The Flash: Rock+Run Blog

This week's video features everyone's favourite Mellow member, Keenan Takahashi, as he embarks on the quest for new king line highballs in the Buttermilks. From his journey through climbing to the ultimate development and send of A Little Life V14, this one had us on the edge of our seats throughout. We challenge you to get through this without sweaty palms, enjoy!

Faster, lighter, brighter, the Guide 30 is the quintessential Deuter pack within the new SS23 range boasting a range of subtle and some not so subtle improvements that put the new packs up there as the very best on the market. Perfectly sized for a day out in the UK hills, the Guide 30 sits at the fulcrum of the Guide range and will doubtless be one of the most popular options for UK mountaineers but, is it worth your money?

In 2017, British climber James Pearson made the first ascent of Le Voyage at Annott crag, near his adopted home in France. With runout 8b+ climbing above tricky gear, it weighed in at E10 on the British trad scale. Top British climber, Steve McClure, thought it sounded right up his street and couldn't resist donning the unlaced 5.10 Blancos to take a look. Cracks, crimps and cams, Le Voyage has it all - enjoy!

Bosi is BACK. Life after Lappnor looks sweet with Bosi firmly cementing himself as the world's in-form boulderer becoming only the second climber ever, after Shawn Raboutou, to climb two 9A graded boulder problems. In this week's video, we take a look at the trip that kickstarted Will's rise to outdoor domination. Going toe to toe with Adam Ondra on a super successful Czech climbing trip was just the start for Bosi - enjoy!

The Cuesta from Blue Ice is a sleek, modern rock climbing harness from the Chamonix-based French brand. While Blue Ice might be known more for their alpine gear, the Cuesta is very much a rock climbing harness – though the version that has adjustable leg loops would no doubt be at home in any mountain environment. I’ve been easing my way into the early season for rock climbing here in the south of the UK with the Cuesta in tow (along with gloves, hat and many layers!). 

This week's video is a break from the harsh realities of our more common world class climbing video recommendations, yes V17's hard and no, sadly we aren't that strong. In Casually Explained's summary of Rock Climbing, you'll find ample relief from the real thing with a tongue and cheek take on the sport and our wonderfully diverse community. Enjoy!

Deuter have been making some of the best packs on the market for over 100 years, and manage to keep surprising us with new ideas and designs of their packs. This season is no different with the release of updated versions of some much loved packs.

Fresh for this spring/summer season is a brand new range of revised and improved rucksack models from German powerhouse, Deuter. Having been in the game for 125 years, Deuter know their way around the pack market but, with an evolving clientele and ever changing mountain pursuits, this is the most radical range update and redesign we've seen from Deuter in some time. Fast and light is the name of the game for this year's range and the new and improved models come with this ethos at the heart of their design, complimenting the Deuter packs we already stock. Perfect for intense missions in the mountains, a real highlight of the Spring range actually comes from the new waterproof additions to the Deuter collection with the Vertrail and Durascent packs, but more on these later.

This week's video follows Lake District local, Aidan Roberts, takes centre stage once again in the latest epic climbing film from Wedge. A 40 minute feature length, Mastery documents Aidan as he pursues a new limit of cutting edge bouldering, searching for new test piece projects both locally here in the Lake District, and further afield on the world class granite of Switzerland. Of course, Mastery documents Aidan's time on and subsequent send of Shawn Raboutou's 9A, Alphane - it's pretty incredible, you'll have to see it to believe it. Enjoy!

Do you ever wash your climbing rope? No? Well this week's video might make you consider it. Hard Is Easy are back with another geeky video from the Mammut testing labs and this time it's the turn of dirty ropes. Taking a deep dive into effects of dirt on your climbing ropes durability, Ben finds out whether it's a good idea to wash your climbing rope or not. Testing this on both dry treated and normally finished ropes, the results are pretty surprising... Enjoy!

Want to get stronger? Of course you do and you might be thinking that campusing is the perfect way to do this. Correct. But, do you know how to use campusing effectively, using proper technique to get the most out of the exercise? Well, in this week's video Hannah Morris is joined by Norwegian coaches and Climbing Bible authors, Martin Mobråten and Stian Christophersen, who delve into the dynamics of campus training, proving it isn't just a bravado based party piece reserved for your local crushers. 

We've picked out a few of our favourite women's climbing shoes in a concise top 5 buying guide, taking everything from performance levels and intended climbing terrain to cost into consideration.