This is the second of a two parts story on our ill fated climb of the Swiss route on Les Courtes. If you haven't read it already, here is part I, the Ascent.

There is also a high-res photo of les courtes, with our ascent and descent routes marked.

We took stock of our situation. There was a sloping shelf of ice, maybe 2m wide and 5m long, with a ceiling barely a meter above our heads, and a tiny, awkward cave in the back. Higher, another cave, more sheltered but also more icy and slanted. We weren't quite out of the winds, which were still blowing hard, but the caves still offered a decent amount of shelter. We'd survive.

Taking the backpack and the damn skis off, for the first time in the day, was a relief. We built a solid anchor and explored our surroundings a bit, in no hurry to try and go to sleep, knowing the night would be terribly long. We had drunk almost nothing all day and were thoroughly dehydrated, but we found out our water bottles, as everything else, were frozen solid. I couldn't even unscrew the top of mine. Hoping to thaw enough for a few drops, I put my bottle beneath several layers of down, close to my body. I forced myself to eat the only sandwich I had taken, frozen ham and frozen cheese in frozen bread. Yummy.

We emptied the backpacks and used all we could, ropes, gear and bags to try and insulate the freezing ground. Finally, there was nothing left to do but to crawl in and settle for the night. To say the cave was uncomfortable wouldn't begin to describe it. There was barely enough room for one, let alone two. It was severely sloping, threatening to eject us if we didn't push back with our feet on the icy slope. There were a couple of large rocks we hadn't managed to dislodge, which stood in the way and buried themselves in our hips or ribs. Whoever was on the right side had to keep his head turned 90º to avoid a large boulder at the back. Finally, we couldn't go very deep and only the upper part of the body was sheltered from the wind, with anything from the waist or the knees down (depending on the degree of sliding out) still out in the cold.

Sharing body heat was an absolute necessity, and a necessary byproduct of our contorted positions anyway. We slept surprisingly much, usually in micro-nap sequences, probably no more than 15 minutes at a time. One thing we were both very careful to do: never, ever look at the watch, as seeing how early it still was every time we woke up would have crushed our spirits. We swapped positions and spooning order often, trying desperately to find something which would be both warm and comfortable.

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This is the first of a two parts story on our ill fated climb of the Swiss route on Les Courtes.

It was supposed to be a warmup climb, but there was nothing warm about it. I had met skier extraordinaire Oli Lyon through a common friend, and we had agreed to go climb something big and icy, since the conditions were at last favorable for winter climbing. Though we initially eyed the Fil à Plomb, a popular route on the north face of Rognon du Plan, logistics were a bit complicated, especially with Aiguille du Midi shut down for two days for maintenance. We switched our sights to one of the easiest routes on the mighty north faces of the Argentière basin: the Swiss on Les Courtes (very inaccurately, this translates to "the Short Ones"), 800 vertical meters of snow and ice up to 75º and a significant summit. A perfect objective.

We skied down from Grands Montets onto the Argentière glacier, heavily laden with all our climbing equipment, food and sleeping bags. A quick skin up the glacier led to the spacious Argentière hut, where I had stayed with David two weeks earlier (then intending to do Petit Viking or Aiguille d'Argentière via the Glacier du Milieu, both of which turning out to be in bad conditions). Despite a pretty good weather forecast, we had the hut to ourselves. A fire was soon going, and after a generous dinner, we went to bed in the early evening, intent on an early start.

Initially, we were right on schedule: alarm at 3:30, leave the hut at 4:30, a short ski down to the glacier, skins on, cross it and start heading up to the bergschrund, about 300m higher. At this early hour, the snow was very hard and the angle steeper than I realized, which made the skin up quite interesting, at the very edge of the friction that could hold on to the slope. We reached the bergschrund and racked up, Oli getting the first pitch. Crossing the shrund turned out to be quite hard, despite the existence of solid-ish looking snow bridges. He finally committed to one and found himself climbing a vertical to slightly overhanging wall of unconsolidated snow. My turn soon followed, a somewhat scary experience with the dark crevasse below waiting to gobble the climber who made a mistake.

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So, it's that time of year again. Since all the good snow was used up yesterday, let's take the opportunity to repeat the 2010 retrospective post. Here, then, are my 10 favourite shots from the past year. Enjoy!

Ramon Marin on "Pink Panther" (M9+), Kandersteg, Switzerland.

