The downside of great weather

We're back in North Wales for the first of this years Mountain Training Courses and the weather could not be better - great for enjoyable days out in the mountains, not so great for teaching retail staff about our new range of GORE-TEX hardshells:)

This morning its been cold and sunny, the colours and light at dawn one of those magic moments.

Today we'll be heading out onto the Glyders. We've got eleven retail staff from independent stores across the country, many of whom have never been to Snowdonia so we'll be heading to one of North Wales finest mountains, Tryfan.

The Architect - Premiere

Edinburgh Mountain Film Festival is just 2 weeks away! click here for programme and ticket information.

Saturday 23rd will see the premiere of "The Architect" the latest film from our good friend Paul Diffley of Hotaches productions, a short taster clip of which can be seen below.



The Architect - One of the great pioneers of Scottish mountaineering, Jimmy Marshall, reflects on a lifetime of climbing in Scotland. His soulful words accompany stunning footage of Dave MacLeod and Andy Turner enjoying the routes which Marshall first climbed with his friend Robin Smith on Ben Nevis 50 years ago.

for more info head to www.hotaches.com

Kyashar Expedition

Due to one reason and another a month ago I was pretty sure this years trip out to Nepal was going to have to be cancelled after a few months of its on, its off, its back on again, then it was off again. I was actually quite looking forward to a quick Autumn hit to the alps instead but after randomly bumping into a mate, the young and talented Tony Stone, down in North Wales, suddenly it was all happening again! We got the flights confirmed for the 12th October last week and with some extra support from the Alpine Club on top of the BMC grant we already had the psyche was back again.

Tony Stone (Moonflower Buttress, Alaska)

Kyashar stands proud at 6769m guarding over the village of Tangnag in the Hinku valley, Nepal and caught both Nick and my eye when we were in the area two years ago. First climbed back in 2003 via the West ridge and West face (probably our decent route IF we get up the thing) we hope to have an attempt on the 2000m+ South Pillar (centre of the face in the photo below) which a Czech team tried last year. Unfortunately they had to retreat at around half height but reported climbing up to WI6 and M7 to where they got, ummm...

The 2000+m face of Kyashar

Kyashar emerging from the morning clouds above the Hinku Valley

Many thanks for their support on this expedition to the BMC, The Alpine Club, Mountain Equipment, Scarpa, Black Diamond, Tendon Ropes, Lorpen Socks, Adidas Eyewear

BBC 2 - 5 Climbs, 5 Islands

The 5 climbs, 5 islands film that was originally filmed as a back up for the BBC Great Climb programme in case of atrocious weather, injuries etc will air on BBC 2 Scotland on the 19th and 26th Oct'10.

The 2 part film features ME Pro partner Dave MacLeod and fellow climber Tim Emmett

Dave gives us some detail -

"We travelled about the Hebrides on a big boat, attempting some really hard new routes back to back over 5 days. You’ll have to watch the programmes to see the outcome but I can tell you it was the best trip I’ve had new routing in the Hebrides, certainly one of the hardest and definitely with the most falls!

The culmination of the trip trying a brilliant 2 pitch line of perfect black Gabbro on St Kilda was unbelievable."

For those outside Scotland - BBC2 Scotland is also available on Sky channel 990 and it will also be available to view on BBC i player - more info available at

tripleecho.co.uk

Photo: Triple Echoe Collection

British Mountain Guides Summer Test

Back in June the end of September and the first assessment on my guides training seemed ages away, loads of time I thought... As expected it all came around a bit too fast but in the end I got a good chunk of time out in the hills, not as much as I’d have liked but come the start of the assessment I felt I’d put as much effort into getting ready for it as I could have. Even though it rained for 90% of the time and we didn’t get any proper cragging in we had some really good days out just covering lots of easy ground and climbing lots of the classic routes in the mountains.

A rare respite from the rain on the top of Glyder Fach

The six days of assessment was hard, both physically and mentally. The last time I was properly assessed on anything was for my HGV driving tests and that was bad enough having someone watching your every move for 50 minutes, this was going to be six days of someone constantly look over your shoulder! The first two days of personal climbing and the problem/improvised rescue went really well with a couple of days in the sun at Gogarth and Tremadog.

