Leeds!

By Luke Tilley

Exploring the vibrant city of Leeds, a journey through history, culture, and urban beauty.

Wow hit in the face by University, international competition seems a doddle in comparison! I have begun a new challenging period; with a base in Leeds climbing has potential to be a full time occupation. Yorkshire grit is a stones throw away, the super limestone crags an easy drive and 3 brilliant climbing walls to train at. Countering this Graphic Communication and Design at Leeds University is enthralling, inspiring and all consuming!

My focus has been blurred all over the place with climbing, uni work and living taking priority intermittently throughout my first term sometimes overwhelmingly so! I have had World championships, European youth cups, national events, outdoor climbing, history of art essays, several coursework’s, group management of 6 people, environmental campaigning, fire performances and for the first time cooking cleaning and washing for myself on top, no rest permitted!

Some early days at Kilnsey proved productive with a quick dispatch of a brilliant 8a called cold steel on the far left side, super technical tenuous face climbing after the initial powerful starting bulge. The challenge is getting the moves wired 0nce achieved the route did not feel difficult. However it did take 5 goes to get them perfect! I was close to sending another brilliant route in similar style but definitely harder (although also given 8a), Soft Option. This will have to wait till next time though as the pump got too much for me and I had to call it a day after coming so close to topping out!

I have had some brilliant days on the grit, pulling over my first piece of trad gear in a couple of years was pretty exciting and kindled the desire to find those pure features untouched by drill or bolt. Spurred on by my coach Tom Randle returning from America having conquered the worlds hardest crack. I embarked on Wellington Crack E4 5c at Ilkly a set of stairs in comparison but pleased with the onsight. All but the first piece of gear stayed in, my placement is not too rusty! I have only had a dabble in the local crags (a night boulder session at Almscliff was good fun and tested the Gamma’s capability!) but hoping to prioritize this a bit more in the new year! Hopefully will meet up with the other evolve team climbers who live around Leeds!

Bouldering Mats

  • SALE

alpkit thud bouldering mat taco style boulder pad in tequila sunrise alpkit thud bouldering mat taco style boulder pad in blue lagoon

Phud

Taco bouldering mat for your local circuit, 100 x 100 x 8cm
€149,99 €179,99

  • Email when available

Alpkit Origin taco bouldering mat in Sun orange alpkit origin bouldering mat boulder pad in merlot - closed

Origin

Large taco bouldering pad for frequent boulderers, 134 x 100 x 11cm
€189,99 €229,99

  • Email when available

Alpkit Mujo hinge style bouldering mat in ocean green Alpkit Mujo hinged bouldering mat boulder pad in blue lagoon - closed

Mujo

Hinge style pad ideal for frequent boulderers, 100 x 132 x 11cm
€229,99 €339,99

  • Email when available

alpkit wafer sit start bouldering mat boulder pad in blue lagoon alpkit wafer sit start bouldering mat boulder pad - action

Waffa

Small bouldering pad for sit starts and up-close impacts, 80 x 50 x 6cm
€49,99 €59,99

  • SALE

alpkit boulder bucket chalk bag in pina colada alpkit boulder bucket chalk bag in merlot location

Boulder Bucket

Self-standing bucket with roll top, large pocket and webbing loops
€34,99 €44,99

  • SALE

alpkit climbing chalk bag in blue lagoon alpkit climbing chalk bag belt location

Chalk Bag

Cordura® chalk bag with waist strap for sport, trad or bouldering
€27,49 €34,99
problem fodder skin creme cream problem fodder skin creme cream

ProBalm Fodder

Moisturising skin creme to keep active skin hydrated
€12,49

  • Email when available

DMM Crushed Chalk Bag DMM Crushed Chalk Bag

DMM Crushed Chalk Bag

250g of loose climbing chalk for boulder buckets
€0,00

  • SALE

ProBalm Lips probalm stik lip balm - closed

ProBalm Lips

Minty lip balm containing all natural ingredients
€3,99 €4,99

  • Email when available

ACAKSLACK-RED-01-slack kit chilli ACAKSLACK_slackkit - action

Slack Kit

Complete slackline with everything you need to get you started
€54,99

  • SALE

ProBalm Puck ProBalm Puck

ProBalm Puck

A 100% natural balm for repairing tired and damaged skin
€8,99 €12,49

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Alpkit and the FigFour hit TAB