Shot in Kandersteg where I was accompanying Danish climber Kristoffer Szilas on his quest for hard mixed climb, I spent most of the week dangling on a fixed line below icicles. I was set up to shoot Kristoffer on a M10 when Ramon Marin ran up the classic M9+ "Pink Panther" on the other side. The angle wasn't perfect to shoot the lower section, but as soon as he reached the terminal icicle, I was in position to capture his facial expressions as he desperately fought the pump to finish the route.

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If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that last July, I managed to climb a route I've been dreaming about for a while: the Frendo Spur on the north face of Aiguille du Midi, in Chamonix. The best part, however, was that my partner on it, Nick Valentine, had become a good friend in just a week and we had worked really well together on this climb.

Nick and another of his friends, Jon Gupta, with whom he climbed a few other routes in Chamonix after I departed last summer, decided a few weeks ago to up the ante and aim for an extremely ambitious goal: being the first two Brits to win the Snow Leopard Award. This medal used to be given by the Soviet Union to every climber who managed to summit all peaks above 7000m in the USSR, then as now a major accomplishment. There are five of them, now located in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. By order of difficulty, Peak Lenin (7134m), Peak Korzhenevskaya (7105m), Peak Communism (7495m), Khan Tengri (7010m) and Peak Pobeda (7439m). And because we (almost) live in 2012 and not 1950, they'll climb fast and light, alpine style, with no porters, no fixed lines and no pre-established camps. If conditions are right, it should be possible to manage all the summits in just 40 days, two less than the standing record currently held by superman Denis Urubko.

Last week, Jon came to Cham to practice some off piste skiing, and Nick made a quick trip from Verbier, which allowed us all to meet and discuss objectives, with the result that I can now announce I will join the expedition, as both a team member and a cameraman/photographer. I'll of course do my best to reach all summits, but my priority will be to bring back some awesome footage to, ultimately, produce an inspiring movie.

Right now, the expedition is still in its early stages and we are actively looking for grants and sponsors (don't hesitate to drop us a line if you think you may help!). I'll probably talk about it some more whenever significant things happen, but if you want to keep in touch and stay updated on our progress, you can follow the 2012 Snow Leopard expedition on facebook and twitter, and a proper website is coming up soon.

And that's only one of the three potential expeditions I have slated for 2012! Exciting times ahead for sure.

I have made no secret in the past that Chamonix, in the heart of the French Alps, is a very special place to me. It's where I learned to love the mountains, mostly through hiking and skiing, from a young age. And in the past couple of years, I have made as many trips there as I could, flying for long weekends from Denmark or Sweden, always trying to climb big alpine routes. So last summer, when the time finally came to go full time pro as a mountain photographer, the decision to move to Chamonix was an easy one, especially since it is also a major hub for the climbing and skiing elite that I make a living stalking with a camera.

The trip to Yosemite delayed things a little bit, but upon my return, I hopped on a train right away and started the fun task of looking for a place to live in the valley. As it turned out, this was the worst possible time, as the skiing season was just about to start and hordes of ski bums had invaded the town and driven flat prices sky high. I soon joined forces with one of them, Englishman Charlie Evans, and after much searching and a few sleepless nights ruminating our limited options, we finally got lucky with a huge apartment right in the centre of town. We are now sharing it with a third flatmate, Stéphanie, and possibly a fourth yet to be determined. And the view from the giant balcony or from my bedroom window, encompassing pretty much the whole range, from Le Tour to Les Houches (and the Aiguilles Rouges in the backside) is simply incredible. Certainly a very worthy base of operations!

Though things were desperately dry when I first arrived, at the end of November, the past two weeks have seen some very heavy snowfalls (over 1m50 in the past 10 days, with more on the way!). I already got some skiing in and just acquired a full touring/freeride setup to go explore the backcountry and, hopefully, get a lot of climbing done!

Before the exciting things start again, when the cablecars reopen and water ice forms in the valley, enjoy this selection of the images I shot since arriving in the valley, only a foretaste of what's to come, I hope!

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You will probably remember Craft and Vision as the publisher of my ebook on adventure photography, Extreme Perspectives. Their model is simple: produce high quality, original content in easy to read and beautifully laid out ebook format, and sell it for a very low price, usually only $5.

