For sale items

If you are interested in any of the items for sale please email me at rory@snowdoniamountaineering.com
Thanks

For Sale: Tresspass Wicking T

New, never worn. Labels still attached. Price new: £22.99. I'll take £12 including p&p. Size M

For Sale: Helmets and various bits of kit

These items are described on UKC http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=526041&new=7080878#x7080878 so I'll just show the photos here:

DMM Ascent £25

Petzl Ecrin Roc £18

16ft dyneema sling with hms. £12 each/ £20 for both

various quick draws and slings

GoPro Hero 1080 HD for sale

I am selling my GoPro Hero 1080HD. This is a great bit of kit and excellent for making climbing/skiing/biking/kayaking vids etc. I've had it for just over a year and it is in totally mint nick. I bought it for £250 and I'm selling it with a chest harness mount and a 32GB Kingston SD card which together cost £65. I'm looking for £180 for the lot including P&P. I used it to make the following videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzedNmPTZ9Q&feature=plcp

http://youtu.be/RGwOzOtd-wo

http://youtu.be/HBVhS7fsqJY

These films were only uploaded at low quality! The best quality 1080 is full HD and stunning.

helmet and chest mounts

Selection of mounts to stick to curved or flat surface - unused. Tripod adapter. Other mount/strap for multiple uses. Open back for case for improved audio recording when waterproof case not required.Various leads for connection to pc/tv.

Instructions

In original packaging

the camera - no scratches. Totally mint

rear of camera showing filming modes

Waterproof and shockproof case - totally mint

Cairngorm Ski Tour

Last weekend after taking out Stephanie and Ben for a day of scrambling in Snowdonia I jumped into Jon's van and headed up to the Cairngorms. The upside of the recent poor weather has been snow on the Scottish peaks so we were both psyched for some more skiing. After a long drive, a minor panic when I realised I had left a load of gear behind (thanks to Greg at Glenmore lodge for sorting me out), some pain au chocolat and a short lift assisted skin we found ourselves on the top of Cairngorm. The cloud was lifting and there was total cover on the plateau.

We made our way over to the North Top of Ben MacDui and then took an awesome line, initially in powder then nice spring snow, down to the beautiful Loch Etchachan. Now the Cairngorms are not Chamonix but in many ways they are just as awesome. In fact having lunch after the descent to Loch Etchachan in bright May sunshine with no one around was really special and one of my best ski moments of the year.



From there we skinned up to Ben Mheadhoin and shredded a long descent down to Loch A'an. We had to boot pack round the Loch and even had to take boots off to ford the river before sloggin up a steep ascent back to the Cairngorm Ski area. We definitely earned our turns with a total ascent of 1600m and 20km covered!

A wet day in Wales

Well its been a properly grim day today and I was glad I postponed James' course as I don't think we would have got any leading done today apart from in the climbing wall! It can be possible to avoid the rain in the mountains and find dry weather on the coast - have a look at a blog post from last year for the Knowledge: http://www.snowdoniamountaineering.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/rainy-day-rock-climbing-options-in.html

Today was one of those days where its grim everywhere and you have to either head for the climbing wall.... or the pub!

Easter Skiing in the Alps

So its been a pretty hectic month in which I have moved house and had an amazing 10 day trip to Chamonix and the Aosta Valley in Itlay. I been doing a fair bit of skiing over the past couple of winters and have been trying to get to a standard where I can happily ski off piste and in more serious places outside of the resort. Naturally I have drawn to ski touring and ski mountaineering and one of my main aims has been to ski up and down a 4000m peak in the Alps. So with that in mind I headed out with good friend Jon to meet up with some Chamonix chums and make an attempt on Gran Paradiso - the highest mountain wholly in Italy and 4061m. We started by acclimatising in Chamonix - a couple of days skiing off piste on the Grand Montets and a traverse of the Valle Blanche to Pt Helbronner. This included some of the worst snow and terrain I have skied in - horrible death crust on soft powder and a descent of the right side of the Geant Icefall made for an epic day! Although there were a couple of nice powder spots.

Skinning up to Pt Helbronner

A short section of nice powder before the death crust

The scary Geant Icefall

We then headed through the tunnel into Italy and the stunning Aosta Valley. We left the road at Pont at the head of Val Savarenche and due to the lack of snow we had to walk and carry skis for all but the last 200m of ascent to the hut. We were all really impressed by the Vittorio Emmanuel hut - despite it being very busy it never felt crowded and the food was awesome and plentiful. After a pretty wild night (weather wise) we delayed leaving the hut until about 7am. It was really cold and windy. Our first glimpse of the summit after 30 minutes of skinning was not encouraging and the weather got worse.

Storm over the summit

At just over 4000m - time to retreat!

We battled on in some serious cold and windy conditions with little visibility to the bergshrund about 50m from the summit. Greg was happy to summit solo but we opted to turn round as we were worried about hypothermia and frostbite (Jon and Trystan did get some frost nip on their cheeks and nose). The skiing was pretty scary to start as we were in a white out and all the blown snow had created some dodgy avalanche conditions. As we dropped out of the cloud we picked up upped and enjoyed some nice fresh powder and lower down some good hard but grippy spring snow. 5 hours up 1.5 hours down - why would anyone ever walk up an Alpine peak? I'll be back sometime to bag the summit!

