I conspire to climb spires, by Stevie Haston.

By popular demand a little bit of mixed climbing, or dry tooling, or just simple mountain climbing. Call it what you want, but yes it was a conspiracy, we conspired to climb, have fun, drink beers, and be happy-good plan Mr Secret Squirrel.

All photos Oliviero Gobbi. 

This is a class photo showing point Framboise in nice Scottish conditions which are often there after a quick storm, the storm came just as we ordered and was obedient enough to give us a good time. Well done Mr Storm.

Slightly out of order, this photo is going back to the bin, calling the Aosta Skyway a bin , is a bit of a sin, as its sumptuous. 

You can never ever have enough photos of the Noire, simply impossible.

The object of the exercise was to do a bit of filming on Ezio's new routes and for me to test the Grivel Dark Machine -hands down the greatest mixed /ice climbing tool thats ever been seen.

The Geant in the back ground floating around like the hallucination it is, a wonderfully easy climb but staggeringly magic.

Typical mixed ground, these routes vary from easy to very hard, too available from the Maestro Ezio.

 Now then this sculpture, or bass relief was once in plain air, but the Skyway Cable Car has incorporated it into its top restaurants, a brilliant move. The inscription reads something like if we all helped each other by holding hands, and pulling together life would be much easier. As you know I dont believe in a normal God, but believe in multiple gods, or Godettes. However I believe in this wonderful sentiment, and remember putting this photo in an article 20 or so years ago in that excellent magazine On the Edge! 

So that was a few words about a great day, the details are not super important, the sentiment was, the joy de vivre was, the emotion, ambiance and all the rest. Long live climbing, long life or short life to all who climb, nobody can burn as bright as the climber smiling on a sunny ridge heading towards the summit of their dreams.