Earlier this summer, I was contacted by C&V's founder and spiritual father (as well as badass humanitarian photographer and writer), David DuChemin. He asked all the current C&V authors whether we would be keen on each contributing an essay on the topic of our choice, to be then assembled into a big ebook and given away, for free. No caveat, no small print, no time limit or even "like us on facebook first" (though I believe you need an email address for checkout). It may sound a bit crazy, but if I have learned one thing from the internet, it's that the more you give away freely, the more good things happen to you. It was after all from giving away my article on mountain photography to the website the Luminous Landscape that I landed my publishing contract for Remote Exposure.

So I jumped in, and while traveling in London in September, I wrote a 2000 words essay on a topic I have thought about for a while, the importance for "advanced" photographers to share their work and receive feedback and criticism. And of course, when I tried to give a bit of context and define things better, the essay evolved organically into something more comprehensive, examining on the way the different stages in the life of a photographer.

Well, the ebook has been released a couple of days ago, and it has essays by David DuChemin, Piet Van den Eynde, Andrew S. Gibson, Nicole S. Young, Stuart Sipahigil, Eli Reinholdtsen, Michael Frye and myself. And all of those are definitely worth a read!

You can head over there, pay the awesome amount of 0$ and start reading right away: Craft and Vision.

And don't hesitate to let me know what you thought of my contribution, I always love to get feedback (even, or maybe especially, bad one).

Mich was the belayer for Freerider on Cody's El Cap and Half Dome free linkup, which means that he got to skip a night of sleep, instead spending 12 hours belaying Cody and jugging up the whole length of El Cap (to save time, he didn't climb any of the pitches). And no matter how good a jugger you are, ascending a vertical kilometer of rope is a huge effort.

Early the next morning, instead of doing what most normal person would have done (and what I very much wanted to do), i.e. sleep in and chill, Mich made the most of his time in the Valley and drove up to the Taft point overlook with his friend Craig McKinnon and myself. There, we rigged a slackline over the huge drop, 300m down to a gully which led to the valley floor. The view, overlooking El Cap (I managed to spot my haulbag waiting for me on pitch 4 of Zodiac!) was gorgeous but the exposure sobering.

Mich proceeded to walk the line, first making two crossings with an ankle leash then, once he felt confident enough, without any safety line. He walked smoothly to the other end, stopping a few times on the way but always staying fully focused, only briefly flashing a smile which gave a hint of what he must have been feeling.

I was lucky enough to be photographing the feat, and really love the way the images turned out!

Edit: the story has now been picked up by the British media: the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Sun and AOL Travel so far.

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Last Friday, I had the privilege to shoot local climber Cody Sims attempting the Double Free, one of the most coveted prizes of Yosemite: climbing free (with ropes but without pulling on gear) both El Cap and Half Dome in a day. This means 57 pitches of difficulty up to 5.13a, a huge undertaking which has only been done once before, by Leo Houlding and Sean Leary.

Cody started at 1:15am from the base of the Salathe wall/Freerider, belayed by Mich Kemeter. Meanwhile, I hiked up the East Ledges to the top of the route, then rapped down 13 pitches (or 350m of rope) to meet the team just below the crux of the whole climb, the 5.13a Boulder Problem. Despite a fall, Cody sent the pitch easily, then proceeded to fly upward on some very difficult and sometimes run out climbing. Another fall on the endless Enduro Corner took some psych out, but he just kept going, eventually topping out after a mere 12 hours.

I was too exhausted from the sleepless night of hiking and the free hanging jugging while trailing all my lines to do the full hike to Half Dome for the top out pictures, but learned later that several mishaps (routefinding errors and stuck ropes) cost him the sub-24h ascent, which he eventually completed in a still very impressive 30 hours, probably one of the toughest days of climbing he's had in a while!

Enjoy some of the pictures from Freerider!

Stefan and I have spent the past two days on the Nose, though we have been far from successful so far. We started on Sunday with a very early rise in camp 4 (3am), then a brisk 45 minutes walk to the base of the climb. While hauling the 0th pitch (5.7 Pine Line, which I half soloed), however, we had our first mishap: a gallon of water burst open at the bottom of the bag. The damage was limited, but we were already pushing the limit on how much water we were taking, so a return to the ground was needed. Rather than bail right away, however, we decided to change our plan of going to Dolt/El Cap Tower that day for a fix from Sickle ledge, at the top of pitch 4 (which is what most parties do anyway). The first four pitches went fine, especially since we already climbed the first two two days earlier. Pitch 4, which was mine, was a bit spicy and involved a scary free move to clip a fixed piece, with a 5-6 meters fall potential. Fixing to Sickle ended up being a bit complicated, as our ropes weren't long enough. In the end, we abseiled on ours and Stefan (after losing a coin toss) went back to camp 4 to get our spare rope, jugged all the way back up on the line of the British party and fixed our three ropes.