Paul enjoying the sun at Gogarth on the personal climbing day

Unfortunately the Welsh monsoon returned for Wednesday and the start of the two day expedition part of the assessment. Over these two days you cover lots of mountaineering ground using all the different guiding techniques, show you can climb up to VS in big boots with all your bivi kit on your back and lots of night navigation thrown into the mix. The first day eventually ended coming down the Parsons Nose at about 2.00am (after a failed attempt to find the start of Reade’s Route on Crib Goch... opps!) and a final few night navigation legs brought us back down to the Climbers Club hut soaked to the skin at 4.00am. Finding ourselves locked out of the hut with all our sleeping bags inside (the decision not to bivi due to the weather had been made at the start of the day) we got the best result and drove back home for a few hours sleep. We finished off the final day of the expedition on and around the Idwal slabs and Sub Cneifon Rib in, surprise surprise, the rain again.

For the final two days we each had a proper client and an assessor to look after with the first day being a pure guiding day getting as much climbing done as possible and the second a teaching day. My client, Sky, was a super psyched Australian and luckily having lived in the UK for a few years had got used to the rain. We headed over to the Moelwyn’s and up to Clogwyn yr Oen for the first day where the really rough rock gives good positive and enjoyable climbing in the rain. We got ten pitches of climbing in, had the whole place to ourselves and even managed to take the waterproofs off by the end of the day. Chatting about the teaching day on the way back Sky was pretty keen to start looking at gear placements and belay building so with the sun forecast we made a plan to head to Tremadog the next day.

I’ve never done any teaching in my life so to say I was a bit apprehensive going into the final day of the assessment was an understatement. Although I didn’t feel confident by how the day went, I could tell my teaching skills were lacking that little bit of something, by the end of the day Sky had gone from never having seconded VS to cleanly following me up three routes of that grade and building her own bomber belays, but more importantly for me she enjoyed the two days (I think!).

So to the results... well I was really pleased to get a provisional pass, just being asked to observe a couple of days teaching to help give me a better idea on that side of things before I got an official pass. I was fortunate enough to be able to join Chris Ensoll (www.chris-ensoll.com) in the Lakes this weekend to get the required days done and my summer assessment signed off.

Trail Magazine - Waterproof Jacket Test

The New issue of Trail Magazine (Nov'10) has just landed in the office. This months issue features their Annual Waterproof Jacket test by Gear Guru Graham Thompson. Graham tested 87 jackets for this years review across 4 categories - General, Winter, Multi activity and Lightweight.

4 Mountain Equipment jackets - Kongur, Morpheus, Seraph and Firefox were put to the test.....

The Kongur Jacket came out Best in Test for the 5th year running in the Winter Jackets category and was the first Jacket ever to get 5/5 back in 2005. Graham commented highly on the longer cut, Mountain HC hood, New Stratum Pocket System and our New Gore-Tex Pro Shell Ascendor II and Tenacity fabrics. Read more about the Kongur here

click to view reviews

The Men's Morpheus and Women's Seraph Jackets scored an impressive 4/5 in the General Jacket category and were the only Gore-Tex Pro Shell jackets to get in the top 10. Both jackets scored highly on fit, our Mountain hood, New Stratum Pocket System and our New Gore-Tex Pro Shell Ascendor II fabric. Read more about the Morpheus here and Seraph here

The 4th and final jacket to be put to the test was the Firefox Jacket in the Multi-Activity category again was the only Gore-Tex Pro Shell model to make the top 10 and scored 4/5. The Firefox got a great review on breathability, fit, pocket size and our Mountain hood. Read more about the Firefox here

You can check out the whole in depth test by grabbing a copy from your local newsagent/outdoor retailer now also check out The Trail website livefortheoutdoors.co.uk

John Silvester aka The Birdman

If you've been at any of the Mountain film festivals over the last 18 months you'll probabaly will have seen the amazing Al Hughes film "The Birdman of the Karakorum" featuring John Silvester.

John has been using Mountain Equipment clothing on his Himalayan paragliding expeditions for years - as you can see in the below clip below from the film, where he's using our Classic synthetic Snowline Parka.

This weekend John sets off to India on his next adventure -

John - "We are going to go back in over the 4600m Thamsur pass and visit the remote village of Barabhangal, then hopefully continue through the 4800m Kalicho la into Kistwar and to Keylong (i flew here last year via Manali over the Rhotang pass...but this way will be much better!)....or, other wise continue to Padam!!!"

John will also be doing some guided trips while he's out in India more info on this here - http://www.flyskyhigh.net/ and http://www.himalayanskysafaris.com/

On this trip John is going to using some of our New Winter'10 Synthetic products and putting them to the test -

Citadel Jacket
Fitzroy Pant
Fitzroy Mitt

Check back here soon for pictures and John's report