Mountain Equipment

Wednesday, 19 May 2010

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

Monday, 17 May 2010

Kev interview on UKC

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

view the interview here

Thursday, 13 May 2010

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

Tuesday, 11 May 2010

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..