Cotswold Winter Courses

I’ve been meaning to write a blog for about 3 weeks now but any spare time at all has been in fairly short supply here at ME! Below is a very belated summary of what's been going on.

Whilst others had already been working hard out at the Outdoor Retailer Show in the US things only got really busy for me with our winter courses for Cotswold Staff up in Scotland. Run in conjunction with Gore at Plas Y Brenin’s winter base, Alltshellach, these provide the chance for the lucky 60 to use our kit in the conditions it was designed for, get further training on our products and, crucially, to further their own skills. Over two three day programmes we ran walking, mountaineering and climbing courses dependent on the participants previous experience. This makes it an equally amazing opportunity whether you are taking your first steps in crampons or have already climbed to a high standard and want to be stretched further. This lead to the usual mixture of wide eyes, big grins and ultimately exhaustion as people made full use of some of the best guides and instructors around.



Accompanying the staff with their PYB instructor each day were members of the ME and Gore team as well as ME Pro Partners Andy Turner, Stu McAleese and Dave MacLeod. This meant that there was near continuous input on technical skills, avalanche awareness, kit design, fabrics, looking cool in the mountains and how to climb grade XI….. depending on who you were with on a given day. Most days were spent in either Glen Coe or on Ben Nevis in conditions that took in the whole spectrum of Scottish winter weather. This suited us perfectly as almost anything works on blue sky days. The combination of storm force winds, snow, hail, lashing rain and even, very briefly, sun gave everyone concerned cause to be grateful for the design of their kit and the fabrics it was made from.

Full days out were very, very closely [I managed a whole cup of tea and a shower one day!] followed by product sessions where we discussed the kit we make and peoples experiences having actually used it. The aim is that the staff present will not only be personally more knowledgeable but also able to feedback what they’ve learnt to their colleagues back in store. This will hopefully mean that when you’re next in Cotswold you can get good, relevant advice from someone with first hand experience whether it be ME kit your interested in or a pair of winter boots and crampons.

The always substantial [half a chicken anyone?!] and excellent dinners were then followed by a further lecture on avalanche awareness or, on the later nights, a talk by Andy Turner and Dave MacLeod. All were excellent and the observant will have noticed the sneak preview of Dave’s winter project that has just become the amazing looking Castle in the Sky.



After all this the bar didn’t see much attention as most simply shuffled their kit in the drying room and collapsed into bed before another early start. Many thanks to all those who took part with so much enthusiasm, the feedback has been amazing and made the 16 hour days seem even more worthwhile than normal! Generally I’d have gone home for some sleep after all that excitement but a flight to ISPO in Munich the next morning put paid to that. After a week of busy trade show action and a little too much pork and beer I’ve finally made it home to Kendal. Nearly 3 weeks away and I've come back to frozen taps….. time to find my tools and a head torch, fight the exhaustion and go to search for some Lakes ice before the thaw!

Rich B.

Dave's latest testpiece.....a belayers view.

By Ruth Taylor
 

“I’m quite nervous about this route, Ruth.”

Hmmmm, not necessarily the words you expect to be coming out of Dave Macleod’s mouth before he launches upwards, but out they came. I was standing at the bottom of Druim Shionnach in Glen Shiel beneath a HUUUGE roof. I’m sure when Dave, Andy and I set off that morning I was chief photographer and Andy was going to be belaying and potentially having a blast on the “project”. But here I was lashed into a belay, Andy was away up the top of the crag to abseil into photographers position and Dave was getting ready to lead off, with the words….

“I’m not sure how this is going to go. I might get involved in a mighty battle with the roof, or I might just shout Take.” Closely followed by….“I apologize now for falling on your head on this start.”



Getting psyched for the battle.

What???? This is Dave Macleod – he’s not going to fall off I secretly thought to myself. However, as he teetered up the groove above without a lot of gear and some less than solid rock – fully decked out with pointy sharp things I did have a few moments of doubt and wished I was a little bit further away from said pointy spikey things!

Once at the top of the groove the next step was to pull out onto a slab, steadily done and now Dave wasn’t very easy to see, I could just hear a series of phrases….

“The roof is getting bigger the closer I get to it!”

“I’ll just back this peg up and then it’s a bit of a sketchy 10ft”

“Right, just going to do the sketchy moves..”

“It’s like being back on The Long Hope, I’m hooking into bird shit!”

Dave was by now safely ensconced directly under the massive 6m roof. From where I was standing, this looked like an impossible task, fully horizontal and nothing that looked like decent hooks to get your tools into.

