4000m Peaks on Skis

The boys and I spent the last couple of nights in the Brittania Hut above Saas Fee. This gave some great access to some of the stunning mountains around it and we bagged a couple of 4000m peaks on skis, with a bit of boot action to the final summit of each. Its incredible how efficient it is travelling on skis in winter, we skied from the summit of the Allalinhorn (4027m) to the resort yesterday in less than an hour! The day before saw us climb Strahlhorn (4128m) and enjoy an amazing ski descent. I am on my way home now and thats the end of winter for me, 24c in France as we drive towards Calais, bring on the summer!

Ski Mountaineering in Saas Fee

I am in Saas Fee this week with Dave, Sandy and Monty for a bit more ski mountaineering action. Its a funnily little town that I haven't been to before, its car free which is nice but seems to be lacking something in the way of atmosphere! The mountains are great though and we enjoyed over a 1000m of skinning to pick off a summit (Feechopf 3839m) this morning which gave us some great views across to the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc and some great spring snow in descent. Heres some piccies:

Chamonix Snowshoe Weekend

I have been running our Chamonix snowshoe course this weekend. Yesterday we headed up to Le Tour and enjoyed a walk to the Col de Balme and then upto the Tete de Balme (2333m). We had some hazy clouds and glimpses of views giving some beautiful light and plenty of time looking at the skills involved in planning and following routes on snowshoes in winter. Today we started from the village of Les Houches and climbed Mont Lachat (2115m). We timed it well as the clouds parted to give some magnificent views of the Mont Blanc massif as we reached the summit for lunch - a stunning day.

Chamonix

I have been in Chamonix this week with friend Dave for a week of climbing and ski mountaineering. I was on my own Monday so skied onto the Argentiere Glacier to check out conditions on the North Face of the Droites, it looked very black and a quick chat with the guardian at the hut confirmed it had not been climbed for a couple of weeks. March has been a very dry month here and April is continuing that theme. I enjoyed an afternoon of laps on the Grand Montets and met up with Dave on Monday night.

Tuesday saw us head onto the Aiguilles Rouges for a ski tour to allow Dave to get his ski legs and acclimatise a bit. We had a beautiful day in stunning scenery.

Wednesday saw us head up the Midi in the morning to check out climbing on the Tacul and to ski the Valley Blanche on another stunning day.

On Thursday we had to change our plans as we awoke to bad weather with many of the lifts closed due to high winds. We managed a ski tour by keeping low at Les Contamines but with a bit of rock dodging!

Today dawned glorious again after an overnight snowfall so we headed up the Midi once more to climb the Goulotte Lafaille on the NE face of the Tacul. We skinned up to the base of the route but were scared off by masses of spindrift sluffing down onto us and freshly accumulated windslab on the approach apron combining with very warm temperatures to create an avalanche risk we were not happy with. We did get another awesome descent of the Valley Blanche though!

This weekend I am running our snowshoe course here in Chamonix and then its off to Zermatt for a week of ski touring on 4000m peaks with friends Dave, Sandy and Monty. 

If Carlsberg made Ski Tours...

I have been in the South Tyrol of the Italian Alps this week with friends Simon, Gareth and Simon for a week of ski mountaineering. I had an epic drive down from North Wales last weekend in a big snow storm. The 80cm of fresh powder meant we delayed our tour by a day and hooned off piste from the lifts of Sulden on Monday. 

Tuesday saw us begin our tour proper and were lucky enough to have great visibility in the morning and fresh tracks on the 1000m ski down to the Zuffalhutte from the lifts of Sulden. The clouds came in after coffee at the hut which gave for a nice skin up to the Martellerhutte (2610m) which was our first nights stop. 

From the Martellerhutte we skinned up the Zuffallferner glacier with the intention of climbing the Zuffalspitz (3757m). I had a transceiver issue en-route which saw us dive down to a nearby hut to try and seek a replacement. I think it was caused by wearing my iPhone in my pocket next to the transceiver as once it had been left off for a bit and switched back on it seemed to be OK again, the iPhone lived in my rucksack from then on anyway. By the time we were back on track the weather had closed in so we missed the summit and descended to the Branca Hut via the Pizzini Hut. This gave an amazing descent on bottomless fresh powder surrounded by stunning peaks. 

The following day we enjoyed a day tour to climb another amazing summit but were beaten back my strong winds, no visibility and windslab about 200m from the summit. Nevertheless we had a great 1000m+ descent on fresh powder once more and a second night in the Branca Hut. 

