Dog Weekend

Descending Lliwedd at 2:30am

I have been out with SARDA Wales for the last 3 days. It has been an assessment weekend and congratulations are due to Helen & Cluanie, Sally & Spin, Jim and Star and Simon & Poppy who all passed their assessments! I spent a day and a half observing the assessments and the rest of the time doing some training with Skye. I was also out with the Llanberis MRT last night until 3:00am this morning helping to rescue two climbers stuck on Lliwedd in the snow so feeling tired now!

Mera Peak Video

Start of the winter conditions reports?

It seems very early in the year to start the winter conditions reports but there is snow on the mountains! I took the dog for a walk this morning up the Miners track on Snowdon to the causeway and took these photos on the way. At the moment we only have a light dusting but there are rumours of more to come over the next couple of nights and it looks very pretty.

Mera Peak, Nepal

On the 15th October I let for Nepal with five clients who have all done several other summer and winter courses and trips with me. For all of us it was a first trip to the mighty Himalaya and we had all trained hard, met up for a weekend in North Wales in the summer together and spent hard earned money on the necessary kit. For my own part I had organised all of the logistics through a local operator including the hiring of 1 trekking Sherpa, two climbing Sherpas, 6 porters, kitchen staff, tea houses, internal flights, climbing permits, national park permits and so the list went on. It was therefore with a certain amount of excitement that we all met up in Kathmandu. Five of us travelled out together with Lynda arriving a day early.

We left beautiful sunny weather at home and arrived in peak trekking season to find heavy rain and a backlog of flights from Kathmandu to the famous airstrip of Lukla (2880m) that has become the start of the trekking approach into mountains of Nepal. The small Twin Otter planes only fly in good weather after some nasty accidents in poor conditions. We were lucky to catch a flight early the very next day, squeezing between high passes and low clouds and enjoying the spectacular landing on a runway that is seemingly perched on the side of the mountains themselves, and so our trek began.

Rosie, Lynda, Mick, Joe, Paul and I trekked for the best part of two weeks to the Mera La, base camp for Mera Peak at 5400m. The first week saw heavy rain each afternoon and strenuous walking over high passes and through beautiful forests as we steadily gained height. We took the longer approach to allow an average height gain of 300m to 400m a day with a couple of rest days for good measure. I am sure that each of us will have our own highlights of this first week, it was a week of immersing ourselves into the local way of life and appreciating where we were. It was the end of the local harvest and the tourist season was now in full swing but the approach that we took was still quiet with just us and one other group for company. Once we left Lukla we said goodbye to electricity and immersed ourselves in the world of water purification and open fires for warmth and cooking.

At the end of our second day we arrived at the village we were to be staying in to find that our Sherpas choice of tea house was closed. Tea houses are basic forms of accommodation. They vary from offering twin rooms (with paper thin wooden walls!) to more basic dormitory style accommodation. They have a dining/living room which is often based around a wood burning stove. We measured the quality of the tea house on the length of the stoves flue. If the flue went all of the way up and out of the room then it was a high quality tea house. More often than not the flue would stop at above head height.
The Sherpas disappeared off around the village until they came back to say that another tea house had been found. We dutifully followed on to a lovely old stone and timber building where it soon became obvious that the owners had not been expecting 6 Westerners. Nonetheless we were ushered into the family kitchen, sat by the fire with a cup of butter tea and watched as fresh vegetables were brought in from the land outside and a fine meal was prepared over the open fire. We were even given an impromptu tour of the families Buddhist temple!

As we travelled we enjoyed meeting the people in the villages along the way. Young children would always welcome us with a cheerful Namaste whilst older children, men and women would be busy crushing corn, collecting firewood, building, tending to crops etc but would still offer a friendly smile and greeting.

Many an evening throughout the trip Porters would get together in their own basic accommodation and would sing songs to the beat of a drum for hours at a time. I know its a cliche but these men worked incredibly hard, carrying loads of upto 30 Kilos and wearing nothing more than trainers on their feet over high passes and down steep slopes.

