Roasting Roaches

What a difference two weeks make.

On Saturday I found myself at the Roaches, top off trying to cling to greasy slopers and it was only 7.30am!
It was quite humid under the trees and the lower tier boulders were suffering. Well, I was suffering on them, loosing skin at a great rate. It was still very nice to potter around. After a few well-it-is-sort-of-in-a-breeze attempts I was more than happy to consign Teck Crack Direct to colder conditions.

After a pause to sit in the sun I walked up to Calcutta butress, higher up and a much fresher proposition. Conditions were pretty nice up here and I had a happy hour getting shut down on everything.
For such an unassuming buttress it packs a punch: undercut base and some small crimps make for some challenging problems. I got further than I expected on Sleeping with the Flowers (past the first move) but didn't quite have the crush fest I was hoping for.
What a joy to be out though. And back in time to sell ice creams at the school fete. Baffin Island boys, eat your heart out.

Baffin Big walls 2010 - Success!

We are proud to annouce that Stuart McAleese, Mike ‘Twid’ Turner and Mark Thomas have successfully completed their objective of making a first ascent of a major Big Wall at Sail Peaks, Baffin Island.

In a telephone call from Stu, he explained:

“We reached the summit at 1600 hours yesterday (24th May 2010) and were down at the base of the pillar again by 0400 hours this morning.

We ran out of food and fuel while we were near the top but decided to keep on going. We’re currently trying to get the skidoo to pick us up tomorrow.

This is the most difficult, but rewarding climb any of us have ever done, and my word, are we looking forward to a few beers!”

Congratulations guys. More details and pictures will follow

Scottish Road Trip

Check out Mountain Equipment Pro Partner Andy Turner as he acts as guide to his fellow Petzl team mates on the "Petzl Scottish Ice Trip - the search for nessie"

Scottish Icetrip - English from Petzl-sport on Vimeo.

Vacancy - Junior Sales Representative

At Mountain Equipment we are committed to providing our retail partners with excellent support and service by delivering first class sales representation and staff training. Having achieved significant UK and European sales growth year-on-year, we require a Junior Sales Representative to support the UK Sales effort.

The successful candidate will report directly to the UK Sales Manager. Main responsibilities will include supporting the Regional Sales Managers to provide comprehensive sales and service to existing and new retail customers across the UK A large part of the job will involve delivering excellent retail support and staff training to our multiple accounts.

The job will require you to be based at our offices in Hyde, Greater Manchester. You will be required to spend 2 to 3 nights per week away from home and attend monthly meetings when required.

The ideal candidate will have retail experience within the outdoor industry, together with a good knowledge of the ‘selling process’ and the wider aspects of the outdoor trade.

Active participation in mountain sports would be an advantage.

If you are interested in applying for the position, or would like more details please email a CV and covering letter to chris.smith@mountain-equipment.co.uk

Closing date for applications will be 1st July 2010

Baffin Big Walls 2010 - Message from Stu

We've just had this message in from Stu.............


"The weather’s turned again, snowing hard. We’ve spent all day in the portaledges.

We’ve been making good progress still though, everyone’s happy and having a good time.

So far we’ve spent a total of 12 nights sleeping in the portaledge.

We’re not sure, due to the weather, but we don’t think we can be that far off the top now."

Alaska

We've just had a few shots in from Plas y Brenin Guide Matt Stygal who has just returned from the Ruth Gorge, Alaska. Unfortunetly as you can see from the pictures below it dumped it down with snow while they were out there

Mountain Equipment Hielo 2 before

Mountain Equipment Hielo 2 after

resulting in them being forced off the routes they set out to do, however they did get a route called "Freezy Nuts" done which climbs a col between Werewolf and London Towers.

Guides summer training part 1

I was in the Lake District last week for the first part of my guides summer training. We started the week off up at Raven Crag in Langdale for a day of multi pitch guided climbing. The aim was to look at all the skills for getting the maximum climbing out of a day with 2 clients. We covered all the various options, one rope, two ropes, climbing in series and parallel. As well as the going up we also looked at and put into practice various way to safely and efficiently get the clients down.

