Month: March 2009

I had to meet a friend who runs a small company Seren Venture this afternoon over at the Slate museum, so I could collect some equipment to run a scrambling course for him tomorrow. Looking outside the weather was stunning so I decided to down tools on the college work and go for an afternoon stroll with my camera. I haven’t been on a snapping stroll for a while.

What first hit me was the smell of spring in the air, its something to do with the air temperature reaching that critical level that you can smell the world regenerating. I am not sure what the smell is, but as the plants spring into life it seems to make the air sweeter than the previous months.

Passing the gorse the subtle smell of coconut emanates from the bright yellow flowers, whilst the rotting trees continue on their slow decay, and fresh buds are ready to burst into life as the daffodils start to show their yellow saucers and tea cups. It was a beautiful day so I thought I would share it with you.

I finally found enough energy after getting a dose of the flu that’s been going around to pick up the results from my verbal proposal at college. Based on the notion that I really didn’t know what I was doing, i managed to get 70%, which apparently in a master’s is quite good. To be honest a pass would be enough for, me as i am not used to being a high flyer!

Anyway I then spent an hour and a half with my supervisor going through my written proposal that’s due in next week. So I am now back to the grind stone with school work. At least it looks like I am a step closer to successfully passing my MSc. I am now surrounded by books, articles and thesis’ on imagery and relaxation, and have a lot of re-writing to do to hopefully get a good mark rather than a pass!

My main problem is i have a non-academic background, in that i haven’t been to school in years and my undergrad degree was arts based, not science. As such my scientific writing skills need a little development, and I have only got 4 days to achieve that for the written part of my research proposal!

Hopefully soon I’ll get to start to carry out the experiment, collect the data, analyze it and write up my thesis. Then its job done! I’ll find out the results a year from now!

The picture postcard view of Kilimanjaro, is attracting more people than ever!

I have just read an article by Ed Douglas, one of the best mountain writers in the UK, the article was in the guardian, and well worth the trip over there for the read. Ed as usual finds the ethical story behind the story. Highlighting the dramatic rise in enquiries to scale Kilimanjaro, and points out that a) it is a high and serious mountain and b) the porters are poorly treated.

All I really wanted to do here was direct you to this excellent piece, it would be good if something positive about the lives of the porters could come of this event. After all that was the main point of the BBC Big Red Nose Climb to improve the living conditions of those in the African Continent, albeit trying to prevent Malaria.

1990’s Rack – Courtesy of Mike Raine

Well I saw this image in my house mates slide collection, and firstly wanted it to illustrate my coaching book, however it seemed priceless and worthy of a mention on here that he used to ground up new routes in Pembroke up to E4 with that rack. It seems rather pitiful by today’s standards. I think I have carried a bigger rack on a sport route on the Ormes than he had as his entire rack back then!

Its no wonder there is a decrease in the grade of routes all the time, I carry way more gear now, so can get in twice the amount of runners, such is the yellow belly approach I have to climbing. I often don’t leave the ground without 21 wires, some RPs, every size cam from 00 to 3 in quarter sizes, 14+ Quickdraws and enough slings to sink a battleship.

Just imagine how hairy it was when all you had was a hemp rope, a couple of rope slings, one or two carabiners and some native stones! The rule of the leader never fell was enforceable by heinous consequences. I always think of this on Javelin Blade climbed in !920 by ‘mistake’, and I bet Jack Longland thought he’d was on holiday by mistake when he swung right onto the arete about 30-40ft out from the last natural chock stone. Today you get a reasonable micro-wire just before you have to commit!

I can hear the old timers saying ‘back in the day’ already! Yeah, back in the day we knew how to take risks, the modern climber don’t know what true commitment is, blah, blah, blah! Truth is modern climbers aren’t as stupid as there latter day counter-parts. We’ve wised up and therefore live longer, climb harder and in the process have just as much fun.

Well last night I went round to help celebrate a friends 40th birthday, I am not sure what was worse the fact he was forty or the fact that I am now old enough to have friends who are 40. Anyway as predictable these things revolve around alcohol, the fact that everyone brought a bottle for the guys ‘celebrating’ said two things a) he is a known drinker, b) all his friends are known for a drink or two or three!

When I arrived I was handed a beer and offered a margarita, which based on the amount of lemon and limes available seemed like a great way to fend of the cold that has been threatening to take over my body for a few days now. All that was missing from my daytime drink was the honey, so having one or two seemed like harmless fun and a great way to fortify my vitamin C further.

It was after the first four or was it five that I offered to make one and suddenly realised what I had done to myself, with a shot of tequila and cointreau. So mixing myself a final one for the road I look forward to the morning after the night before, when I have to head into the hills for an ML rope day.

I awoke with both a minor hangover and a mild dose of the flu, which made the day more interesting that it should normal be, fortunately the distance covered was minimal, and the day one In have done probably hundreds of times before!

So the moral of the story is whilst a margarita might have lemon and lime and offer a vitamin C boost, a large quantity of them are not a cure for colds! Hurray for Beechams cold and flu, that’s all I can say.

For those not old enough to remember these beauties, the 80’s saw a revolution in dye technology allowing neon colours to be produced for the first and sadly not the last time. I would like to think that it was just my dad that wore these crimes of fashion. However they were £1 for 5 pairs down Maidstone market when I was a kid growing up, so it wasn’t like I had much choice.