The second week saw us enter the main Hinku valley and as we did so the weather improved to give blue sky days and fine views of the snow capped peaks that surrounded us. For me it felt great to be in the mountains proper, above the tree line and fully able to soak up the mountain scenery. The trekking also got easier as each day we simply went up, there was no dropping down steep passes to head back up the other side. Again we made slow and steady progress allowing for a couple of days rest along the way before finally reaching the village of Khare which sits at 4900m and is the final stop before base camp. Our Sherpas were pretty keen to make the most of the weather window for our summit bid and so with everyone feeling strong we had an acclimatisation day up to Base Camp (5400m) and back to Khare before making our summit bid.

We decided to skip base camp and head directly to high camp (5800m) the following day. This had several advantages as it meant less time on the glacier for the porters, less time for us suffering in high camps, better food and sleep down in the village of Khare and a better chance of the weather staying in our favour for our summit bid. It also meant that we avoided the busy weekend summit push.

The week of rain that we had experienced at the start of our trip had fallen as snow on the mountains. From Khare upwards the majority of the route is glaciated and all of the fresh snow combined with the recent end of the monsoon season meant that the glacier travel was safer and easier than in some years. The snow bridges over the crevasses were well formed and the passage of many feet before us meant that there was a good track in place for us to enjoy.

As we made our way up to High Camp Mick felt tired and groggy and so made the decision to head back down. We had already helped treat two Porters from other teams who were suffering from Acute Mountain Sickness that had developed into HAPE in one case and so all recognised the risks in not listening to what our bodies were telling us. I dropped down part of the way with Mick and then caught the others back up on the way to high camp.

As we enjoyed a brew we shared the company of fellow Brit climbers Andy Houseman and Tony Stone. We had met up each day for the last couple of days as they acclimatised for a new route on nearby Kyasher - read more here. The views from High Camp are stunning and we could see Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu and many more awesome peaks that made us question whether we were actually here or had we been super imposed into a mountaineering calendar of the worlds highest peaks.

Once in the tents my head started pounding and I delighted my fellow tent mates by vomiting all over the back door! With an hour of daylight left I decided to lose some height as Mick had done earlier. I was closely followed by Tony who was the same colour as me!

The following morning after a breezy night at High Camp Lynda, Rosie, Joe and Paul headed for the summit (6,461m) on two ropes with our climbing Sherpas Gadget and Nima. Both Sherpas had climbed the mountain many times before and the guys and girls had the luxury of 1:2 guiding. Joe got very close to the summit but headed down with numb feet whilst the other 3 topped out to some amazing views under a perfect blue sky. Special thanks go to Andy who offered his armpits to Lyndas cold hands at one point!

We re-grouped back at the village of Kote where two more Westerners and a climbing Sherpa were all evacuated by helicopter suffering from AMS and HAPE. Here we enjoyed a day of rest together, eating and drinking and soaking up the sun. I don't think I have ever eaten so many eggs in one day as I did on that rest day, scrambled, boiled, fried I could not get enough!

Our route back took us out over the high pass of the Zatrwala (4600m) which took us two days. It was amazing to think that during our first week we had crossed a pass the height of the Matterhorn, in our second week we were on Mera Peak itself and then in the third week just to leave the valley we had to climb back up to a height just below the summit of Mont Blanc. The final nights tea house was pretty low on the flue scale. The stove was very smoky (the flue finished well short of the roof), the roof leaked and snow regularly blew the entire length of the hut. We were lucky to meet up with some French Canadian trekkers who somehow had an over supply of Toblerone! They kindly donated a couple of bars to the 6 Brits that seemed transfixed on the shiny wrappers!  When we awoke for our final days trekking were stepped outside to several inches of fresh snow, blue skies and a stunning cloud inversion. The crampons were needed one last time in descent and we headed to Lukla for sizzling steaks and beer!

We got lucky with the flights from Lukla again and arrived in Kathmandu with a few spare days. We stayed in a former Palace with swimming pool and enjoyed a couple of days of feeding ourselves up, swimming and sightseeing in the lively Thamel district of the city. A highlight for me was a Rickshaw race across town to the Everest Steak House!

For all of us it was a brilliant trip, offering 24 days of adventure in many forms and an insight into a different cultures way of life. We all spent the last day discussing the next trip! I have just put a few nice photos into this Blog entry. The rest will be on the gallery page and on my Facebook page by the end of the week once I catch up on 3 weeks of emails and phone calls! Oh and theres also snow on the mountains as an added distraction!