The evening before Dave had been talking about his visit the previous week to work on the route. He talked about aiding across the roof, on some cams, bulldogs, a pecker and a completely downward pointing knifeblade peg. The cams being about the only decent gear of the lot!



Holey Moley that's steep!!



He had also described the moves he’d need to make – figure of fours!! Now as far as I know Scottish mixed trad climbing and figure of fours is not normal! Plenty of fig fours and all that on sport mixed stuff – but above dodgy knifeblades???

Anyway with all that information whirling around in my head I stood there – getting slowly colder as Dave prepared himself. He’d gone and got the cams in by reaching out from an undercut/can opener off his axe and then scuttled back across to the resting spot under the left end of the roof. Andy by this point had appeared over the lip of the roof and had eyes out on stalks looking at the roof.

“OK, I’m going to give it a go”

Dave then set off purposefully, along to the take off point, got the undercut/can opener reached out and placed the next pick into the crack somehow and so began the battle.

Clipping some other gear and inching out into the roof the only option was to cut loose.

“Oh my god, that pick isn’t in right…..it’s going to rip any second”

All Andy and I could do at this point was to shout encouragement and keep a watchful eye on the belaying! Luckily the axe didn’t rip and he made it to the next placement which was a little bit more secure. After clipping the next runner, all manner of whacky moves broke loose.

Footless-ness, followed by 2 figure of fours in a row saw Dave reach his picks around the apex on the roof. The downside to this was the tiny tenuous hooks they were placed in with the last bit of gear being the aforementioned downward pointing knifeblade. A fall from here would be a VERY bad idea.

I think all of our hearts were in our mouths, although none more so than Dave’s I’m sure. If Andy and I could have pushed Dave up through mental power alone we’d have been doing a pretty good job!

With final careful, careful moves Dave disappeared around the roof, and found himself a restful spot and some more gear. Phew!!

“I’m going to stand here for a few minutes Ruth.”



The crag - looking wintery.

I can’t say I was surprised!

You might think that that was it, all over. You would be quite wrong. Dave had decided to finish the pitch at the top of the crag, although splitting it into 2 would have been possible. But with no second he forged on upwards, after a bit of rope jiggery pokery – you get a bit too much rope drag around a roof that big to continue without pulling the rope through.



Not sure I've got enough layers on!



Andy by now had come down to the bottom as Dave made painstaking progress up to the finish. A very lonely lead and one without much gear – typically he’d taken a minimal rack and used a lot of it on the pitch up to and around the roof. Andy was describing the terrain on the upper part of the crag, not many decent cracks and lots of small rounded flakes – sounded gripping!

Sometime later we heard a jubilant shout from somewhere up above – route finished!!



A little later still Dave reappeared at the lip of the roof abseiling down to get the gear back – getting it out from under the roof looked almost as hard as getting it in, in the first place!

Once we were all back on the ground it was time to head back to the valley and enjoy a bit of sunshine on the way…

A hugely inspiring day out – I really can’t believe anyone can look so composed whilst hanging off one axe under a huge roof with no footholds. Wow!!

Oh and for those wondering about conditions, check out the crag picture – all pretty white and wintery – not much chance of rime and snow on the underside of the roof!!

 

Dave and Andy looking happy with the days work - in their matching outfits!! 

Backcountry Skiing in the North Cascades

Yesterday I headed out with Craig & Woody from our US distributors to sample some of the backcountry skiing in the North Cascades.

We also met up with a couple of the local snow patrol guys from the nearby Stevens Pass resort plus local blogger Andy Dappen who looks after the Website Wenatchee Outdoors

Craig also took the opportunity to sample some of next winters ski specific salopettes, the new Kamchatka Saloepettes seen here in a rather dashing blue.

We left the relative hustle of Stevens Pass and headed up Skyline Peak before ascending to Tye Peak, with views South towards Mount Stewart. Absolutely stunning!

Full trip reports can be found at www.climberandrunner.wordpress.com and also www.wenatcheeoutdoors.org

Nick Bullock: BMC Winter Meet Round up

Head over to Nick's Blog here for his full report from the BMC Winter Meet 

Guy and Nick accessing the next move photo Bayard Russell 

Nick on the 2nd Pitch of Guerdon Grooves photo Bayard Russell 

On the road in North America

Well we have just wrapped up a busy week at the Outdoor Retailer tradeshow in Salt Lake City, Utah. We've presented the new Winter 2012 line to about 35 stores as well as meeting up with various magazines including one of the USA's most well known publications 'Outside'

At the same time, some of the worst winter storms to have hit the North-West have been doing their best to wipe away one of the worst starts to the American ski season in decades as more than 50 inches of snow have been deposited across the Rockies and Cascades in the past five days.

