Raphael Slawinski's blog

January 2016. The Scottish International Winter Meet. Perhaps just to make the international visitors appreciate the fickle nature of Scottish winter climbing, the first few days of the gathering...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/12/give-im-enough-rope.html

1982. On April 2, Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (aka Las Malvinas), and the next day South Georgia, British islands that Argentina considered its rightful territory. ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/12/the-hand-of-god.html

"I don't want to write about climbing; I don't want talk about it; I don't want to photograph it; I don't want to think about it; all I want to do is do it." - Chuck Pratt . I can't remember whe...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-fame-monster.html

I step from a luxurious belay ledge onto a steep, prickly slab. The slab is undercut just beneath my feet: a rock dropped from here might hit the distant orange spot of my pack at the base of the...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/07/a-slice-of-unknown.html

"Strange days have found us Strange days have tracked us down They're going to destroy Our casual joys" -The Doors, "Strange Days" It was the middle of March. I had a weekday free. ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/04/strange-days.html

It was the usual evening-before text exchange: "What do you want to climb tomorrow?" "I'm not sure... How about Route X?" Both Mate Man and I had done the route in question before. In f...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/03/better-lucky-than-good.html

TAKE 1. From a distance, the ice blobs looked inviting; the featureless rock between them, less so. I wonder if we're wasting our time, I thought, as Seth and I ploughed a ski track through f...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2020/03/little-fluffy-clouds.html

I don't have a good feel for the Fahrenheit scale but I do know that negative temperatures are cold. Down in town, the car thermometer read around twenty degrees and the early morning air felt a...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2019/12/winter-dance.html

Friday. Squish, squish went the windshield wipers. The mountains played hide and seek behind soggy clouds as we drove west on the TransCanada through steady rain. Other that maybe in Scotland, r...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2019/11/banana-peel.html

Next month will be twenty-four years since I first climbed the north face of Athabasca. There are far bigger and harder ice faces in the Rockies, but that particular shield of snow and ice, capp...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2019/07/attribution.html

"And walked upon the edge of no escape, And laughed I've lost control ." - Joy Division The slender thread of Living in Paradise drapes down a series of overhanging limestone bands high ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2019/04/control-aka-wilson-adventures-iv-living.html

Michigan: it’s always an adventure, even if not always of the kind you expect. Then again, if it weren’t unexpected, would it be adventure? I dozed as the plane taxied to the end of the runw...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2019/02/up-ice.html

In March 2017, Ales Cesen and Luka Strazar of Latok I fame were visiting the Rockies from Slovenia. They came intent on alpine climbing but the rotten late-winter weather had other ideas. On a...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2019/01/vive-la-difference.html

The Bozeman ice fest in early December has become a bit of a tradition for me. Drive down, see some old friends, teach a couple of clinics ("Kick like you poo, swing like you screw."), and get ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/12/the-nutcracker.html

Winter seemed to come early to the Rockies this year. Late September and early October, instead of yellow aspen leaves and flawless blue skies, brought deep snow all the way down to the valley b...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/11/wilson-adventures-iii-bride-of.html

This past summer, Alik Berg and I went to Pakistan to have a mountain adventure. Below is a brief report from our expedition. For a more impressionistic account, check out this Bird Blog . For ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/10/trip-report-of-2018-canadian-pumari.html

Ducking my head, I stepped from the plane onto the jetway, and from the cool air inside the cabin into the oppressive heat of an Islamabad evening. After more than thirty hours of contorting our...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-myth-of-sisyphus.html

The first time I tried a really big mountain was in 2006. In the summer of that year Ben Firth, Eamonn Walsh, Ian Welsted and I traveled to Pakistan to attempt the then-unclimbed Kunyang Chhish ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/07/theres-more-to-climbing-big-mountains.html

Spring has come to the Rockies with a vengeance. Just now we're changing rock climbing plans for tomorrow and thinking of shady Acephale or Planet X, fearing the sunny Coliseum might be too hot....

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-ephemeral.html

The steep gully, hemmed in by walls of featureless limestone, opened up into a small snowfield, but higher up it necked down again. As the beam of my headlamp swept up the nearly vertical chimne...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/03/wilson-adventures-ii-suntori-sit-start.html

I'm afraid I've let my blog slide. Not that it matters much, given how these days lengthy blog write-ups are out and insta-posts are in, but I can't help feeling a bit guilty. My excuse is that ...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2018/03/wilson-adventures-i-tupperware-tea-party.html

The plowed road ended in a large parking lot. The cleared expanse was more reminiscent of a suburban Walmart than of a backcountry trailhead. That was where we'd been told to park my low-suspens...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-hyalite-adventure.html

Elbows resting on the car roof, I eyed the distant smear through binoculars. “I hate to say it, but I don’t think it’s worth the hike,” I sighed, passing them to Steven. After glassing t...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2017/11/falling-into-winter.html

This past spring Rob Smith  and I spent five weeks in the Alaska Range. We arrived in Talkeetna with ambitious plans: in a perfect world, we'd warm up on the French Route on the north buttres...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2017/11/extreme-camping.html

The crunch of shoes on frozen mud in the morning; yellow aspen leaves fluttering to the ground; and warm afternoon sunshine on rough limestone. But also: north faces dusted with fresh snow; drip...

https://raphaelslawinski.blogspot.com/2017/10/before-snow-flies.html