SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - This race is an introduction to adventure racing and will give the Mizen teenagers a feel for what is involved when the World Series Adventure Race, a gruelling five day challenge for the world’s top adventure racing teams, comes to Schull, Ireland on June 17th.

In conjunction with the Turas and in order to promote adventure racing and sports in Ireland among kids…Dierdre Nic Challanain has organized a mini adventure race in Schull this Friday.

This Friday 1st & 2nd year pupils and staff of Schull Community College will compete in the first ever Schull Adventure Race. Participating in teams of three or four, the teenagers will be physically and mentally challenged in four different activities.

The race starts with first team members running from the pier to the sailing centre before embarking on a kayaking loop in Schull harbour. On completion, the second team member will have to navigate their way around Schull park with the aid of a specialist orienteering map in search of a series of checkpoints. Following on from this is a tough cycle ride around the back lanes of Schull culminating in a cross country run around the school.

It’s great to see people from local communities rallying and gearing up for the Turas.

-Robin.

(Image Credit: Mafikeng Ventures try an Adventure Race practice in Howth.)

Best of luck to all my Clonliffe clubmates heading to Cork for this and to blogger Thomas!
:-)
If you’re looking ahead there’s a BHAA cross country on March 15th and the St. Patrick’s Festival 5km on Sunday 16th both in Dublin. See you there!

-Aisling-

NEWBRIDGE, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - The 2nd round of the Irish Bouldering League took place last weekend at St. Colmans Secondary School (Google Maps), Midleton, Co. Cork.

With about an estimated 120 climbers competing, in one very cramped room, you can guarantee it made for a social and friendly encounter. Other than some ‘vague’ route grading - not my words! - from the route-setters, it seems no one could really find anything to complain about (unless you count being stiff and sore the next day as something to complain about :). Still though, with a decent spread of points at the top of each group, it meant that obviously the routes were difficult enough to challenge everybody. Unfortunately, I’m only getting over a shoulder injury so wasn’t competing but it looked like a great comp.

the full results can be found on climbing.ie here, but in short congrats to Harry Fogg in the Males, Joan Mulloy in the Females, and Ciaran Rogers in the Juniors. Solid climbing from it all from what I saw!

More photos can be found in my gallery here (or the slide-show below), and even more through the climbing.ie forums

Update: Image Credit: Damien O’Sullivan climbing one of the harder competition problems at Midleton, Co. Cork

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Howth Coastguard & RNLI were up at 4am yesterday to rescue 4 men from rocks in Howth. Their fishing boat was holed and sunk within minutes. I understood that the All-weather sent in its tender and the inshore brought them back to harbour. Great job! Video on RTE (click link at bottom of page).

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First photos coming through of the 154 rescued from the sinking Antarctic cruise ship overnight. Crazy. My latest update is that the captain & 1st officer are still onboard and the ship is at 25 degrees.

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Fancy driving up Elbrus in a landrover? These guys did! Not only that, but they left it up there! I had no idea of this, and there’s photos of it being found by another expedition.

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GO-Blog have found a free Mountain Hardware Cookbook, for great meals in the hills. Download it! (3MB).

It’s 20 pages of recipes from the world’s top climbers, skiers, adventurers. Keep in mind the many of the authors of the recipes may be high altitude experts, so there’s the whole brain damage thing.

Love it!

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Our TGU Forums have started to get a bit of chat going on. Thanks ’siubhanmac’ who left a post about the ‘Ocean to City 2008′ race in Cork.

An Ras Mor is set for the 31st of May 2008. The race is open to all types of fixed seat rowing craft including kayaks. The course runs from Crosshaven in Co Cork up to Lapps Quay in Cork city over 15 nautical miles taking in Roches point.

Cheers Siubahn!

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I hope you enjoyed that round up!

-Robin-

(Image Credits: All from their respective websites as linked.)

NEWBRIDGE, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - I’ve been meaning to put this together for ages, however now that I’m back in the country it turns out it was most worthwhile in hanging on (worst pun ever! Shoot me if I ever do that again :) before writing it up.

Firstly, Paul Harrington has been busy in the Cork region with a new coastal area. Rock Bay in County Cork, situated on beach and going by Paul’s photos there’s proof that there’s been at least a few dry climbing days this year. The crag has a nice selection of problems from font 4 to font 6c. If you’re in the area, it’s worth checking out. You can find Paul’s page of info here

I had the luck in arranging another visit to the Doolin boulders in County Clare. I found the boulders accidently myself a few years ago while exploring for a potential sports crag, and since then this area has been actively developed by Gregor, a resident of Galway city. In the past weekend, strong Irish boulder Nigel Callendar, completed one of the final projects. Estimated grade is Font 7c, and unfortunately as he only completed it on Wednesday night (by torchlight!) before going in for surgery on a shoulder injury, I’ve no photos. In between all this, we managed a quick drive around East Clare in search of more new rock. Not much luck on this trip, but there’s definitely more out there for people who are willing to spend an afternoon driving!
For anyone interested in checking out some photos of Doolin boulders (and it’s amazing location), check out Paul’s other page here (also includes some photos of the late Michael Reardon when he was down having fun here)

Myself and Nigel (who has been intermittently checking the area out for a few years now) also managed to get a day of exploration around County Kerry. Having driven most of the roads in the Killarney area, I’ve seen enough to be impressed and why oh why is it so far from Dublin!?! :) The Gap of Dunloe has a more than respectable amount of problems (and new routes to be climbed). Amusing moment of the day was passing by a rumoured super-steep crag….and finding that the front of the cliff has fallen off - at least 40 meters wide and 20 meters vertical of cliff-face (would have loved to be around to see that!). Photos can be found here for anyone interested - there’s loads more rock up behind for development…..

To top it off, I then received this photo from a good friend in Belfast during the week of a new bouldering area somewhere in Northern Ireland. Who says there’s limited amounts of rock to be found around Ireland?!

As always of course, if you find any new areas, or successful ascents of new problems, let me know (so I can go climb them, oh and report them here ;).
Image Credit: the view from Doolin boulders looking across towards the Aran Islands, County Clare, Ireland. Taken last weekend in the ‘indian summer’ we’re having! Photo by author (additional photos from weekend can be found by clicking on the photo).
Lower photo taken by Angela Carlin of mystery new bouldering area in Northern Ireland

- Neal :) -

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Stilettos for snowboarding chicks. How cool are these! Stilettos made out of snowboard binding parts. Now this is modern art!

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UnderDeveloped (Irish Climbing Scene) DVD launch night has been announced. I’d love to go.

Calling all climbers, boulderers, bridge jumpers, film buffs and critics.

We are holding a big event to celebrate the launch of the DVD. We’ve booked Queens Film Theatre, Belfast on 17th Nov 2007 at 2:30pm for a matinee, big screen showing. 220 seats. We’ll let you all know how tickets will be sold and costs etc. Put it in your diary now tho!!

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New crag being routed in Cork, Ireland. Whaleback Crag (word doc).

This is close to but smaller than the main Aillihies crag. 7 routes in the Diff-VS grade all accessible from the same platform system via a scramble down.

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A good video from some time ago, climbing The Great Roof.

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The famous ‘Alpinist’ magazine have re-launched their website. It’s got some seriously good feature content. Check it!

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-Robin-