Alpkit and the FigFour hit TAB

Kenny and Pete have been away sunning themselves in L’Argentière la Bessée in the Pays des Ecrins region of France for this years Tout A Blocs boul...
August 04, 2009
Tomahawk M10+

Tomahawk M10+

You’ve gotta love climbing. And you gotta love Switzerland. Climbing takes you to stunning places that otherwise you wouldn’t know or even bother. ...
March 03, 2011

Bouldering at MelloBlocco

We arrived Friday afternoon and hiked over to the car hire booth. I hadn’t even had the chance to stutter a word of Italian before our Panda was up...
May 13, 2009
A summer in the Alps

A summer in the Alps

This was started with the Tout a Bloc climbing fest, a fest that was amazing not just for the competitor but for the spectator as well, with so man...
August 26, 2008
Travelling Monks - Kalymnos

Travelling Monks - Kalymnos

This must be paradise. We had even travelled through purgatory with a cramped flight next to the toilet queue and a cold night on the beach chairs ...
November 10, 2005
Fontainebleau Dispatch

Fontainebleau Dispatch

We arrived at the gîte at three in the morning. The door was unlocked but Ken thought it best that we spent at least one night dirtbag style. Drivi...
February 28, 2010
Cold Summits- Denali Exped 2012

Cold Summits- Denali Exped 2012

So what happens when climbers with varying skills and ages get together on Denali for 4 weeks? Team work and support will undoubtedly come to the f...
April 16, 2012
Team Sky Ropes

Team Sky Ropes

A crack team from Alpkit GHQ headed to Thornbridge Outdoors in order to see what they could throw at them. The Big Shakeout weekend is all set to ...
August 30, 2011
Sport climbing in Ceuse

Sport climbing in Ceuse

A camp above the white cliffs, mayhem through Paris, a night in the hammock and we are finally settled in with the Rig 7 tarpaulin set up with the ...
July 08, 2011

Lip Project

A few days later we were driving again in the dense Welsh rain. Are we going climbing, really? Yes, drytooling will sort you out in the grimmest da...
January 05, 2012
On the road to nowhere... getting back to fitness

On the road to nowhere... getting back to fitness

I get asked a lot how to get fit or get better at climbing. Most of the time my answer is the same; unless you are prepared to start a specific tra...
February 06, 2012
Scottish Indoor Dry Tooling Competition

Scottish Indoor Dry Tooling Competition

Saturday 9th saw the opening round of the 2010 Scottish Tooling Series get underway and we were lucky enough to get Pete Rhodes kindly donning a Al...
October 12, 2010
Ice 2010 in Pictures

Ice 2010 in Pictures

We travelled out to the ICE climbing festival in France with mountain biker Paul Errington so that he could train for the Arrowhead mountain b...
January 21, 2010
Alpkit team at the Ice Climbing World Cup

Alpkit team at the Ice Climbing World Cup

Ice climbing competitions are a funny thing, a whole lot of people get together to test against each other, but they all do it for different reason...
January 27, 2011
Euro rock trip

Euro rock trip

My bags are packed to bursting, have I got everything? 2 days have passed since the weight of A levels was lifted mercifully from my shoulders. The...
June 29, 2011
37 degrees and 53 problems

37 degrees and 53 problems

“53 problems?! You have got to be kidding me! I don’t usually move at 37 degrees let alone climb!” So, there we were in sunny Ailfroide for Tout a ...
August 01, 2007
Classic week on the Ben

Classic week on the Ben

I am just parked up in the Lidl car park in Fort William in the camper having just cooked up a nice wee chilli and even had a shower! I have a bit ...
February 19, 2013

Salbit Westgrat - Alpine Training at its Best

Salbischjen, a very pointy 2900m granite mountain situated near Andermatt in the Swiss Alps. I’m not sure when I first heard about the climbing th...
October 19, 2018