Loving the descent

Rock Climbing Course with Rob and Chris

This weekend I was joined by Rob and Chris for a multi pitch rock climbing course. Rob had done a fair bit of climbing before and wanted some lead climbing coaching as well as learning how to get out of trouble on multi pitch routes. Chris had never been multi pitch or trad climbing so was keen to become a competent second. On Saturday we drove through the rain to reach a warm and partially sunny Tremadog. We headed to the classic but often quiet Bramble Buttress - the finest V Diff at Tremadog. Rob led us up all 3 pitches in fine style and with plenty of time left in the day we drove round to Bwlch y Moch to give Rob more of a challenge on Rio (HS) and do a multi pitch abseil decent.

Rob on the top pitch of Bramble Buttress

On Sunday we wanted to do a long mountain route so with a better forecast we headed into Cwm Idwal and completed the classic Tennis Shoe. It was great to be doing big routes like this inMarch with out getting wet and cold!!

Chris on Tennis Shoe

Rock Climbing Course with Max and Tom

Tom and Max joined me on a day moving out rock climbing course for the last 4 days. They had climbed independently on their local indoor wall but wanted to progress outside and have some proper adventures! By the end of the course they had completed their first multi pitch routes, learned how to place trad gear and build belays, read a guide book, lead both sport and trad single pitch, take and hold a fall on a sport climb.... I could go on but I'd probably bore you! All they need to do now is go and get some experience under their own steam and most importantly remember what they have been taught!! Thanks to Bryn for instructing 2 days of the course.

Tom enjoying his first slate experience

Max on Equinox VS

Chamonix Skiing

Skiing - isn't it amazing!!! Jen and I had 2 weeks of fantastic skiing in the Chamonix valley. It was soo good that I'm tempted to sell all my climbing gear and just buy skis! I'm just getting into skiing and really keen to start doing more ski touring and back country skiing where mountaineering and skiing skills combine to take you into some amazing places! We arrived the day after it had just put down 4 ft of fresh snow so avalanche risk was pretty high. The fresh snow was pretty heavy so it made for some challenging off piste. Throughout the first week we had more fresh snow falls and  some awesome powder but the unsettled weather was not great for touring so we just had to shred the vast amount of easily accessible off piste.

View from the Flegere ski area to the Aiguille Verte and Les Drus

Jen on the traverse of the Crouches bowl

Below the Geant Icefall in the Vallee Blanche

Climbing up to Col du Crouches

Approaching Col du Crouches

The weather for the second week was better although towards the end of the week it got bitterly cold! At the top lifts it got down to -25c. We managed to do the classic Crouches/Berard tour and enjoyed amazing fresh powder in the Berard valley. The highlight of the week was skiing the Valley Blanche from the Aiguille du Midi at nearly 3800m all the way to Chamonix at 1100m. Jen and I were joined by friends Greg and Christina  and we took a variarion on the Petit Envers descent finding some nice powder stashes as well as a few areas of grim breakable crust and windslab. Check out the video of our descent below.



Skiing the Vallee Blanche from Rory Shaw on Vimeo.

Snowdon ascent under the full moon

Last night I made the spontaneous decision to go for a wee donder up Snowdon by the light of the full moon. Oli, Jim and myself left Pen y Pass shortly after 8 and under gathering cloud stomped up the Pyg Track. Every now and then we could make out the moon through the thin layer of cloud so we had hopes that we might pop out of a cloud inversion. Given the cold temps and good snow conditions we headed for the bottom of Central Trinity a grade 1/2 climb. As we climbed up towards the Spider (a big snow field) we broke out of the cloud and into bright moonshine. So bright that we only needed torches on for the narrowest and trickiest bits of the gully. We stormed upwards and summitted about 10.15.

Now I've been up Snowdon a fair few times but this will definately be the most memorable. Looking north we could see most of Anglesey whereas to the south a blanket of cloud lapped at out feet reflecting the fat moon. Totally amazing! Unfortunately I am not a good enough photographer to over come the limitations of my point and shoot camera so the photos weren't very good.

After a brief rest to enjoy the view we headed down and where back in Llanberis by 11.30 enjoying bangers and mash followed by a wee dram of single malt... perfect!

Merry Christmas

Well a big Merry Christmas, or I guess I should say Nadolig Llawen, from Snowdonia. Unfortunately it doesn't look like we're going to get a white one as it unseasonably warm at the moment. So I hope that Santa brings you that new down jacket you wanted or some nice shiny DMM Dragon Cams! I'll leave you with a few photos from this time last year. Have a great one!!

North Wales at its Best

The weather this November had been really good - warm and fairly dry. Over the past few day climbing in the pass could have been possible and the mountains have been catching some awesome sunshine. Yesterday I made the best use of the fine weather by making a quick dash up Crib Goch by my self then joining friend Greg for a quick afternoon route at Gogarth. We topped out with the sun setting behind Ireland but thankfully before we needed the aid of the South Stack lighthouse!

