Langdale - Night Navigation

Due to me having classes until 12, us spending copious amounts of money on KFC, and Struggles generally being incompetent myself and Lewis got out the car on Friday in Langdale a little later than expected, at nearly 4pm. The sun had already set.

We headed up stickle gill first, which was starting to freeze up quite nicely, some parts of the path were a little precarious with 1-2 inch ice covering portions. We did a lap of the Pikes, which were a little wintery before heading over to Stake Pass. The aim of the night was to practice some night navigation, which we did after walking round in circles for a while trying to the tarn, which was eventually we did. Once there we stopped for some tea (around d 8/9pm) and devoured our KFC provided hill food, but then got very cold very quickly, it was probably around -5C so moved on. Some more bearing work got us to across to Angle Tarn, where we headed up towards Allen Crags. The whole East side of the Scafell Massif was fairly white, and the sky was clear with a bright moon which made an awesome atmosphere. We then re-traced our steps and headed down Rossett Gill (which is also freezing in places), this was again pretty tedious with the paths covered in ice in places. We got back to the car around 1/2am I think.

We took quite a few videos during the day/night so when I get chance I'll edit them together and put them up here.

Howgill Fells

Monday, myself and Lewis headed up to the Howgills, a group of hills bordered by the Lake District to the west and Yorkshire Dales to the east, and that get comparatively little attention - which is a good thing as we saw nobody all day. While perhaps not as rocky as hills in the Lakes, these are still big hills, and the solace is a nice change from being in Langdale or Coniston, plus it only took us 30-40 minutes to get there from Lancaster.


We parked at Cross Keys (SD 698 969) which is one of the best access points and headed up via Cautley Spout, which I fancied a look at as during particualary hard winter it freezes making an awesome ice route. From their we headed up the tops, doing a circuit of Great Dummacks, Calders and the Calf. We looked at a few different navigation techniques along the way in preparation for Lewis' upcoming assessment, the clag was down which provided some good, realistic conditions. We had a late lunch by the trig point on the Calf and then headed down just as it was going dark.

Kendal Mountain Film Festival

Its the annual Kendal Mountain Film Festival this weekend. So far I've booked to see the world premiere of 'The Pinnacle' which documents Dave Macleod and Andy Turner repeating the Smith - Marshall famous week climbing on the Ben last winter, which should inspire me a bit for our CIC weekend in March! I've also got tickets to the Snowsports evening on the Friday, theres a few ski films being shown, and Glen Plake is there so that should be pretty cool as he is THE guy from Blizzard of Aaahhhs.

The trailer for the event as a whole is below:

The Fun Scale

A friend of mine that I used to climb with in Canada first introduced me to the Fun Scale, having read about it in the Canadian Alpine Journal. I've done a bit of googling and it seems that its an idea thats been mooted around mountaineering circles for sometime. What it's basic function is, is to divide 'fun' up into three discrete categories each of which can be applied to experiences in the mountains, and to some extent real life. I'll give a bit of a basic description below of what I perceive each type to be and include:

Type I
Things you actually enjoy when they are happening, and perhaps the purest form of fun.
Roadside iceclimbing. Good food. Sunny south facing rockclimbing. Beer. Lift accessed Chamonix-stlye alpinism (when everything goes to plan). Good sex. Powder skiing. Gear shopping. Scrambling.

Type I fun rarely leaves you with any real significant memories though, you may think back that you enjoyed the day, but you didn't really have to graft for anything. Ultimately I find it to not be quite as satisfying as it could be.

Type II
Fun in retrospect, can be anything from unpleasant to downright hateful in doing, but given a un-specified amount of time you look back on it as a good time.
All other alpine climbing. Scottish winter. Going rockclimbing in the UK in the bad weather 'to make the most of the day'. Pretty much any day I spend in the mountains with Carl Stubbs. Dropping one tool on a route. Going hillwalking.

Martin Freeman getting the fear on, and hence having some good old Type II on Viking Buttress IV 4.

Type II days are perhaps the best, usually being a lot for satisfying in the long run that type I. There good character building and you quite often come out of them having learnt things.


Carl Stubbs after a retreat from the Col de Fourche bivi hut in bad weather.

The video above shows Stubbsy after we'd descended the 200m couloir that leads up to the Col de Fourche above the Cirque Maudit in Mont Blanc Massif. We'd intended to do the Kuffner Ridge but got screwed over a little by Chamonix Meteo with warm temperatures and lots of new snow. If we'd of gone for the route we'd of taken a long time on it, and probably been committing to going over the Blanc in a storm as neither of us wanted to descend the Tacul normal route, so we bailed abseiling down the couloir which was wet and loose in 25/30m sections as we only had one rope. The last one left us a good 5m short of getting over the bergschrund - definite type II territory for both of us there. After a few tedious hours crossing the Valle Blanche to get back to the Midi in a white-out we were down in town, eating lunch in the Petit Kitchen thinking that actually it was all pretty good fun, and we'd probably go for another crack in a day or two.

