The Sport Scotland Avalanche Information Service has resumed business for the 09/10 Winter Season.
Avalanches regularly occur in the Scottish mountains, sometimes with tragic consequences and the valuable work carried out by the SAIS undoubtably saves lives every year.
Supported by Mountain Equipment, Avalanche assessors will be out daily for the next four months, assessing snow conditions and providing daily reports for 5 of the main mountain areas in Scotland. Reports are available for Northern Cairngorms, Southern Cainrgorms, Lochaber, Glencoe and Creag Meagaidh.
In addition to the reports (which can be found at www.sais.gov.uk) assessors will also be posting daily blog reports on their days work. Live updates to these blogs can be found on our Blog updates further down this page.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Friday, 11 December 2009
Mountain Equipment Store - Manchester
If your heading into Manchester during the Christmas period make sure you head down to the New Mountain Equipment retail store on Deansgate - opened in partnership with fellow Manchester based retailer Ellis Brigham.
For more information head to - http://www.ellis-brigham.com/mountain-equipment.htm
also keep up with all the latest via the shop Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Manchester-United-Kingdom/Mountain-Equipment-Store/189061301262?ref=nf
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Climber Jan'10
Make sure you check out the January 2010 issue of Climber Magazine. Which includes an Exclusive interview with Mountain Equipment Pro Partner Dave MacLeod.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
AMI AGM
A sure fire bet for great weather is to be working and so it proved this weekend at Plas Y Brenin, as 100 or so Mountaineering Instructors descended on North Wales, timed to clinical perfection as the first snows of the winter fell on the mountains of North Wales.
The reason for this gathering was the annual meeting of the Association of Mountaineering Instructors (AMI) and as one of the major sponsors of the association (the other one being DMM) I was duty bound to gather up the giant ME flag and do my best to wave it around.
The Association was formed some 19 years ago, and represents all professional mountaineering instructors who hold either the MIA or the MIC award. As such the weekend is a mix of important nitty gritty regarding the workings and direction of the Association as well as an opportunity for qualified instructors to gain further training and professional development in a variety of disciplines, hence the programme of workshops.
And thats where we came in again, ensuring that two of our Pro Partners (Dave Macleod and Andy Turner) would be delivering some of those workshops. For Dave that meant delivering a rock climbing masterclass session and for Andy sharing his intimate knowledge on the dark art of Dry Tooling - both focussing on personal climbing as well as coaching.
On the Saturday evening Dave also gave a lecture, one of the first he has given focussing on his massive project on St. John's Head on Orkney. After that it was to the bar, from that point the details are somewhat sketchy, but I do remember being very definitely not the last one to leave at around 1:45am.....I am told the committed professionals kept going until nearly 4am.
The reason for this gathering was the annual meeting of the Association of Mountaineering Instructors (AMI) and as one of the major sponsors of the association (the other one being DMM) I was duty bound to gather up the giant ME flag and do my best to wave it around.
The Association was formed some 19 years ago, and represents all professional mountaineering instructors who hold either the MIA or the MIC award. As such the weekend is a mix of important nitty gritty regarding the workings and direction of the Association as well as an opportunity for qualified instructors to gain further training and professional development in a variety of disciplines, hence the programme of workshops.
And thats where we came in again, ensuring that two of our Pro Partners (Dave Macleod and Andy Turner) would be delivering some of those workshops. For Dave that meant delivering a rock climbing masterclass session and for Andy sharing his intimate knowledge on the dark art of Dry Tooling - both focussing on personal climbing as well as coaching.
On the Saturday evening Dave also gave a lecture, one of the first he has given focussing on his massive project on St. John's Head on Orkney. After that it was to the bar, from that point the details are somewhat sketchy, but I do remember being very definitely not the last one to leave at around 1:45am.....I am told the committed professionals kept going until nearly 4am.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
"Everest '09" Premiere - Oslo, Norway
7th December'09 sees the Premiere of “Everest 09” at Chateau Neuf, Oslo, Norway.
The documentary tells the story of Mountain Equipment Norwegian Pro Partners Lars Oma and Petter Nyquist who summated Mount Everest on 21sts May’09. After returning to Advance Base Camp they received the message that a fellow Norwegian climber hadn’t reported back after his summit attempt. The following day Lars and Petter organized a rescue party. Petter scrambled together enough money to hire the best and strongest sherpas for the rescue attempt. The team of Sherpas managed to find Climber Jarle Traa in the “dead zone” just below the summit of Everest miraculously he was still alive, however was suffering from severe frostbite and hypothermia after spending the night exposed at altitude. Lars a trained medical doctor managed to stabilized Jarle at a higher camp so he could be carried off Everest.
Everest 09 will then go out prime time on mainstream Norwegian television later in Dec’09 check back here for the link to watch online.
For more info go to
http://www.everest09.no/
http://www.billetservice.no/
The documentary tells the story of Mountain Equipment Norwegian Pro Partners Lars Oma and Petter Nyquist who summated Mount Everest on 21sts May’09. After returning to Advance Base Camp they received the message that a fellow Norwegian climber hadn’t reported back after his summit attempt. The following day Lars and Petter organized a rescue party. Petter scrambled together enough money to hire the best and strongest sherpas for the rescue attempt. The team of Sherpas managed to find Climber Jarle Traa in the “dead zone” just below the summit of Everest miraculously he was still alive, however was suffering from severe frostbite and hypothermia after spending the night exposed at altitude. Lars a trained medical doctor managed to stabilized Jarle at a higher camp so he could be carried off Everest.
Everest 09 will then go out prime time on mainstream Norwegian television later in Dec’09 check back here for the link to watch online.
For more info go to
http://www.everest09.no/
http://www.billetservice.no/
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Kendal Mountain Film Festival
If you are braving the weather and heading for Kendal Mountain Film Festival this weekend make sure you go and check our pro partners and their lectures
Thurs 19th - Brewery Centre Screen 2 - Andy Turner - Phari Lapcha Expedition
Also Andy Houseman will be hanging around fresh from his 1st ascent on Chang Himal, Sandy Allan will be there with information on his guiding company Team Ascent, Artist and legend Andy Parkin and some off our very own team will be hanging around most likely near a bar! after a heavy week of Winter 2010 sales meetings.
more info and tickets head to the ticket desk at the Brewery Centre or see the website
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
Ran Fiennes Interview on BBC i-player
Check out BBC 4's - Mark Lawson interview with adventurer/explorer and long standing friend of the brand - Sir Ranulph Fiennes
Watch the interview on BBC i-player here
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