Gore-Tex Arctic Norway trip competition
A project that’s been in the pipeline for a while has been a trip I’m planning with my sponsors Gore-Tex. It’s just launched so I can finally talk about it. So, would you like to come on a climbing trip to Arctic Norway with me?
The lowdown is on the Gore-Tex Experience Tour facebook page here, but here’s the rough plan: Gore-Tex have been running several competitions to go on some superb trips with their athletes and this year it’s my turn. Some of you might remember I was asking you for ideas for it months ago. We are going to go rock climbing, hopefully new routing, in northern Norway for two weeks in August. And we are looking for two climbers to win a place on the trip, courtesy of Gore-Tex!
I see a load of you have already clocked this on the Gore-Tex Experience Tour facebook page and applied! Great stuff and good luck. Looking forward to sharing a fine climbing trip with you. Please do post up on the wall with any more links you have to your climbing stories and pics to make my choice easier when it comes to the casting day!
A couple of personal things to say about the trip we have planned -
First off please don't be afraid to apply! I know from experience of coaching climbers and doing talks etc that people sometimes get put off by the prospect of going climbing with someone you've 'heard of'. There's no need in this case. Climbing new routes in places where there's tons of rock offers endless possibilities and our objective is just to go climbing and have fun for a couple of weeks. We'll have no problems finding routes to climb that have however hard or easy climbing we are after. We'll choose the objectives when we get there and based on how we are all climbing. So it's flexible - the only hard and fast rules are that we will have an adventure, we will get rained on at some point, we will come home with tired arms and wide eyes. You get the picture..
If you make the shortlist and get invited to the casting day in July, basically the plan will be we'll meet up near a cliff somewhere in Europe for the weekend, I'll show a few slides and tell some climbing stories over a beer. The next day we'll climb and find out who is ideal for the trip but I'll also make sure we all have a good session of climbing coaching so everyone has a good and productive time.
Why Norway? Well, other than being a climbing paradise with nearly endless potential for adventurous new routing on every type of cliff, it's beautiful, off the beaten track and aside from an unpredictable climate there are no barriers to getting on the rock - it's everywhere! Depending on the team's desires, what grabs our eye when we arrive and whether the sun is out, we could climb sport routes, single pitch trad or some rather bigger walls. I'm sure there will be the odd bit of sessioning on perfect granite boulders too…
Can’t wait. You can apply until the 5th of June, here.
Yes please! I've already entered my application on the Facebook page. Even setting aside the opportunity to climb with you, the trip sounds incredible! There's clearly a lot of potential for new routes in your neck of the woods (especially for someone who's climbing as hard as you) but down here in the South West the chance to climb big, new, adventurous trad routes sounds like the chance of a lifetime. You've made the selection weekend sound quite exciting too so even if I can just get to that stage I'll be chuffed.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your articles. Awesome blog about Die Castings. This is truly a great read for me. I have bookmarked it and I am looking forward to reading new articles.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Luke! This is probably the most exciting thing i can think of to do with climbing! If i just get to the selection weekend i will be stoked, any opportunity to improve my climbing with Dave is amazing! good luck everyone, this sounds like a once in a lifetime opportunity!
ReplyDeleteHope I'll get the chance to see you at selection James, you appear to have overtaken me in the voting!
ReplyDeleteHola,
ReplyDeletejust wanted to say that I've been in Northern Norway for the last two years now (in Tromsø, to be precise) and that, well, there is LOADS of potential here. I don't know what you were looking at for this trip, but Lyngen and Kvaløye might be a good place to start. In Tromsø especially there is a very dedicated climbing scene and some hardcore trad people as well - please respect the local bolting/clean climbing ethics. In case you need/want some addresses of people to talk to or people to introduce you to the climbing and region and midnight sun here over a beer, I should be able to help in establishing the contact.
Have a great trip!!
Wow, Norway is beautiful! And I found that cornwall climbing took my breath away! :)
ReplyDeletesounds pretty sweet
ReplyDeleteany age restrictions?
All the rules, including age are on the comp page on facebook!
ReplyDeleteTo put it briefly though - min age = 18.
ReplyDeleteJames
Hey Dave! After hours of shamelessly spamming everyone with any connection to me on fb, and help from some awesome friends, I am finally in the lead in the Norway trip voting! So before some outlier comes in and knocks me off my hard-won podium, I thought I would drop you a note. This is such a brilliant idea, it sounds like the perfect trip! Im off to Dorset to fall off some new dws lines and get some 'uncertainty training' this weekend. The idea of new routes has always appealed (I even took your advice and spent a weekend swinging about on my shunt at Swanage last month when I couldn't find a partner). Anyway, if you're interested in help with your decision, my ukc profile name is jacobjlloyd. My entire climbing history is there, from a few months after my first time in a harness to my present single-minded state. Make of it what you will. While I'm here I should thank you for all the free articles on training/injury/rehab/motivation. Your site, and your books, have been an exceptional resource for me and several of my climbing partners. You have really made a difference to what might otherwise be a dangerously confusing subject to navigate, and probably dont hear it as often as it is thought! Thanks!
ReplyDeleteWow, I think I just got totally schooled in the art of comment writing by Jacob, maybe there's a reason he's top of the voting with skills like that! I've been away for a week and appear to have taken a precipitous drop in the vote rankings in my Facebook absence (though in my defence the week away was a climbing trip). I'm now hoping that the selection isn't weighted too heavily on the votes.
ReplyDeleteI would love to see you and some of the other entrants at the selection weekend but I definitely don't envy you the job of helping to choose! For what it's worth, and in case it makes it any easier for you one way or the other, I too have a UKC profile with a (partial) logbook and my username is Luke90 - http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/profile.php?id=73673
Hope Orkney's going well! That's a blatant and shameless attempt to show that I do actually read your blog, but I'm also genuinely hoping for some exciting news of more boundaries pushed! Is it never tempting to try and set another benchmark back at a more accessible crag like Dumbarton? I guess you don't get a lot of choice over the lines that inspire you but I'd imagine it must have been nice to see people like Sonnie Trotter travelling the world to try out your routes. It's hard to think of many climbers in the world with the ability and desire to try repeating routes like Echo Wall or the Orkney line. Is there anyone you think (or hear on the grapevine) might have a crack at Echo Wall? That would be fascinating to see!