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!
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
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.
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.
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!
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| Skinning up to Pt Helbronner |
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| A short section of nice powder before the death crust |
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| 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.
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| Storm over the summit |
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| At just over 4000m - time to retreat! |
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| Loving the descent |
Monday, 2 April 2012
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.
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!!
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| 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!!
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| Chris on Tennis Shoe |
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