The next morning was tough, with another 3am alarm. The walk in was much easier without haulbag or gear, but jugging up 160m of fixed lines with a big backpack and two full gallons of water certainly wasn't fun. The czech party who had climbed behind us the previous day had spent the night on Sickle and fixed the next two easy pitches, so they went ahead. The British party of Andrew and Will followed shortly on their lines. We also soon realized that two Australian parties were bivied in portaledges at the bottom of the Stovelegs. A big mess it was going to be!

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As soon as the International Climbers Meet was over, last Sunday, Stefan and I made ambitious plans. We attacked right away with our first big wall (also, the easiest wall in the valley): the South Face of Washington Column, which goes at 5.8 C1 and 11 pitches. The forecast was marginal, with a big storm scheduled for Wednesday, but the route is easily abseilable from anywhere, so we figured we'd be fine.

We took a leisurely start at 6am from camp4, and the approach and first three pitches went fine, if a bit slow as I switched to full-on aid on P2. By midday, we were on the giant Dinner Ledge, where most parties bivy after fixing one or two more pitches. I led the next one, the awesome Kor roof, which included a couple of scary aid moves and a super fun bolt ladder to the lip, then more aid to an exposed belay. Only then did I notice how much the weather had turned, with crazy high winds (I wouldn't have wanted to free climb in this) and very threatening clouds having moved in. Without a belay jacket, I abseiled the tagged line to the ledge while Stefan cleaned. After regrouping, we decided it looked like the storm was early, and not keen to have to flee in high rains, we decided to bail early.

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Just as I hoped it would, a lot happened in the previous week: I climbed El Capitan, logged 27 pitches in only three days, placed a couple hundred cams and as many jams, made many new friends, took 1300 photos, smashed into a corner at full speed during an abseil, scrapped most of the skin of the bottom of my right foot and destroyed a camera. All in all, a pretty good week.

In the valley since Sunday, I managed to climb Serenity Crack/Sons of Yesterday (5.10d, 8 pitches), the Kor Beck on Middle Cathedral (5.9, 6 pitches), the East Buttress of El Cap (5.10b, 13 pitches), Lunatic Fringe (5.10c) and Reeds Direct (5.9, 2 pitches). All are stupendous lines with some pretty hard pitches (5.9 can be really mean in the valley) and some of the best rock I have ever seen or climbed.

While abseiling P1 of Sons on the first day, I tensioned to avoid going over a roof in the plumb line, then went a bit too far, lost my footing and went for a big swing that ended rather abruptly. I certainly regretted abseiling bare foot on that day, though most of the injuries are now healed or on their way.

The AAC meet is finishing tonight, so Stefan and I will move to Camp 4 early in the morning, and then get on with our training plan to get on the Nose, hopefully next week. In the meantime, here is a selection of the photos I took in the past week.

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I've been waiting for that moment for a long time, and on Sunday it will finally happen: I will be in Yosemite Valley, the cradle of American climbing and home to walls of legend, including of course El Capitan. I'll stay there until early November.

This is both a climbing and a photography trip. On the first front, our main objective is the most famous route in the world: the Nose. 31 pitches, 1000m, 3 to 4 days of a mixture of free and aid climbing (about 5.8 C2). But we'll also do some smaller, grade V walls like the regular northwest face of Half Dome and the south face of Washington Column. I'd like to try some of the hard long free climbs, like Freeblast, Astroman, the Rostrum or the Steck-Salathe. And do some of the classic easier routes: Royal Arches, Central Pillar of Frenzy, Sons/Serenity, perhaps even Snake Dike.

On the photography side, I will be shooting for the American Alpine Club's International Climbers Meet (the same one I attended in Indian Creek two years ago), which should include some famous climbers. And I will then pack at least one camera out of the four I am taking on any of the many climbs I plan on doing.

I have been told there is wifi in some places in Yosemite Village, so you can probably expect updates as I go, either here or on the social networks (check the links on the side).

My flight is 12 hours away, I am more or less packed (with more organization than usual, as the top photo should prove), so now it's finally time to lean back, relax a bit and just enjoy this trip which I started planning more than a year ago!

Changing lenses in Paris. Photo by Ruthie Cristobal.

If you've been following this blog lately, you must have felt a bit let down. The thing is, I have been quite busy.

