As I haven’t been working I have managed to get out and about and get some climbing in, although nothing too hard. In the main I have visiting so obscure crags like the gesail and Craig Wen. Despite the weather I did manage a few night climbing this week. A quick rainbow circuit got five routes in the bag, a beacon session during the rain and today I was at Craig Wen, having been allowed an early finish from the Pen Y Pass Cafe.
The crag is one of the first in the new ogwen guide that had a new topo, so has literally been pushed kicking and screaming into this new decade. It is a lovely place, and before teh guide was published I don’t think I ever saw anyone climb there. Today there were 10 people at the crag!
However I did find it interesting that both here and on its neighbouring crag there were several errors in the topos and grades. HOALT for instance is never HVS 5a, the moves low down would warrant 5b or even 5c, and it would still be a tough E1. The topo line is way off on the top section. Direct Route HS is also undergraded, I climbed the crux on another route and it was a good VS move, interestingly the topo line for Zig-Zag the VDiff that goes up and across the crag is shown going up this step!
There are similar problems with the neighbouring crag with the VDiff being drawn on the topo going up the VS! It seems that whilst the CC guidebooks might be moving towards the 21st Century with colour topo’s, it is a shame that the lines seem to have been drawn in at random., and perhaps the route checkers were far better climber than they think they are. Despite this the crag is worth visiting, although it is the first time I have had to use the new ogwen guide, and I found it a complete disappointment to have to be adding my own correction.
Topo lines drawn at random isn’t just a CC problem to be honest. Jack’s guidebook has a couple of corkers in it. In particular you have got to check out where he drew the original top pitch of Christmas Curry going, I had to stop reading it there. Although the main reason was I did have to give my copy back to the friend I robbed it from, as I have yet to receive my free copy for supplying images for the book. To be honest I haven’t checked whether I have been paid yet either (maybe I should shut up!).
Back to slagging the CC, there latest plan, after being told by the BMC national Council that using the BMC £1 million cash surplus to loan climbing clubs money to repair their huts wasn’t a good use of money came back with a proposal that would see us lend the CC money to buy a new hut (well one they have been leasing) with BMC money. Will BMC individual member be able to stay there? Apparently not. It was one guy that has come up with this idea, he happens to be the treasurer of both the CC and the BMC, if any of you are into conspiracy theories! Someone needs to tell him its BMC not HSBC. Hopefully the national council will vote this idea down. However due to the amount of wasted volunteer time spent discussing these proposal, I am proposing that there is a fee leveed to anyone proposing to use the BMC’s money as a bank, of 50p per individual member, as I don’t want to hear it anymore!
Happy climbing any errors in guidebooks i would love to hear them. My personal favourite was the last Slate guide which saw Poetry Pink downgraded from E5 to E4, but the intro text still saying ‘Low in the Grade’.
Well my computer has died, well i am hoping that its just the battery as £1000 is at least a months worth of the states gone! Besides my plan to save has hit a bit of a hurdle as my main employer the Brenin appears to be very quiet at the moment, what with the recession and a new budget that seems to have the UK on the brink of ruin, with thousands of people looking down the barrel of redundancies its not surprising that work is thin on the ground. Its been two months since I did any work there!
Its not just the Brenin, I have heard on the grapevine that at the Association of Head of Outdoor Education Centre last meeting that it is a mini crisis that is hitting the industry. With LEA centres appearing to be hit as schools try and find savings, it would appear that Outdoor Education will be one of the big losers. Even before this happened Llanrug OEC was already on thin ice, and if we are not careful there may well be a moritorium on any number of the OEC that North Wales houses. There are 10 I can think of, off the top of my head and probably more. All these places employ not only instructors but cleaning and cooking staff.
A brief chat with a owner of a ‘adventure’ attraction drove home the fact that times are getting hard. As they are having to work twice as hard to get the same amount of work they got last year!
Outdoor Education did a lot for me, and speak to any number of young adults and many of them remember the residential and outdoor ed trips with a fondness and see it as a having tangible benefits to the real world, be it personal and social skills, or learning that nerves and fear are part and parcels of life, or simply the skills of looking after themselves when mum or dad isn’t there. There are so many reasons that outdoor education should keep its funding.
On the flip side there seems to be more and more work/money being thrown at ‘Youth at Risk’ and naughty kids. I often run into or chat to friends where two adults to one child ratio is the norm. Hundreds of thousands is ploughed into this end of the market. It seems counter intuitive to me as if you reward any behaviour that behaviour will become reinforced and strengthened. So how taking a kid thats been naughty and treating them to a two month all in holiday in the hands of two instructors just seems criminal. Bang them up and spend the money on the good kids who should be rewarded and not punished by taking funding away from Outdoor education.
Julia Bradbury helping make the outdoors a place to be seen. I do have a picture of her working with teh LLMRT, but still can't upload them.
I was searching for some info on a totally unrelated thin, but my search of blogs and climbing brought up this. I can imagine that it would have been a surreal experience for the climbing wall and instructors. Although I have recently seen various Celeb’s in and around Snowdonia over the last few years.
Barry on Snowdon Raising money for his charity, He was guided by local guide and LLMRT member Rob Johnson, click teh image to visit his website
Barry Mcwigan completing a walking challenge, The whole bunch of celebs up Snowdon for charity, before heading over to Kili.