Spanish Sport Climbing

I'm not long back from a short trip to Catalonia in North East Spain where I had 6 days with friends Dave, Jim and Neil. Due to an injury the emphasis of the trip was more of a relaxing holiday than a mega crush fest so I ended up reading my book in the sun more than climbing - ideal! I still managed to do a few routes up to 7a onsight and it was great to visit crags that I had not been to before. The trip started off with getting washed out of Terradets and Santa Linya so we headed further south and enjoyed climbing on the conglomerate/limestone crags of Margalef and Montsant.

Gold Duke of Edinburgh Practice with Therfield School

For the past 5 days I have been training up a group of students from Therfield School in preparation for their Duke of Edinbugh Gold Expedition next summer. I really like working with this School and I love to see the progression and development of the students as they take on the challenge. I spent the first day with my group in the Northern Carneddau looking at navigation techniques, dealing with emergencies, discussing how to look after themselves and most of all enjoying a warm and sunny day in the hills!

On day 2 we headed out for a harder challenge and summited Moel Siabod. This was a fairly tough day out for the group as they had to carry full expedition packs and cope with low cloud. This really tested their navigation and made for some very greasy conditions underfoot. They all did superbly so on Saturday we cut them loose and they completed a 2 day hike in excellent weather.

All 23 students did fantastically and I looking forward to the Brecon Beacons and their qualifying expedition next spring.

Gogarth Video

Here's a little video of Jen and I climbing North West Passage - E1 at Castell Helen, Gogarth. Enjoy!!!

New Slate Guide Book Reveiw

Wow! That was my first impression on getting my hands on the long awaited Llanberis Slate Guidebook by Ground Up. The front cover shot is all that a front cover shot should be - an awesome image by Ian Parnell showing off the the most famous route that Llanberis slate has to offer. It also manages to capture the raw and unique atmosphere of the quarries and the intense nature of its climbing.

The next thing I noticed was its size, which increases the visual impact of the cover photo. The guide is larger than previous Ground Up offerings and at A5 is not a book that you can slip into your pocket. But why would you need to as most of the slate routes are single pitch and those that aren't are not over complicated in line (routes on the back wall of Twll Mawr excluded). As you open the guide up the advantages of the larger size are immediately apparent - large numbers of excellent and highly inspiring photos and clear photo topos.

On flicking through I was instantly drawn to the Diary of a Slatehead -  a number of short pieces by Martin Crook, which "provide a fascinating window into the slate climbing scene during its 80's glory days." There are also numerous short pieces detailing the characters that have been responsible for the development of the quarries over the years - The Slateheads. These include all the infamous characters such as Joe Brown, Redhead, Dawes and Crook.

Last Tango in Paris, Vivian Quarry

The action photos are just stunning and made all the better by the A5 size. They illustrate the odd beauty of the quarries, the strange juxtaposition of the natural and the man made and the unique and sometimes baffling style of climbing. A particular favourite of mine is Ray Wood's shot of George Smith on The Wall Within which encapsulates the atmosphere and 'other-worldlyness' of the Lost World perfectly. I also like the historical photos that grace the guide - lets face it we don't get enough bright lycra these days!

The guide is layed out in the usual and user friendly Ground Up style and features all the aspects that you would expect a modern guide to have - graded list, comprehensive route descriptions, photo topos, index etc.
It has an excellent introductory section with lots of info on style and ethics and access, which I would implore you to read. Access to the quarries has at times over the past years been slightly delicate so lets hope that the extra influx of climbers this guide will bring does not cause any problems. My one negative comment on the guide would be the photo used for Dali's Hole -an area at the forefront of current access negotiations. It shows a busy climbing scene, with groups enjoying the previously easy bolted routes - precisely the cause of access issues in the first place.

Looning the Tube, Australia

The guide features 900 routes - 200 of which have been added since the previous guide! There is now something for everyone in the quarries. When I first started my slate career whilst at Bangor Uni, there where very few easy routes - in fact if you couldn't climb HVS there wasn't much point in visiting the quarries. Now there are lots of grade 4 and 5 well bolted routes for the aspirant Slatehead to cut their teeth on - including a few multi pitch offerings such as the excellent '362' in Never Never Land. It also features the quarries on the other side of the valley - Glyn Rhonwy, which are a quiet back water where the seasoned Slatehead may venture to find a whole realm of new adventures.

Also featured in the guide are some 'Slate Walks and Adventures'. These detail various ways that you can explore the unique atmosphere of the slate quarries and find those hidden gems from times gone by - ideal for a wet day. Included in this section is a description of Snakes and Ladders - a journey though tunnels, up chains, down big holes, escapes via rickety ladders and there's even a bit of climbing thrown in for good measure!


A guide book should not only be practical and accurate but also inspiring. A guide book should make me want to delve into to it, read route descriptions, find hidden treasures, fill me with pysch and make me want to get up off my arse and go climbing. It should also be something I can read on wet days and in quiet moments.This guide definitely ticks all those boxes. In fact I think this is one of the best guidebooks I have seen. Congratulations to Simon and his team - it was definately worth the wait!

Get your copy of the guide from V12 Outdoor today!!