Meet the Staff
Ali Taylor

Ali, a dance, PE and Outdoor Pursuits teacher started climbing in June 1989 after a school inset day in the Peak District at an outdoor centre. She begged, stole and bought gear and cajoled students from her school to join her in this new found passion on local grit stone crags. She soon mastered the easy grades, always taking the lead and soloing routes to add to the spice. Later that year she began climbing with a sport climber, which enabled her to climb harder routes and took her to foreign parts; Spain, France, Luxembourg and North America. Red pointing 7b’s in the Peak District became a way of life. Climbing abroad always gave a fabulous variety of rock types and dimensions as well as endless new climbs. She always particularly enjoyed the multi-pitch routes that took all day to complete.

In July 2004 Ali began climbing with Tony Penning a traditional climber who introduced her to a different side of climbing. Venues included Wintours Leap in the Wye valley and Lech Ddu in North Wales. The desire to climb more challenging routes led them to climb many multi-pitch routes in Riglos, Northern Spain and on the Penon on the southeast coast of Spain. A most recent addition has been Sardinia where the scope for climbing is wild, everything from traditional to 30 foot run outs on sport routes! In 2005 Ali went to the Italian side of the Mont Blanc range and climbed a new route with Tony, an experienced Alpine new router. It was a 10 pitch climb with pitches of E3 5c, an experience beyond anything she’d done before, including a bivouac next to an avalanching glacier. She’s done 12 more new routes in the same area and will be back for more.

Ali is an enthusiastic climbing instructor with great empathy for her clients. She not only holds the SPA and ML but is also MIA trained. Ali is member of AMI.

Instructor for UK courses and Sardinia