Mera Peak Team back in Kathmandu

We are all back in sunny Kathmandu now after two and a half weeks in the mountains. We have all had a great trip and a full report with photos will follow next week when I get back. Of my 5 clients all broke their previous altitude records, three summited at 6476 metres, no one got anything worse than a cold and all have returned safe, happy and with all of their fingers and toes!! We now have a few days to chill out and put the weight back on! We have had a mixture of weather and there was a lot of snow on the mountain but now the sun is shining nicely and we can enjoy a spot of sunbathing.

Blue Skies and sunshine

I am heading off to Nepal on Friday and so have taken this week off to make final preparations and to rest a bit and eat a lot before I go. The weather here in North Wales has been stunning and so I have been out every afternoon doing some bouldering and dog walking, making the most of the crisp autumnal sunshine and colours. Now back to squeezing too much into a bag that is too small!

Cwm Idwal Scrambling

The weather forecast predicted very high winds today and the clouds were certainly scudding nicely over the top this morning. Simon and I decided to stay low and shelter from the South Easterlies by climbing North West Face Route & The Idwal Staircase (2), abseiling into the foot of Seniors Gully (1) which we then scrambled up and then up the Cneifion Arete (3). The plan worked well and we had a great day out with no rain and no wind to contend with. On the way home I helped out on a Rescue of a man stuck on Crib Goch. Another great day out.

East Ridge of Y Garn

I have been joined for two days by Simon who wanted to progress from grade 1 scrambling onto grade 2 and 3 ground. We decided to head up the East Ridge of Y Garn (2) and spent the morning basking in the sunshine as we scrambled up this lovely route. The scrambling gets ever more interesting as you gain height and the colours in the views were stunning. We topped out and enjoyed the summit panorama before descending to tea at the cafe.

Bastow Gully Buttress, Tryfan

Today Jim, Ian and I headed up Tryfan via Bastow Gully Buttress (2/3). The guys lead the route for themselves with me alongside and we then scrambled up the North Ridge to the summit and descended the West Face. It was great to see the culmination of the last few days work as the boys lead the route safely and efficiently and as a self contained unit. We even managed to stay dry today and enjoyed some lovely views in the autumnal sunshine.

Idwal Slabs

10 minutes later!!

For the second day of our advanced scrambling learn to lead course Ian and I were joined by Jim who is on my mentor scheme. We wanted to look at placing gear and building belays and so went to the Idwal Slabs and climbed Ordinary Route. The guys lead two pitches each for themselves with me alongside before the heavens opened and the Slabs turned into a waterfall! I lead us to the top of the route and then the guys took over for the scramble off and down. Glad of a hot shower tonight!

Advanced Scrambling - learning to lead

I have been joined for 3 days by repeat client Ian for an advanced scrambling learn to lead course. Today we were also joined by repeat client Andy who wanted to do his first grade 2/3 scramble. We parked in the Llanberis Pass and scrambled up the Clogwyn Y Person Arete. We took the grade 3 line throughout with me leading the first half and then soloing alongside Ian as he lead the upper half. We then made our way across Crib Y Ddysgyl (1) and down the Cwm Glas Ridge (1). Following the recent pattern it was wet this morning and brighter this afternoon but a good breeze has given the short term effect of sun burn!

Cwm Idwal Scrambling

Mark, David, Albert and I headed up Seniors Gully today. It was pretty wet this morning and the guys wanted to do some more grade 1 scrambling and look at emergency use of the rope. We looked at how to use the rope to protect a second in ascent and descent and how to abseil using a rope only. It brightened up as the day went on so that we appreciated some lovely afternoon sunshine.

Private Guiding - Tryfan

I have been joined for the weekend by repeat client Mark who has brought his Dad (David) and his Dads friend (Albert) for a weekends introduction to scrambling here in Snowdonia. It has been a very pleasant day today with the wind staying under control and no rain at all. This time of year often brings crisp skies and we had some lovely views set off by the gorgeous autumnal light. We scrambled up Little & North Gullies on Tryfan and descended its North Ridge, along the way we looked at some movement coaching, risk assessments and controls on steep ground and some coping mechanisms for dealing with exposure. It was not too busy and we had a very enjoyable day out.