On Tuesday we headed up to Dow crag above Coniston for a day of short roping. This is a skill that is completely new to me, when climbing with mates you either have the rope on, off or you’re moving together with varying amounts of rope out and gear between you. Short roping is used to safe guard clients when going up and down on easy ground. My first round of guiding Andy up and down the side of Dow crag was a complete shambles, there’s just so much to think about all at the same time. Slowly as the day progressed things started to click, I started to get my systems sorted and the whole thing seemed to run a lot smoother. It’s definitely one of the more difficult skills to learn and as a guide is one of the times you are most exposed to risk and danger. Anyway I finished the day having learnt a lot in a short space of time but knowing I’m going to have to put a lot of time in over the summer to get it dialled.

For the final day we drove up to Borrowdale and had a split day between Shephards crag and Black crag. Andy and I headed off with Tim Neil to spend a day looking at coaching techniques for multi pitch climbing. Unlike the first day which was looking at pure guiding techniques to get as much climbing in as possible the final day was aimed at clients who want to gain the skills necessary to go multi-pitch climbing themselves. The emphasis was about building a good teaching progression into the day and getting the clients involved in everything; building their own anchor once they arrive at the stance, belaying the second client up and just generally chatting through everything.

I spent all last week wearing the new Orion softshell, I’ve found this jacket a great choice for cragging in the UK when you’re not too sure what the weathers going to do as you set off up a multi-pitch route. Its over to North Wales next week for the second part of the summer training and hopefully a few days climbing after.

Baffin Big walls 2010 - Progress

Getting reports through via sat. phone has been challenging for the lads so communications have been necessarily brief, however….

Stu reports that they are making good progress on the wall. The weather’s improved hugely and the climbing is great.

Looking at the picture from the Big walls site (below) they are about 3/4 of the way yesterday

For all the latest head to www.baffinbigwalls.com

Kev interview on UKC

Make sure you checkout Mountain Equipment Pro Partner Kev Shields being interviewed over at UKClimbing.com




view the interview here

Baffin Big Walls 2010 - Update

Stu has been able to provide a brief update of progress via SatPhone:
The lads are finally on the wall. We are yet to clarify the exact line they are taking but hope to get this information soon.
The skidoo ride to the base of the wall took 1 day. The lads have done quite a bit of climbing over the last two days, fixing ropes, etc., and have spent two nights on the wall in the portaledge.
The weather has just turned, it started snowing all of a sudden – that’s Twid’s fault for saying ‘it hardly ever snows’. They’ve come back down to the base of the wall, leaving the ropes fixed ready for the next opportunity to climb.
Stu’s last words were indistinct, but was heard to say something about polar bears…….

Kongur MRT at Work

Our Kongur MRT Jacket has now been at work for the past 8 months with Rescue teams from the UK to as far as New Zealand. Below is a slideshow of shots from just a few of the teams who we have worked with and supplied Kongur MRT Jackets too

For more information on the Kongur MRT head to the site here

also checkout and support your local team below

Mountain Rescue England & Wales

Mountain Rescue Scotland

Mountain Rescue Ireland

Wintery Wimberry

I Got up early on Saturday and drove out to Wimberry in the Chew Valley, a much ignored area of blasted heath and dark brooding crags.

At the bottom of the hill it was quite pleasant in the sun, but as I worked higher wandering between the problems it got much more windy and cold. As I was climbing by myself, having the crashpad blow away mid problem was more than a tad inconvenient..
I wore my Microtherm jacket over a thermal and tee the whole time and it kept most of the chilly wind out. It was fine as long as I kept moving. No brews for me.

Still, it was good. I was pleased to do a few of the more testing probs (for me) including the pumpy traverse of Think Tank first go.

I went back to the arete next to Slap Happy at the bottom of the hill for a self timer photo. I had totally failed on my previous attempt, but my body and mind had been working on it in the meantime and I pulled on and nailed it with a totally different sequence. Surprising, but half the fun of bouldering..

Work in Progress - Arisaig project

Short clip of Dave MacLeod on his latest V14 project at Arisaig cave

for more info head to Daves site - http://www.davemacleod.blogspot.com/

Dave's new site

Mountain Equipment Pro Partner Dave MacLeod has a new web site

Check it out at http://www.davemacleod.blogspot.com/