And so, leaving our US team of Craig and Woody to it, for a week or so, as they headed off to another tradeshow in Denver, I jumped in the car and headed North, destination Jackson Hole, Wyoming in search of the POW.

The first challenge was working how best to be there and with the 8000ft Teton Pass closed due to numerous avalanches, it was the 5hr trip along the winding roads through the wilds of Wyoming that was our preferred route. All was clear until we reached Bridger National Forest, at which point we hit the next winter storm rattling across the Rockies. It was a very lonely hour or two through the rolling uplands, with only the occasional passing snowplough for company.

DAV Expedition teams: Avalanche awareness training

Last week members of both the guys and girls DAV teams hooked up and headed for Silvretta, Austria for a few days of intense Avalanche training lead by team coach David Göttler and the DAV´s avalanche 'Guru' Chris Semmel. Chris and David took the team through both theoretical and practical training to further improve their knowledge of avalanches and of course how best to avoid them all in preparation for their expeditions ahead over the next 18 months.

Of course the trip wasn’t all about training and the team managed to get a few ascents and decents in the bag on Heidelberger Spitze, Lareiner Joch and Ritzen Joch.

German.....

DAV Expeditionskader (Frauen und Herren) zusammen beim Lawinencamp

Dreiantennige LVS-Geräte? Lawinensonden mit akustischer Trefferanzeige?

Für einige der nicht im Bergsportfachhandel tätigen Exped-Kadermitglieder sind das bis zum LVS-Camp auf der Heidelberger Hütte nur böhmische Dörfer.

Um dies zu ändern, treffen wir uns im Herzen der Silvretta mit dem Frauen-Expedkader 2013.

Unter Leitung des DAV-Lawinenpapst Chris Semmel und fleißiger Assistenz unseres Kadertrainers David Göttler versuchen  wir fünf Tage lang etwas Licht ins Dunkel der Lawinenkunde zu bringen. Besonderer Fokus wird hierbei nicht nur auf die Minimierung der weißen Gefahr in den heimischen Alpen gelegt, sondern auch auf eine Reduktion der selbigen während der Expedition.

Während theoretischer Vorträge und praktischer Übungen auf Skitour versuchen wir dem komplexen Feld der Gefahrenbeurteilung auf die Schliche zu kommen.

Das eigene Halbwissen erweist sich im Gespräch mit Chris Semmel nicht nur ein Mal als antiquiert und unvollständig und so sind wir froh um die professionelle Annäherung an das schwierige Thema.

Bei all der ernsten Lawinenthematik vergeht uns aber trotzdem nicht der Spaß am Skitourengehen und wir können bei bestem Powder die ersten Spuren von der Heidelberger Spitze, dem Lareiner Joch und dem Ritzen Joch ziehen.

Long Hope Night at the RGS

Dave, Andy and Paul will be hosting a Long Hope Evening at the Royal Geographical Society, Kensington, London on Wednesday 8th February'12. Dave gives us more information below...
 

"On February 8th, myself, Andy Turner and filmmaker Paul Diffley will be speaking at the Royal Geographical Society in London about the Longhope route. Mountain Equipment and Gore-Tex have helped us arrange an evening of entertainment at the RGS to share with you what was pretty memorable adventure for us, both in terms of the climbers involved in attempting to climb this cliff over 40 years, and in documenting it on film.

Myself and Andy will be speaking about our experiences in preparing and attempting the first free ascent of the original Longhope Route as well as some of the history behind climbing on the cliff, and then we’ll present The Long Hope film made by Paul Diffley. In particular I’ll talk about some of the psychology behind taking on a three-year sporting ambition to open a new route at world class difficulty like this, how I’ve learned to be comfortable with the dangers involved, and some of the hurdles that you just couldn’t plan for along the way. Andy will be speaking about how his winter mountaineering adventures in Scotland, the Alps and Norway were about as good preparation as you could get for this type of adventure, yet still not enough to avoid some knee trembling moments on a 1400 foot loose, bird infested sea-cliff.

We’ll have a bar and plenty of time to meet up and talk about adventures on cliffs during the evening or ask questions. We’ll also have some signed copies of the Long Hope DVD and various other films and books we’ve made. Doors open at 6pm to start 7pm. It should be a great night!

Tickets and full details are available in my shop right here. It’s going to be a busy show so it would be a very good plan to get your ticket early."

Photos: Lukasz Warzecha