Electric Blue

At the end of a summer centered around competing in the European Youth Cups I had one weekend booked since January that I was really looking forwar...
September 24, 2012
Looking up and Mixing it up

Looking up and Mixing it up

It took a while to recover from the 3 pitch lead “Rise and Shine”, and not being able to finish the route left a sour after-taste. Trying to find w...
February 01, 2011
Juniors at Font

Juniors at Font

A couple of weeks ago a few members of the junior climbing team made it out to Font. The team experienced sun, snow, rain and sub zero temperatures...
March 03, 2010

Hard graft & blunt picks

Up until now, Scottish winter climbing has always been an spectator sport for me. Something you watch in social media from the comfort of your home...
March 01, 2016
Troll Wall - A (very) short story

Troll Wall - A (very) short story

My hope by finally writing this up is there is a little catharsis for me once it’s finished. Never have I been more disappointed in my life than b...
March 17, 2011

The Tarn Gorge - Ardeche Adventures

The Tarn gorge The lesser known sister of the Ardeche and rising from the same mountains, the Tarn cuts a 500m deep gorge into the limestone of sou...
June 16, 2015
CWIF 2012

CWIF 2012

The Climbing Works International Festival, CWIF has a big reputation for a UK competition, world class route setters at one of the biggest boulderi...
March 19, 2012

Three 8's

My plan is to climb all three in one year. Back in April I spent two weeks in Kalymnos knowing this would be a good time to kick start the challeng...
June 07, 2013
A short tale of adventures in Wales

A short tale of adventures in Wales

Easter break means one thing for climbers that pretend to be students, not overdue dissertation work not revision for fast approaching exams and de...
July 13, 2012
Fairhead and more

Fairhead and more

Well, where do I start! It has been a busy month. It started with Mountaineering Ireland’s Fair Head Climbing meet. I started organising this 3 yea...
July 05, 2012
Back to Trad

Back to Trad

When you grow up in the British climbing world you hear a lot about the traditional climbing. The desire to go out and climb great clean lines is b...
May 22, 2012
The Red

The Red

Tones of red, yellow and green, glowing through the misty air of Kentucky, The Red is pretty. Red River Gorge only came into my radar in 2008 when ...
October 22, 2012

Euro Training Camp

I've never spent a single Christmas in the UK, it's always a good chance to either get some winter sun in Spain or some early ice or skiing in the ...
January 09, 2015

Tea and tooling

Saturday morning 7 AM. The world was silent, the nation slept soundly in their warm beds, all that is apart from a small group of climbers awaking ...
November 13, 2014

Ice climbing, head spanners, chamois and Cogne

Ice Fest 2019 Every year a friend of mine, Dave Pegler, organises Ice Fest - a non-guided trip that includes accommodation, excellent food, wine an...
February 25, 2019

Himalayan Adventures: Shan-Ri - Part 1

Himalayas 2018 In the last 10 years our Himalayan adventures have been based on mountains off the beaten path, normally virgin peaks or unexplor...
December 06, 2018

Scottish Winter and a bit of tooling!

I thought it was time I wrote something about the climbing I have done outside, because so far I have only spoken about competitions! The past coup...
February 16, 2015

Sensory Overload

Travelling the UK for about six weeks sampling the wide range of trad climbing and enjoying it all from the comfort of a van. Only a days drive fro...
June 17, 2015

A bloody long way North

A bloody long way North Driving from the South of Norway to the North of Norway is like driving from the south of Norway to Italy, it’s a bloody...
August 05, 2019

Ant and The Whale

Dom Bush has been making films for us over the last 4 or more years and what links many of these films is that they are not showy, if anything verg...
November 17, 2018

A Tangent Tale from Tested Tips in October

It is Grit stone and board sessions that are leaving me bruised at the moment, it is the tips that are taking the biggest battering. After a fun we...
December 24, 2012

Third Time Lucky: Soloing the Aiguille de Moine

Soloing Aiguille de Moine Earlier this year I decided to solo a peak called “Aiguille de Moine” which sits at 3412m within the Mont Blanc Massif.It...
December 18, 2018

