Tuesday 31 January 2012

Who am I and what am I doing here?

Welcome to my site and thanks for taking the time to read!

Let's start off with a little Q&A, should we?

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Who are you?


My name is James. I'm British but I'm now living in wonderful Kyoto, Japan. I'm here because I study volcanoes and this is an excellent place to do so. That and I somehow managed to score a generous scholarship courtesy of the Japanese government so that I can actually afford to do so! I will be here for the next few years, hopefully...

So you climb?

Yep! I'm pretty new to the whole climbing deal but I love it. I want to go deeper into it and see where it takes me. I climb trad rock and I'm getting into winter climbing (mainly waterfall ice) in a big way this winter. I don't claim to be any good at it, but I love it nonetheless!

Why do you enjoy climbing?


I find it a nice release. I feel at ease when I'm in the mountains and I enjoy the rhythm and movements of moving over the rock or ice. I like the edge that the sport has - it's a little dangerous, but if you know what you're doing and you're reasonably careful, it's not TOO dangerous. I guess these reasons - the strange mix of calm and excitement - are the reasons many, if not most climbers climb.

What is this blog about?

I hope to use this space to put down anything climbing-related that's floating around in my head. I'll post trip reports (not every trip, but ones especially worthy of a report), nice photos, reviews of bits of gear I especially like (and possibly dislike) and maybe the odd little rant about things that bug me.

Anything else?

Thanks again and I hope you enjoy the content I put up here. If you have any comments, either on the topics at hand or on the site itself, please do share!


I should probably add a photo here so I will provide this gem from a trip to Snowdonia in summer 2011. That's me and yes, I am having fun... honestly...