Inspiring Your Outdoor Adventures
Mountains are like an addiction. The more you climb them the more you want. The need to feel the cold biting wind on your skin or the sun on your face. The desire to walk until you’ve reached the top and to just keep going.
Continue reading “Finding my project”
Best laid plans….
Not only did we not leave for the summit at 2.45am as planned but we spent all evening trying our hardest to weigh down the tents to prevent us sliding off the ledges. Around 8pm the wind picked up and was gusting at around 70-80mph, it was scary to hear it coming towards us like a steam train as it headed up the valley and across the glacier. I’ve been in tents in high wind before and even had them collapse on me, but never in such an isolated and precarious spot.
Our three team tents had been secured to the ledges by rocks pinning down the corners and the guy lines. During the night our tent had come unpinned at one corner and we had slide about a foot towards the edge of the ledge. Sharing a tent with our leader Natalie sounds like a good idea initially, to not have to be on my own and share body warmth in the cold and have conversation too. But Natalie as leader felt obliged to go and check the other team tents throughout the night, so at certain points I went from being cuddled in my sleeping bag to keep warm, to doing my best star-shaped ballast impression as I tried to prevent the tent from blowing away Wizard of Oz style.
Continue reading “Mera Peak – day 11 – High winds at high camp”
Happy Christmas from High Camp!!
I’m so excited to be at 5900m and sleeping here for the night. Although I’m also wrecked and my appetite has finally left me.
We woke to gorgeous sunshine at our camp on the Mera La, a fantastic start to Christmas day.
Its Christmas Eve and I’m sleeping in a tent on the Mera La Glacier at 5400m!!
We left Khare this morning early and the walk up to the edge of the glacier took till lunch – its steep and rocky and in our mountaineering boots was really hardwork. There has been rockfalls in the last year so we had to wind through scree and boulders to reach the glacier rather than take a direct route.
I still suck at climbing. I’ve yet to build the strength and guts to get good at it. Despite that, after about 5 years of stop-start efforts this year I have been climbing more or less weekly, and I finally feel I can say – ‘I climb’.
On the road to becoming someone who can call herself a climber I’ve met some truly inspirational women. Women who don’t need to prove themselves and are bold enough to share their love of the sport with others. Of course there’s a lot of women who are just as ego driven as the men who climb – you know the ones – skimpy clothing, ripped torso and super toned arms with an aloof demeanour, just google ‘women climbers’ and you’ll see what I mean (that stereotype applies to the men as much as the women!) But there are equally just as many willing to help, teach and encourage women who wouldn’t otherwise consider climbing to be their thing.
Continue reading “Gender shouldn’t matter in climbing”Knowing that Saturday was going to be wet we planned a great Friday for our final day in the Dolomites, heading to Corvara, a town recently expanded around the ski industry with shiny new ski lifts and outdoor shops and cafes catering for the Apre skier. It’s certainly a contrast to Cortina with its alpine war history, 1950s Winter Olympic legacy and 1960’s James Bond style ski lifts in Cortina. (See the Marino Bianchi route for an example!)
Having decided the Piz da Lech route in Corvara looked suitable challenging in the rockfax guide we headed up the two ski lifts to the bottom of the crag. (In particular the photo of the traverse across the rock face taken from the view of the cable looked impressive and had me simultaneously excited and crapping it!)
Heading up the ski lift to the Cinque Torri, the group of more than 5 towers that lies on the south slopes of Falzarego Pass above Cortina, we were finally having a day of proper climbing and not via ferratas. A day without the safety of the cable on the rock.
Having me in toe (or is that tow?) we headed to Torre Terza to do an easy multi pitch up the route ‘via normale’ followed by one of the ‘school of rock’ sport routes. Whilst the multi pitch trad route had a great abseil off it was really a scramble route and not climbing, but as a group of three it did give us chance to watch and listen to the other climbers in this small arena, all shouting and swearing at one another as they climbed through the mist up the rock spires.
I’ve said before that I’m not a good climber, but always keen to have a go at something new and not one to turn down a holiday, I jumped on the chance to have a go at via ferratas in the Dolomites when invited to Italy with friends.
So having arrived in Cortina and pitched my tent, we headed off to do an easy introduction to via ferratas on the Marino Bianchi route just east of Cortina. Graded a 2b, means it is easy and also close to civilisation – the route is very easy to access from the top of the ski lifts and the Refugio Lorenzi. For route description check out this link.
I’ve just started regularly climbing again with a good friend and its taken the last 7 weeks for me to regain my confidence to really start to push my grade. It doesn’t help that Cath is fitter, more agile and braver than me but she’s a great confidence booster so good to climb with. I’m not the type who like climbing with cocky alpha males, I don’t like the competitiveness. I climb for fun and as a personal challenge. I’m not interested in egos.
Continue reading “Progressing from knees to elbows”I have to start this post by stating that I am not a climber. I have dabbled indoors, but having never had a consisted partner to climb with I rarely manage the local climbing wall. I do however lack the ability to turn down a good offer and the chance to do something new, irrespective of the level of pain or humiliation it might cause.
Armed with brimming optimism and boundless ignorance I set off to North Wales with two friends (both very good climbers). I’d made them well aware of my lack of ability so thought nothing more of it, we are all Mountain Rescue team members so they’d understand I was being serious, right? A few training walls and perhaps I’d be left to potter off on my own for the afternoon while they tackled something more interesting? How wrong I was.
Saturday kicked off with what was going to be an epic walk of the Ogwen valley’s ridges, tackling the North face of Tryfan (a particular favourite of mine as I do like scrambling) and then onto Y Gribin ridge to ascend the Glyders and back down Bristly Ridge. I was happy with this, scrambling is loads of fun.
We headed off in typical North Wales murky weather and started our ascent up Tryfan.