Eden

A little over three years ago I finished a film (or a trilogy of short films) about climbing in the Lake District. Although not my first climbing f...
September 29, 2015

My Piano

This last couple of weekends Nesscliffe, the secluded Shropshire sandstone crag, has seen a whirlwind of action by Britain’s best trad climbers. Ja...
October 17, 2017

First trip to Albarracin

I was pleasantly surprised on my first trip to Albarracin. We were there for a total of 10 days. In those 10 days, only one day provided us with a ...
January 28, 2015

Slate, sunburn and snacks

There’s a lot of pressure sometimes to do epic stuff every time you get a few days off work, but you don’t have to fly or cycle or run across the w...
July 26, 2018

8a with no spurs

Hardly a month goes by before hearing that some super-wad has climbed yet another 9a+ route. Young guns nowadays have it quite hard to make a name ...
November 08, 2011

Taking on the Three Peaks Challenge

3064m and 37km with over 10 hours sitting on a bus and a great big dose of sleep deprivation, it really is a big day out!
July 13, 2022

10 Things To Replace A Chamonix Climbing Season: Anna Wells In Lockdown

Like so many other people around the world, the Covid-19 outbreak has had a huge impact on our lives. After a brilliant winter season in Chamoni...
April 09, 2020

Black Friday

I wake up to my alarm. It’s 4pm on Thursday afternoon and I’m in the middle of a string of nightshifts. I quite literally roll out of bed, put some...
December 06, 2017

Scratch & Win

The parting line in my last blog was that my elbow injury seemed to be on the mend. Well, since then I acquired another elbow injury on the other a...
January 29, 2019

Seven Climbs - Finding the Finest Climb on Each Continent by Charles Sherwood

This is an extract from the book 'Seven Climbs - Finding the Finest Climb on Each Continent' by Charles Sherwood. Available on Vertebrate Publishin...
July 14, 2020

Himalayan Adventures: Shan-Ri - Part 2

If you've not read part 1 yet, catch up here. Base camp at 4400m Two days resting at base camp (4400m) and: “Here we go!” Since we left a big pa...
December 13, 2018

Gipsy Anniversary

If you have to choose between climbing and writing, even if you like to share newly opened routes with the world… you always go climbing! …and s...
July 12, 2018

Gaining the margins

I can say with confidence that some winter climbs, the ones I went in deep, have fundamentally changed me as person. So recently, whilst climbing i...
November 20, 2014

Winter 8000 - Climbing the world’s highest mountains in the coldest season by Bernadette McDonald

Read an exclusive extract from the book 'Winter 8000, Climbing the world's highest mountains in the coldest season' by Bernadette McDonald.
August 06, 2020

5 days, 5 climbs by Daniela and Paulo Teixeira

In this Covid-no expedition year, we were eager to have some days not thinking about anything else than… to climb. It is restriction time here i...
November 20, 2020

What Motivates Me To Climb | Part 1

Introducing one of our Alpkiteers, Kumbi Kariwo. She doesn't climb to be the best. She climbs to be her best. Here's how her journey started, what ...
January 04, 2023

Rope Soloing The Old Man of Stoer

My favourite thing about climbing has always been the friendships, bonds and memories that form through extraordinary shared experiences. Climbing ...
October 12, 2023

Summer of Trad

Ramon, long-standing Alpkiteer and friend of Alpkit, got in touch to tell us about his summer of trad climbing, looking back on our revisiting of t...
November 04, 2022

Chasing Ice

Ramon's an Alpkiteer and old friend of Alpkit. He took the campervan on a trip this Christmas, and told us all about his trip. Christmas is a time ...
February 03, 2023

Ghosts

With time, with all the climbs, the walks, we end up merging with the mountain itself, we became part of the various granite walls that rise before...
September 20, 2021

The Grit List - An ode to friction

The changing of the season has me rubbing my hands together in anticipation for the return of perfect gritstone conditions (it’s not just to keep m...
October 22, 2024

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