Type III
Not really fun at all, things that were certainly a bad idea, and you'll probably never do again.
Near death experiences. Loose rock. Dropping both tools on a route. 9am Lectures. Getting avalanched.
This is probably my least favorite of the three types, and thankfully I've only experienced it once or twice. Type II events often have the potential to become Type III if things don't go your way.

Martin Freeman high on Via Alvera, V+, Averau.

Two summers ago Martin and I climbed a big rock route on the south face on Mt. Averau in the Italian Dolomites. The day didn't start well as two rocks came flying down while we were gearing up at the bottom. It progressively got worse, with each pitch and belay becoming less and less well protected and even looser. The in-situ belays that the guidebook referred to were often missing or very poor state. The climbing was never super hard, just super scary. We were both pretty relieved to get to the top, and made the decision that we'd probably never do this route again. Ever. I can look back on this now, and while there were limited sections that were perhaps Type II (the scary traverse) the Type III elements far outweighed these.

Thoughts?

Troutdale & Gillercombe

This weekend I was in the Lake District with the university mountaineering club (LUMC) for our first term fresher's weekend away. As usual the forecast was grim (although not as grim as 2 years ago when it coincided with 'Borrowdale storm' and OMM fiasco) but most of us got some stuff done.

Jade & Veronica on quite a moist belay on Troutdale Pinnacle.

Saturday a group of us headed up to Black Crag and set off up Troutdale Pinnacle S 4a. I've done the route before, its another classic rock number and its really good with some varied climbing and being moderately long. The guidebook gives it 105m in 6 pitches, we managed it in 4, running 1+2 and 3+4 together. You could try stringing 5+6 together but unless you were very minimalistic on gear placements, and hence leave you second un-protected on to a degree on the slab down-climb at the start of pitch 5 you'd end up with quite a bit of drag, plus you'd miss the wonderfully exposed belay on the saddle by the pinnacle. The hardest pitches in my opinion are the final two, with the crux probably being one of the last moves on the last pitch but the gear it good and once you've got the hold its all good.

Foolishly I was being optimistic and set off without waterproofs on, only to have the torrential rain start at the first belay, pretty moist by the top. I also climbed the first 2/4 pitches in my Guide Tennies which seemed to work ok on wet rock, they were however, as always deadly walking down the grass on the descent. I had Jade and Veronica with me and I think they both enjoyed it.

Sunday we headed over to Gillercombe Buttress with quite a large group. With the forecast looking better I'd hoped, perhaps naively, that the rock would be dry - it wasn't, not in the slightest. I set off up Gillercombe Buttress S 4a with Jade and Rebecca in tow and Dan, Luke & Becca following us while another two parties set off us Grey Knots Face, the Diff slightely to the right.

Pitch 2(?) on Gillercombe.

I did the route a few years ago on a lovely dry sunny day, but like everything it takes on a little bit of a different demeanor when its wet. The rising traverse on pitch 2/3 was interesting as was the crux slab on pitch 5 which was dripping, and which I almost slipped off completely - managing to grab a placed nut on my way down. The route is 195m and I think we did it in 5 pitches, we could of don it in 4 but I belayed before the traverse instead of after so ended up with a short 10m pitch over this, otherwise we just tried to run the rope out as there are belays a plenty. Jade and Rebecca did an awesome job of seconding in the poor conditions, climbing quickly and being spot on sorting stuff at the belays.

Rebecca, Jade & Myslef at the top of Gillercombe Buttress.

After we topped out, we hung around for a while, looked around for the other but saw no sign of them and then bimbled down after we started to get cold getting to the bus at about 4:30pm, where sat around eating chorizo, cheese and cracker sandwiches, drinking whiskey and taking photos. Unbeknown to us the other parties had ended up in various predicaments forcing them to retreat, which in turn caused some issues of ropes getting stuck etc. I was just putting my boots back on at 7pm when a trail of torch lights appeared much to my relief, everybody was fine despite a few learning experiences and they all did really well to get off safely in the dark, the only casualty being a few club slings and biners, which are certainly expendable.

Bit of a learning experience for some people I think, a few key points being:

• Don't underestimate a big mountain route in poor conditions.
• Climbing in a three can be slow, especially if your climbing in series and/or switching the leads.
• Its a pretty good idea to always have a headtorch, whistle, map an compass with you.
• A few meters of 6mm cord, or nylon tape in the bottom of your sack will avoid you having to leave slings behind.
• Everybody should really have at the minimum a single prussic with them for abseiling with.
  

And not to end on a serious note, the definite theme tune for the weekend is below: