Life in the Vertical

Si Lake high up on Cripple Creek, Craig Doris.

I had rather an abortive day ‘climbing’ at porth ysgo. Actually was more just me lying in the sun with a hangover after getting too invovled in the highjinx in the Heights on Friday night. So I resigned myself to team photographer at chief of hogging the crash pads for sleeping purposes.

Llion, Katie and Matt climbed loads though. It was part Matt’s doing my state, although I was in the pub a few hours before him. Really good to see Matt back in the UK for a few weeks holiday. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to have brought the sun with him!

Then today after looking at the metoffice new site, which to be honest is some ways is better than the old site, however in many more ways it is utterly uselesss. The animations freeze, the data takes much longer to load and a whole host of other bugs including patently wrong weather predictions.

Anyway Si thought Craig Doris was the place to be, and I couldn’t find a reason why we shouldn’t go there so we headed down to the looseness. Si fired up Cripple Creek, a lovely line that I climb a few weeks back. Still nice to get out in the sun. After that it was my turn, and having backed myself into somewhat of a corner at Doris with only hard routes remaining. I ummmmed and errred, before racking up for a ‘look see’.

Now first of all, I had forgotten to bring my rack, which would have help swell our number of cams. Something which many of the routes need down here. Secondly, we only had the Ground Up selcetive guide. Which I have done most of the routes I can do in. Instead I looked at a line with a short steep start and a slabby finish. With absolutely no idea what its called or its grade.

I errred again, this time on the side of caution, and took what I thought to be the easy line. Basically up the left edge of teh slab before move right towards its centre. This is either Corned Dog a Stevie Haston E3 or a variation on it. Although I ran out of gear, and had to belay just below the top, forcing Si to do the top. Great route though.

Llion climbing at Porth Ysgo

Llion Popcorn Party

Matt Perrier aka Ug slaping his way along some slopers.

Matt on the classic Popcorn Party

More Popcorn Party action

Matt Perrier on Jaw Breaker

Alastair Lee from Posing Productions, has made a video from footage he shot at Crafnant. Apparently this is footage that has been on the metaphorical cutting room floor.

Me questing round to the headwall on the third pitch of Cream, Tremadog.

I have in my time climbed cream on a couple of occassions, although never believe it or not as a whole climb. I have cherry picked either the amazing 2nd pitch in the rain. As it remains dry. Similarly I have traversed in from Grim Wall to to the top. Today, I headed out with Si Lake who hadn’t climb the route before, so I offered him the harder better pitches, and I did the easy linking pitches.

What struck me today was how good the route is when you do it how the first ascentionist meant it to be climbed as a whole route. As unlike any other route I have climbed at Tremadog, it has a really big feel about it. Whilst at any point you could rap off it, the winding nature of the route, makes it feel like a journey rather than the usual roadside action.

Anyway Si did really well, and he only just failed on the crux headwall. Taking a lob in the ‘usual’ place! I knew his pain when he lobbed, as I faced exactly the same fate when I first tried it. After that we did Grim Wall Direct, as Si had to go back to being a dad.

Si psyching up for the Cream headwall!

On a bum not, after being warned about our behaviour at Tremdog. It seems that some climbers were not interested in being sensible. Deciding to have a fire and a few beers in the Vector Buttress Car Park. All well and good, but they could have tidied up after themselves!!! This mess was not there on thursday.

The Mess some climbers have left at the base of the Vector Buttress.

Si on Daddy Cool

Tremadog was the crag of choice today, headed there with Lakey, who is a new father. So I suggested we climb Daddy Cool, a great route that see’s few ascents. Probably because its goey for E2. He stormed up that, and I climbed the top pitch. On the descent I was reminded of Heartline an E2 on the Oakover Buttress.

I only climbed it at the tail end of last year so I let Simon do that. It was then my turn so again went for a less esoteric, but still not as popular as many route of its grade First Slip. I last climbed this with Tom, when I was at University the first time. Some 15 years ago now. Was a bit of a alzhiemers onsight until I got to the upper groove. Where I remembered the horror.

I opted for the less well protected balancy moves up the right arete, rather than trying to split myself in half by bridging up that blank looking groove! Great day out.

Heartline E2 Oakover Area Tremdog.

Me layback in a noce position on the second pitch of First Slip, Tremdog, Slips Area.

Me on the first pitch of First Slip, just about to gain the upper and harder groove. Tremadog

Graph of grade spreads for one of the areas, covered in North Wales Rock

Well, the North Wales Rock app, has been available on iPhone for around 6 months, and continues to gain momentum as people are paying to download this great new way to access topo and route information. In the back ground the app developer Steve and Laurence have been building the same app for the Andriod Operating System.

All there hard work is hopefully about to pay off, as the Andriod version is going through the last tweaks. So much so that the screenshots have been realised onto theSends facebook page. If like many Andriod users you have been waiting to see what all the fuss is about the wait is coming to an end. Hopefully this can be measure in weeks or days, rather than months.

If you’d like to know more visit the facebook page or theSend.co.uk. In the pipeline is a another app for North Wales Limestone, and Steve in collaboration with others is working on other projects. So if you needed an excuse to get a smartphone then this is it!

The topo with clickable numbers to reveal the route descitions of your chosen route.

I have seen on TV a few pieces about the founders of Google and film makers James Cameron investing in a project that aims to mine the moon.   Most TV programs have simply said that the project hopes to find gold and other precious metals. Similarly the techy blogs I read also point to this mining of the moon for precious metals.