First, with finishing my PhD dissertation. It has been more than three years in the making, and I thought about dropping out more than a few times, but somehow, I managed to stay on track and finish it. The final thesis is online, if you feel curious (pdf warning), but be aware that the level of gibberish-ness is quite high. I still have to defend it, probably in late November, but am otherwise completely done with academia. After nine years in university, it is a very weird feeling.

The day after handing in, I flew back to France. I had no reason to stay in Denmark and needed to be much closer to the mountains if I was to have a go at being a mountain photographer (the 172m high point of Denmark doesn't quite qualify). Last Friday, I filed the paperwork I needed with the French treasury, which officially makes me a professional photographer!

I had been thinking of this for years, but it is only in the last couple of months that it became really obvious this was what I should do, and that there was a good chance I might actually make it work. It will be tough, for sure, but I can see it working out.

Practically, this means a lot more time for being in the mountains and shooting, so hopefully a lot more new images, posted on the blog and the newsletter. My immediate plans: mountaineering in the Écrins next week, a Magnum seminar in London in the weekend, more mountaineering in Chamonix the following week, then hop on a plane to California to go check out what the big deal is with this Yosemite place everybody keeps talking about...

James Monypenny after a victory on the Cosmiques Spur.

It was about time! I have been thinking about doing something like this for a long time, but never really came around to it until last week. Even though this blog is great for keeping people updated on what I am up to, it also misses some of the smaller items (for instance, I didn't post about the recent cover of Climber magazine) and the long term plans. An email newsletter is a much better format for this kind of thing.

Now, I am sure that like me, you already receive dozens of newsletters every month, some of which you don't even remember signing up for. Because I hate spam just as much as you do, I wanted to make sure things are done correctly: unsubscribes will be easy and immediate (I use the excellent mailchimp service which automates this) and I will limit emails to one about every 6 weeks. I will use these emails to summarize what I have been up to in the last few weeks, display my new images (with links to more complete galleries) and talk about future plans, including any events and workshops that may be coming up - which, by the way, I think will start happening in 2012!

I will be sending the first issue later today, and you can sign up in a number of places: on the sidebar of this blog, on the contact page or by following this sign up link.

_Edit_: The first issue has now been emailed to all subscribers. If you missed it or want to take a sneak peek before deciding to subscribe, you can see it in your browser: Alexandre Buisse Photography Newsletter, August 2011.

Having finally climbed the Frendo Spur two weeks ago, I can now do the next best thing: creating a high resolution topo of the route. This is a giant image, stitched from several 12MP shots, taken two days before our successful ascent. It shows the entire route from the initial ramp at 2600m to the junction with the Arête du Midi at 3700m. It should be noted that this was taken after an unusually warm and dry spell, so there is virtually no snow on the rock buttress (we actually climbed it in rock boots). Most of the time, this is a mixed climb done in big boots.

Click on the image to access the full resolution topo (but please note it is a 5MB file, so it may take a while to load):

Some routefinding and climbing notes:

• Overall, the way is quite obvious and there is little chance of getting lost. Not that this stopped us, of course.

• The initial ramp is easy but very loose without any snow.

• Don't miss the first left turn. It is a fairly obvious slanting ledge, but steeper than I expected.

• The lower crux (rateau de chèvre) is a deep diagonal crack in a giant block barring the way. I thought it was even harder than it looked, but it is well protected.

• Just after the rateau, go straight up the gully above you rather than downclimbing and traversing right, which might look tempting.

• When the long and easy section on the right of the ridge suddenly steepens, traverse left on a ledge for a dozen meters, on the other side of the ridgeline, and head up an easy double gully (marked on the topo).

• The sections with red rock are very loose and of poor quality, I'm pretty sure our gear wouldn't have held anywhere. Thankfully they are quite short.

• After the exposed col, take the dihedral immediately left of the ridgeline, not the one ten meters further to the left. We did, the climbing was quite hard (at least V) and we had to do a tension traverse to get back on the right line.

• From there on, it stays quite sustained, between III and IV+ for several hundred meters. It is also very well protected and super fun.

• There is a new fallen block not mentioned in any topo. There is only one hard move to get above it but it is at least V+, if not harder. Pitons are in place and everybody (including us) pulled on them.

• Just before reaching the top of the rock buttress, there was a short cave/chimney with a high potential for getting stuck. Stay on the outside.

