KARRIMOR - ELITE TEAM

Dave Pickford



Dave has been one of Karrimor’s sponsored athletes since 2005.
He is also the brand’s primary photographer. Dave is one of Britain’s leading traditional climbers with a wide portfolio of major ascents to his credit, stretching from England and Wales to far flung corners of the world such as Arabia, Indo-China, Central Asia, Madagascar, India, and North Africa. Dave combines his climbing adventures with his work as an outdoor photographer and writer, frequently reporting on his climbs and travels for a variety of magazines and websites located in the UK and the United States.
Dave bouldering at Hampi, India
 		Wall of Spirits
(E8 6b, first ascent)
 		OE Cover Shot
Dave has this to say about his passion for climbing:
"I led my first proper rock climb on a freezing January day on Froggatt Edge in the Peak district, aged eleven. I can still remember the feeling of my cold hands sliding on the rough gritstone as I attempted to deploy a weird technique called ‘jamming’ I’d read about in climbing books. I remember battling upwards, just making the easy finishing groove before my arms gave up. And I remember clawing over the top of the crag, elated, to find the landscape I saw from below had changed. Scudding clouds cast a new light across the dark moorland. Even as an eleven year-old boy, I understood that I had experienced something that would probably change the whole course of my life. Looking back, I was right.

I climbed obsessively as a teenager, slowly working my way up through the grades. I had a traditional apprenticeship, and learnt to place a solid wire well before I first climbed on an indoor wall. That introduction gave me a thirst for adventure as the core value in climbing, a thirst which has only increased over the years. By the time I went to University, my ever-increasing desire for adventure urged me to combine my climbing trips with travels to remote lands.

Today, I understand why the desire for adventure drives my climbing to such a great extent. I have had great experiences and met fascinating people on all of my climbs and travels across the world. On expeditions in developing countries, you meet people whose lives are unimaginably more difficult than our own. If you can relate and communicate with such people, both the luxury of adventure and also its importance are illuminated. For me, climbing is a way of seeing the world in a continually changing, transformative light. I can’t recommend it more highly.”

Climbing Highlights – UK
  • Wall of Spirits (E8 6b, 6b) Pentire Head, Cornwall (first ascent)
  • Infinite Gravity (E8 6b / 8a+) Blacker’s Hole, Swanage (2nd ascent)
  • The Monk’s Satanic Verses (E8 6c) Lower Sharpnose Point, Cornwall (2nd ascent)
  • De Quincey (E7 6b) Hell’s Wall, Borrowdale (onsight)
  • Galacticus (F8b) Cheddar Gorge, Somerset (second ascent)
  • The Brothers Karamazov (E8 6c) St. Govan’s, Pembroke (first ascent)
  • Climbing Fear and Fascination (E5) and Bucket City (E6) in a day, two of the best extremes in the Lake District on Dove Crag, Fairfield
  • Climbing The Pin (E2) and then The Steeple (E3 with the Haystacks crux) on Shelter Stone Crag in the Loch A’an Basin, Cairngorm Mountains, Scotland, aged fourteen. I have been addicted to big routes on high mountain crags ever since!

    Climbing Highlights – Overseas

  • From Russia With Love (E7 6b, 500m) Ak Su Valley, Kyrgyzstan (first ascent with Sam Whittaker, onsight)
  • Numerous adventures climbing on the biggest cliffs in Arabia (Oman) with Andy Whittaker
  • Climbing on one of Africa’s most impressive cliffs, the Tsaranoro Massif in Madagascar, with James McHaffie, Jack Geldard and Stephen Horne
  • Pioneering the first routes on the magnificent ‘Hollow Wall’ on Laoliang Island, Thailand, with Trev Massiah and Mike Weitzman.
  • Climbing Fantasia (7c, 800m) and Les Rivieres Pourpres (7b+, 500m) in Morocco with Jack Geldard and Juha Saatsi – two of the best big limestone routes in the world!
  • Bouldering at Badami and Hampi, India – two of the most magically atmospheric places on earth where you can climb.
  • Ice-fall climbing in the Massif des Ecrins, France: it’s the perfect ice climbing playground.

    Future Projects and Ambitions

  • Himalayan big-walls, alpine-style
  • Exploring new climbing areas in the Far East
  • More climbing in the Sahara: Hoggar, Algeria and Hombori, Mali
  • Patagonian rock climbs, alpine-style
  • Continuing my lifelong ambition to climb the majority of the UK’s best rock routes
  • Inspiring others to climb, think, and travel adventurously


    • Bouldering in Nepal
         		Dave bouldering in the Khumbu, Nepal
         		Ohhh give us a hug!



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