January – February are traditionally a quite time of the year with cold and wet days being the norm. Thankfully with top class indoor climbing venues like Awesome Walls Dublin it’s easy to continue to climb, coach and have fun. This is of course accompanied by the consumption of copious amounts of coffee and chocolate brownies!

This time of the year is also ideal for letting the imagination go wild followed by putting plans in place to follow this curiosity to flourish to it’s conclusion – watch this space!

The Winter months are also usually the ideal time to go into the Irish Mountains and focus on teaching navigation skills at various levels. The Mountaineering Ireland Mountain Skills courses are popular and a great way to increase confidence and up-skill.

I love my personal indoor climbing and was super psyched to try hard on the lead routes and do a bit of training during Jan – Feb accompanied by the bottomless pit of psyche and try-hard, Cara.

I also had the pleasure of coaching several impressive individuals toward achieving their Indoor Lead Climbing goals and also enjoyed the company of several Irish Mountaineering Club members on a belaying workshop in Awesome Walls Dublin.

The Irish Mountaineering Club also invited me to provide a talk about climbing and various shenanigans in the Teacher’s Club, Dublin – it was good craic as always.

And then if happened… it snowed and the temperatures dropped! Usually when this happens in Ireland anyone with an interest in Winter climbing looses their mind and starts scratching around for anything that remotely looks like a Winter route! Myself and Vincent are certainly included in this over optimistic posse.