Provider for the British Mountaineering Council (BMC)

  • Guidebook committee and numerous published articles in the climbing press

  • Climbing experience in four continents including  on-sight first ascents in remote environnments

  • Numerous first ascents and first repeats of routes upto E8 and 8a 

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