Wednesday 26 October 2011

Caspian Sea

Some aged and some new oil platforms












Friday 21 October 2011

Baku: The Flame Towers

Baku is the scientific, cultural and industrial centre of Azerbaijan.The inner city along with the Shiruashah's palace and Maiden tower are UNESCO world heritage sites. Below are pictures of the Flame tower which is one of the many current building projects going on in this city. It will eventually be a residential complex with a roof height of 182 m ( 597 ft.) The estimated cost of construction was US$350 million. Construction commenced in 2008 with a completion date 2011.




An artists impression of the completed structure.





Tuesday 18 October 2011

October winter.

Snow on the hilll tops around Kincarig near Aviemore. Winter is coming!





Wednesday 12 October 2011

Moy sports crag

A greet day today climbing with my pals at Moy, just North of Inverness. This conglomerate crag has been bolted and holds some interesting sport climbs and several trad. routes also...



John climbing.





Tuesday 11 October 2011

An exemplary vegatable

It ace to be back at home and today and I found the time to dig up my potato's. Lady Charlotte and all those other interesting names for the humble potato...question is: can one climb to grade 7a on such a diet?....Hamish Macinnes once said that if they had another bag of potatoes he along with John Cunningham would have been able to summit Pumori!







Tuesday 4 October 2011

Mont Charvatton, Valle d'Aosta

Erca on the lead!




If you drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel and stay on the auto route for about an hour and turn off at Verres, then head up into the picturesque Valle de Champrozer you will find delightfull Italian hamlets, farmers with their tiny four wheel drive Ferrari tractors and some ace rock climbing. Erica and I had an ace day yesterday climbing a 12 pitch sport route called "40 Anni di Emozion", its graded 6c and justifes the grade.... The rock and climbing is truly ace although we found the guide book discription and quality of bolts not so great... The descent is via absiel down a line called "Tommy".If you can take a photo like this as you are about half way absieing down after competing your climb it means you have been caught in the dark!!! Ha ha, this of course adds to the adventure and like all good mountaineers our only head torch was in my rucksac at the bottom and start of our route!!!! Never the less, this justified a vist to a local Pizza place where the wine and sea food pizza tasted amazing! To add further insult and complications to an outstanding day there were road works in the Mont Blanc tunnel so we did not get back to Chamonix until the wee early hours.... an ace and perfect exciting day!