On Friday we skinned up to the summit of Mt Pasquale (3553m) and enjoyed another amazing descent of the Vedretta di Cedec to the Pizzini Hut. 

Our final day saw us climb the Zuffalspitz (3757m) that had eluded us earlier in the week and we had a stunning bluebird day. The summit ridge is really quite narrow and felt an exciting place to be on skis, in ascent and descent and we enjoyed fresh powder again for nearly 2000m of descent back down to Sulden.

The week was incredible, staying at some fantastic huts, enjoying some great food and climbing some beautiful summits along the way too. Every descent gave us fresh tracks on incredible powder and despite some poor vis early in the week the weather just got better and better. As we sat and drank beer this afternoon in the sun the general agreement was it was the best week of skiing any of us had ever had. I am off to Chamonix for a couple of weeks now so fingers crossed for some more great weather! 

Off to the Alps

I am heading out to the Alps until the 14th April now for some ski touring and climbing. Email responses from me will be slow so apologies in advance but my wife Kate will be available for general enquiries on 01248 209576 (between 9:00am and 5:00pm) or email her on expeditionguidekate@gmail.com

The pile keeps on growing!

NEW MTUK Mountain Skills Courses

Next month sees the National launch of the new MTUK Hill & Mountain Skills courses and, never ones to miss out, we will be course providers here in Snowdonia. My interests lie in all things mountains so we will be leaving the hill skills courses for those people situated in the flatter parts of the UK and will be concentrating on the mountain skills.

The course is a 2 day syllabus that aims to give those people who have done some countryside walking the skills they need to aim higher into the mountains for the first time. The course looks at:

-Planning a route using maps and guidebooks
- Clothing and equipment overview and selection
- Introduction to different map scales
- How to set the map
- How to interpret contours
- How to interpret key symbols ie how to find a footpath, fence, stream etc
- How to plan and follow a route using paths and other key features
- How to plan and follow a route off the path
- How to estimate distance using pacing and timing
- How to navigate in poor or limited visibility
- How to use the compass
- How to re-orientate yourself if you do get lost
- Movement over steep gound (this is not a scrambling course but will give a gentle introduction)
- Mountain weather - how the weather affects our route planning and choice during the day
- Emergency procedures in case of an incident
- Choice and use of equipment including an element of use of GPS (I will demonstrate the role that GPS plays for me in my own navigation and we will look at the advantages and limitations of GPS units. You don't need a GPS unit but I will happily answer questions about yours if you bring it along.)
- Environmental knowledge and considerations

I have modified our existing and ever popular two day navigation course to ensure clients can benefit from this new format. If you wish to receive a certificate of attendance on this course you need to register in advance with MTUK.

Registration Cost:
Cost: £20 per person

Registration cost includes:
Access to the Mountain Training Digital Logbook
A copy of the 'Safety on Mountains' handbook
Certificate of attendance this course
Access to technical advice from Mountain Training

I have also incorporated the same two day program into our 5 day navigation and scrambling course and our 6 day mountain craft course so that people have a variety of different options to choose from.

If you are already booked onto one of our courses from the 26th April onwards you can register with MTUK now to benefit from a certificate of attendance, get your copy of the BMC book "Safety on Mountains"and gain access to the DLOG and technical advice from MTUK, just click this link: http://www.mountain-training.org/walking/awards/hill-and-mountain-skills

Driver Training

I have been out with the North Wales Police driving school today doing a response driver refresher course. This involved driving over 200 miles around North Wales, occasionally using blue lights and sirens in the comfort of one of our rescue team Land Rovers. Needless to say I ache a bit now :-)

Winter Mountaineering Thank You

Hi Rob

 

Thanks for the pictures and thanks for a great week. Myself & Mick had a really enjoyable and fun time. The three days we had in the mountains were more than we could of expected with great guides and great people. I would also like to thank yourself & Huw for being great company and for having patience with me & Mick. We will hopefully see you next winter in Scotland again if you & Huw would put up with us again.

 

Many Thanks & regards

 

Steve - Winter Mountaineering - March 2014

Thank You

Dear guys,

Thank you so much for such an amazing time in Scotland.  How lucky were we to sneak in those fantastic winter days climbing?  Just such outrageous fun, mixed with the right amount of challenge. 

Thank you for stunning days out.  I am on a high from what we did.  Roll on next winter.

Jude
Scottish Winter Climbing, March 2014