To me though it never added up, why would some of the richest people in the world suddenly want to change tack and become ore miners on another planet. It simply doesn’t reflect the type of people these genius’ are. Similarly they probably already puke more money a day then most people make in a year.

Given that most tech companies are trying to become more environmentally friendly, and philantropy is reasonably well established in the industry. Like Bill Gates global fight against milaria. Tearing up the moon for some gold is a somewhat short sighted aim, that most media channels seem to think of as the only reason to mine the moon.

From a reasonably quick search of the internet we have brought back around 300kg from the moon, mainly by the 6 successful NASA apollo missions, although the Russians have also managed to bring back couple of hundred ‘grams’! So to certain extent we know that bringing rock back is possible.

It still doesn’t answer the question of why bring it back at all. If it was gold for instance there is a great fact or urban myth? That ton for ton there is more gold and precious metals in disgarded mobile phones and other electronic equipment that what we can find by digging up the raw ore. So surely refining/recycling these would be a better idea.

However there is one thing that moon rocks have that the earth does not. Protected by our atmosphere, the earth is inpregnable to an isotope of Helium called Helium-3. As such helium-3 is extremely rare on planet earth, but the lack of atmosphere means that many scientists beleive that there is an abundance of this Helium-3 in the surface layer of the moon, due to its build up over billions of years.

Why then are the worlds richest people wanting to get hold of Helium-3? Helium-3 is sort after for the research of nuclear fusion. As such it could be the new energy source. Yeilding much more energy than the nuclear fission we currently use, and potentially having fewer side effects like a legacy of nuclear waste that will haunt us for years to come.

My guess is that these rich guys aren’t trying to get richer, but use their wealth to fund a programme to attempt to make fusion possible. I am sure if it works they’ll also become even richer, but for now the money they are pumping into this embryonic project in a hope that they can help move us on from a reliance on fossil fuels.

In the words of a Ford car executive, ‘The stone age didn’t end because they ran out of stones!’

Oh, and sorry for the geeky nature and the only apparent link to climbing being ‘moon rocks’!

I spent a lovely day out on the hill, made even better by the appearance of that big shiny warm thing in the sky. That I haven’t seen for a while now. I choose to head up and around the Llanberis Path. Heading up left onto the ridge and picking points off as we traversed before contouring across to below Cloggy, for lunch in one of the ruined huts.

We headed off and focus on a few nav points using bearings before picking on the Llanberis Path, and traversing across to Telegraph Valley, to show Tomny where the path that he’s planning on walking comes down from.

Anyway lovely end to a few days at the grindstone.

Apparently the jetsream is out of place. Hence we are getting such awful weather. So awful that today I awoke to see the BBC and Met Office forecasts for snowdonia that included 70-80 mph gusts and snow falling down to 300m. A lovely day for teaching navigation then!

I met up with the group from various BMC clubs and Peak Mountaineering at 9am. We came up with a plan to get out there and get stuck in. No sooner had we left the hut, the snow started to pound us. The plan was to circumnavigate Tryfan, as there is some good navigation up to Blwch Tryfan, and then we’d see how we were doing.

Teaching is such weather is always interesting, as most people can cope up to a point, the trick is to decide when that point is reached. The group did really well. I didn’t envy Dan from PYB, who was going all the way over the tops back to the centre with his group. Head to wind, blizzards and driving rain, it was going to be a very ‘Scottish’ traverse for them!

We got the group to pick up points off the main path on the approach to the bwlch. By which time the snow had turned into a mini Blizzard, and the wind was starting to knock us about. As we headed up to the Bwlch, my mind was made up, as some of the group were switching off to the navigation, and focusing more on survival. So I made a call to head down early.

I always find these calls tough ones to make, but given the the weather had well and truly lived up to the forecast. After we walked back to the hut and had a brew, I offered to suit up for round two, yet somehow the group’s spirit had been dampened, I can’t think of what did that.

Anyway, the group covered a lot, and after yesterdays day nav, I met them at 9pm for a short night nav session. Where they all proved that they can take and walk on a bearing, as well as pace and use contours. I even managed to get them down for last orders in the Pen Y Gwryd, they were on holiday after all.

Well, I have had a fantastic day out with Peak Mountaineering, with a group who have signed up on a BMC climbign clubs Navigation course. We went over Crimpau, and did loads of micro nav today, the group did really well, and I am rapidally eating dinner ready to head back out for some night nav.

I think we’ll try and do a more mountain journey tomorrow, weather permitting.

If you’d like a navigation skills course then you can either find a course through Peak Mountaineering above, or visit my site Snowdonia Mountain Guides for a nav course.

Rope Rescue for Climbers

I was out yesterday at Holyhead mountain working on a rope rescue course for climber for Skylark Mountain Adventures. The weather was fairly awful, but we managed to find shelter in teh Alcove, and I got my vlients John and Andy to go through the skills they had learnt indoor the previous day, but in more contextual and realistic setting.

We started with a simple hoist each, John went for and assited hoist and andy for the unassisted hoist. After that we looked at the escaping the system, and adding a abseil down to retrieve the injured climber. We did a dry run on the ground before we headed to the top of teh cliff and went through the whole process once each.

It sounds incredible,  but that was when we ran out of time, so we head to South Stack Cafe for a debrief. Great day out, and the guys seemed to have got a lot out of their couple of days.

If you are keen for a Rope rescue course then I am sure Skylark are running another. Or of course you can go through Snowdonia Moutnain Guides, we have some dates in our diary or download our catalogue (Large PDF file). Alternatively if there are two or more of you, then we can run courses to order.

12th – 13th May 2012 Rope Rescue

21st – 22nd July 2012 Rope Rescue