Much to my absolute shock my dad wore neon socks up to his death in the late 1990’s, but if you saw my ‘fashion’ sense then most people will currently be having a light bulb moment, ‘so thats where he gets the bad taste from!’. Anyway there are various reasons that you can validly wear a pair of neon socks, and that it to go to a 80’s retro party. Beyond that even if they come back into fashion, like bell bottom flairs, think twice before reliving this aweful look.

With any luck the Neon Sock will drop into the annuals of history along with the like of climbing in tight leopard skin or neon lycra leggings. Viva la 80’s.

Well I have been working through the photos that I need to complete my Book for Pesda Press, and it looks like there are a couple of images that i am in need of, these include a shot of Stanage Popular End looking busy, and someone on Quietus. I won’t bne able to pay for the images but would credit you and see whether I can get a copy of the book for you from the publisher.

If you can help contact me here.

Well known for my cynicism of just about everything I set about watching “Kilimanjaro: The Big Red Nose Climb”, with the idea that i was going to laugh at over hyped climbing the killer mountain. However the whole Chris Moyles crew did really well, and I should commend them for their effort as well as the amount of cash that they raised for Children in Need. What really struck me was that they basically showed that even a fat bastard like Moyles can walk up a very high mountain given enough determination.

I heard that they raised £2.5 million for Red Nose day, however I thought they could have made more money if we could have voted to save members of the party. I would have spent a fortune on keeping Sheryl Cole on the programme. Seeing her roughed up and unwashed was a relief as she had an more human sexy appeal, rather than the usual air brushed perfection. If she’s got into hillwalking I am available for guiding, if she’s separate from husband Ashley following his recent arrest whilst she was on the hill, then I am available for dating! Moving on from my Sheryl stalking.

The final summit push was rather funny, as it was more like the march of the Zombies than a fun charity walk, however the 75 mph winds they described seemed a little over the top. In fact based on my extensive knowledge the fact they were still stood up meant that it wasn’t that speed. I guess it must have been African rather than the European mph, as Monty Python would say!

Anyway a great effort, it would be great to think that a few more people will decide that they are capable of getting fit on the hill and do it responsibly like Chris Moyles, who came up for a training weekend on Snowdon during the middle of the black patch when walkers were dropping of the mountain like flies, and they managed to get up and down the hill in totally safety with an appropriately qualified instructor looking after them and teaching them the skills.

I give the programme and the Kilimanjaro: The big red nose climb team the thumbs up, which is rare for anything involving celebrities, mountains and television.

If you’d like to sponsor the team then try here

A Car Park that is soon to be made into a Pay and Display. This photo was taken at 8am on a weekday morning last week.

Well I have been totally blown away with the general lack of consideration for the tourist industry that Gwynedd Council seems to have. Generally they have a anti-tourism policy, where they have for some time seemed to do as much as possible to make visitors to what is one of the most wonderful places in the UK not only difficult but at times seemingly insurmountable.

At its worst they will seemingly deliberately send a traffic warden out on on weekend and bank holidays during the summer months only, to target the tourists. Giving the lovely message of hello, welcome to wales, now F! off. Whilst there idea was to make the ‘turn over’ of people parking in the high street greater to get more people in the village, it occassionally take more than 45 minutes to eat in Pete’s Eats during the busiest summer days, let alone enjoy a casual hour or so cruising the high street and shops.

Recently they have added a double yellow lined the Lakeside Lay by, in doing so reduced the total number of vehicles that can park there by at least 10, which may not seem that many, but given that no locals can park near there houses on the high street, means that it is usually part full with locals.

To add injury to insult, and I have to admit that I do park here, so I am biased, but Gwynedd Council now want to charge for parking in every car park in the Llanberis Area. I don’t mean to be funny but they are seemingly oblivious to the tourists, as well as the locals who already have nowhere to park. However, now faced with either pay for somewhere to park or carry on travelling through, my worry is that tourism will fall off and an industry/high street that is already struggling will basically become a ghost town. Do they not realise we are already in the middle of a recession so now is not the time.

What Llanberis needs is more free parking not wall to wall pay and displays, and a council that realises that tourism is the back bone of our economy. They seem to have forgotten the lessons learnt from foot and mouth, and the importance of the Adventure Tourism Industry in North Wales.

Very Subtle planning notices, I would be interested if they are actually in an appropriate place?

LLMRT rescuing a car from Pen Y Pass Car Park

Well, my beeper, beep today, and for once I was actually in and able to head out on the hill, rather than be at work the next day or actually at work. (Un)fortunately I had left my beeper on vibrate and my phone in the van last night so when the first rescue job came through I was safely and obliviously in bed asleep, it was only when I got up to wish my mum a Happy 60th birthday, and yes I did get her a card in time and me and my brothers have chipped in for a joint present; that i realised that I had missed a callout.

Anyway, when later in the day the beeper buzzed again I was busy writing up my bibliography for my research proposal, not a job that I was overly keen to do, so any other activity was way more interesting than finding citations. So I got to walk up Crib Coch in thick hill fog to rescue a couple of hapless fellows who had bitten off more than they can chew. The picture above is the third rescue of the day, when we had to bump start the car of the guys we had already rescued, as if they weren’t embarassed enough!

There were vicious rumours circulating the North Wales Media that this mornings casualties had been suffering from altitude sickness. I mean just how dumb are journalists? Altitude sickness on Snowdon, almost as bad as having a hill allergy!