• Unless it's icy, the snow arete is unprotectable until it steepens. We could then place a few (poor) screws.

• We went left of the Rognon which was straightforward and quite easy, even the 80º ice bit. Pro is on the rock on the side but it is fairly loose. Also be careful as falling rocks go scarily fast and could potentially bounce into people on top of the rock buttress.

The Frendo Spur is the buttress to the left of the one below the Aiguille du Midi cablecar.

Our rack consisted of one strand of 8.6mm 50m rope, four cams (Camalot .5, .75, 1 and 2), 8 nuts (the 5 DMM alloy offsets worked amazingly, we didn't use the other three), 7 ice screws (nearly useless in those conditions), 6 quickdraws and a few single and double slings. We simulclimbed everything except for a couple of cruxes and managed to finish in under 10 hours (9.5 from the base, 11 from the hut).

In the middle of a very alpine week (the shortest of the three routes I did was 500m long), some contrast was provided by the first stage of the climbing World Cup, in the big market place of Chamonix. While there was also a speed climbing event, the main thing was of course the lead competition. In the finals, which I attended, 8 men and 8 women tried to onsight F8c+ and F8b routes, respectively. It was extremely inspiring to watch, as they all were incredibly solid and with smooth, precise and powerful moves.

I wasn't ideally placed for photos but made good use of my 70-200 lens. Here are some of the coolest/funniest shots I got from the event.

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I have been in Chamonix for a bit over 2 days so far, but unfortunately have been sick most of that time. I still managed to bag an awesome warmup route in the Aiguilles Rouges with my partner Nick on the first day, the 12 pitches trad classic Chapelle de la Glière. Yesterday was a lazy day but I made good use of my cablecar pass and spent a few hours on the Arete du Midi and around the cablecar station, shooting climbers coming back from Mont Blanc and other nearby summits.

The weather is terrible today but the forecast gets a lot better soon, so we'll probably get on the Frendo spur tomorrow, which would allow us to see the 14th of July fireworks from a bivy on a ledge in the middle of the north face of Aiguille du Midi!

In the meantime, enjoy some of the photos from my first two days. There are more on google+ and facebook.

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With my photo career growing, I decided recently that my trusty D90 wasn't quite cutting it anymore, mostly because of its DX sensor format. Since I have an alpine trip to Chamonix coming very soon (I am actually leaving tomorrow), I finally went ahead and got myself a D700, a camera which I have wanted since it was announced back in 2008.

Here are a few of the shots I got in the first couple of days with it, including a bunch taken in the very dark climbing gym of Copenhagen, with ISOs between 4000 and 6400!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have managed to take advantage of reasonably good Scandinavian weather to head out to some rock in southern Sweden (the closest to home, since Denmark doesn't even have proper boulders). One trip to the bouldering hotspot of Kjuge on the baltic coast and the past two weekends in Kullaberg, the natural reserve with seacliffs which offer the best option for trad climbing near Copenhagen, at the cost of having some of the worst rock I have ever climbed on. Yesterday was a milestone for me: I finally climbed a (Swedish) VII trad route, King Kong, in Åkersberget. British purists would no doubt complain about the three bolts protecting the long technical slab section, but since the crux roof is done over trad gear, I'll still count it (especially since I took the big fall at some point, and managed to make a dent in the cam which caught me!).

While waiting for some proper mountain stuff (I'll be alpine climbing in Chamonix next week), enjoy some photos from those last trips:

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If you have been following me in the past couple of years, attended one of my talks or read one of my books, there is one thing you will have heard more than anything else. Over and over and over, I keep repeating that the key to good photography in the mountains is very simple: your camera needs to be available at all times. Keep it buried in your backpack and I will guarantee that you will rarely take it out, certainly never in time to capture the perfect moment that suddenly appeared in front of you.

The job of a good adventure camera bag is simple: it needs to allow the photographer to have all the necessary gear available in an instant when needed, and be as discrete and unobtrusive when not. And contrary to what many believe, it is not its primary role to protect the equipment against the elements - your camera and lenses should be built well enough to withstand most conditions, and if things hit the fan too badly, a real waterproof bag (or the bottom of a backpack) is what you need.

Like every photographer out there, I have a closet full of bags, all of them sort of working but none of them perfect for what I need. Until, that is, I discovered the Thinktank Skin belt system. Let's cut to the chase right away: if you shoot in the mountains, this (or something very close to this) is what you want to use, period. It is hands down the best camera bag for hiking and mountaineering photography.

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