Roam Mountains

I managed to squeezed in three new routes with before leaving Antarctica. In true Antarctic climbing style we drove skidoos within a 10min walk from the base of this great crag.

Conditions are still lean with unconsolidated snow but this crag proved to be unusually solid compared to what we’d otherwise encountered and enabled us to put these new routes up.

Great to share the day with Katie after a great season working together.

Short Days III * The left most gully. (Pic 1)

Long Nights IV 4 *The gully immediately right of Short Days. (Pic 2)

Meteorite Shower IV 4 ** A sustained mixed route.

R Coles and K Comer 08/04/2026

The humble pyramid tent.

Steadfast in a storm.

Serene lit up under the stars.

These tents are home to British Antarctic Survey field teams deep in Antarctica throughout the science season and base camp for winter climbing and mountaineering recreation trips.

And were our inspiration for the pyramid stage!

Some photos from a trip out with Ethan last week.

Stunning weather but a storm at the weekend had sculpted the snow into large sastrugi making difficult surface conditions for travel.

Climbing is inherently risky, there are different risks and levels of risk associated with different sorts of climbing but all have some amount of risk.

If always climbing at the riskier end of the spectrum the numbers stack out of our favour and we begin to be playing a game of luck.

Deciding when a level of risk is worth taking and when it isn’t, when an approach or ethic associated with higher risk is important to you, and when it is meaninglessly living too close to the edge is personal and contextual but I’d advocate making deliberate decisions around risk, enjoyment and ethics. Lacking a thought process around risk, automatically doing what you’ve done in the past, what your mates do or what you think a community expects, isn’t a good approach to managing risk in climbing.

So here I am sport climbing in Croatia, my belayer using an assisted breaking device, we’re wearing helmets and I clipstick the first bolt.

Of course, I could make climbing routes super safe by only top roping, but that would limit my enjoyment of climbing here. I’ve been really pleased with how relaxed I’ve felt on the lead so far and have enjoyed getting to the magical flow state on a good number of routes. For me I wouldn’t gain that same feeling on a top rope, so clip sticking the first bolt to get me safely off the ground is a happy medium.

I imagine how annoyed I’d be if I fell before the first bolt and broke my ankle, preventing me going to Antarctica. A holiday sport climbing accident just isn’t worth it for me, heck, why not clipstick the second bolt as well.

What do you do to manage risk associated with climbing?