Kate Silverton and Maj Phil Packer on SnowdonCelebrities do Killi!
and of course Brad Pitt has been around climbers for years!
The Modern Three Peaks Challenge is a challenge that more often than not looks at raising money for charity by a team of walkers ascending the three highest peaks in Britain within 24 hours. The event has a long history, and there are thoughts that it goes back to the 1960’s. The best known challenge before the road challenge, was the Three Peaks Yacht Race, who even knows this happens anymore?
This event was develop by two Doctors based in Barmouth, former home of the great Bill Tillman. A highly decorated British Explorer and Mountaineer, renowned for his Sailing and Himalayan mountaineering. Rob Haworth, had been friends with Tillman, and had come up with a way to spend his holidays doing a ‘mini Hillman adventure’. Discussing his plan with the partner at his GP Practice, the pair conceived it as a race.
The first race took place in 1977 and continues to this day, it is quite an undertaking to this day. With the only rules to restrict the size of crew, no other transport, no engines other than for coming ashore, and originally boots on the land, although now it is accepted that fell running shoes are more than likely the footwear of choice.
From teh Mersey venture website, that is trying to gather info on early 3 Peakers here, Success on the Three Peaks back in 1956!
Of course it is likely that somebody somewhere attempted an earlier three peak challenge, prior to 1977 race. They were however very different affairs to to the modern event, early challengers faced the harder challenge of making ferry crossings, poorer infrastructure, cars that simply weren’t as reliable or fast and of course equipment that even by some of today’s less well equipped teams, was basic at best.
However, the early challengers were of course mountaineers or assisted by them. What the modern challenger brings to the hill is little more than a bunch of enthusiasm and a bag full of kit they have been told they need. Insisting that every team has a map and compass is all very good, but not knowing how to use it means they might as well have a roll of bog paper and an iPhone to twitter there progress to there family, friends and colleagues at home.
Now there are two main ways that groups complete the three peaks, the first is via a reputable company who effectively help the groups with logistics and safety on the hill. These companies charge each group a price, and one that I have worked for arranges many weekends by focusing on different sectors of the business world. One week might be banks, another construction, etc… What you get for the entry fee is a organisation that arranges safety marshalls on the hill, cut off times, safety equipment and two way radios for each team.
The Marshalls are experienced local mountaineers or instructors, these guys basically sit out on the hill in key locations and check all the routes up and back down the mountain, can administer basic first aid and can advise when the conditions are simply too dangerous on the peaks. If there is a problem they can also help raise the local mountain rescue teams, if and only if they are required, and this is a point I will revisit later.
The other type of three peak challenger is the independent group, who simply get three maps and a SatNav and go for it. There is no checking on individuals equipment, no monitoring progress and no organised safety net. If something goes wrong, which recently can be simply it rained or there was low cloud, then they will just call 999 and get local rescue teams to come to there aid. Now of course they are more than free to do that, after all its what the teams are there for.
However, some of these groups are raising £100000’s for big charity’s, charity’s that probably have millions in the bank. Yet these independent groups are using local Mountain Rescue Teams as ‘safety cover’, and these teams aren’t rich, they often struggle to balance the books, and end up spending more money rescuing these weekend warriors, who are dangerously loaded with the mindset of the summit and bugger the consequences. In the hands of inexperienced walkers, who don’t know how to look after themselves on a hill, and with little safety equipment and of course even more limited understanding of its use. Here the lakeland rescue teams leader blast the event
What you get is a every weekend a series of do or die groups battling whatever conditions they find on the hill. For Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team, where the last hill lies its becoming a situation that we can set our clocks by, when Sunday afternoon becomes rescue a 3 peaker day. Personally, I usually have something better to do on a Sunday afternoon, usually working to be honest.
However there are some members of the team who off the record have expressed there concern over the issue. Highlighting that these challengers are robbing from the poor rescue teams to give to the very rich charities (Heart, Cancer, Third World Children Charities).
I give you an example from a few weeks back, the team receive a call for a assistance, one challenger has run ahead of his team, got lost and needed finding. He had no idea where he was. Our only clue he could see a lake with and island and two trees. The only way he could have seen this was to have gone over or around Crib Coch!
The team deployed to find him in very poor visibility and heavy rain, in the mean time he finds his way back to Pen Y Pass, where a Warden overhears him saying he has had an epic, has called for assistance, and is heading back up the mountain without his bag, as he only has 2 hours to reach the summit before the 24 hour deadline. Did he phone up to say he is save and well, no. He basically left the Mountain Rescue team out on the hill in bad weather for no reason.
At times like this it would be great to have the support of the police to arrest individuals for wasting the teams time. Sadly the rescue team can often feels that as a free service arranged by and for the police, who give little in the way of real support, ‘support’ that is likely to reduce in the face of the government cut backs heading our way.
Three recent case have done this one in Scotland after some walkers wrote HELP in the snow, another one in the lake district when a journalist thought it a good idea to test the callout system when walkers had been warned not to hit the fells due to the team being tasked to search for Derek Bird the lakeland gunman and even in Wales when two students were fined around £2000 pounds each, when they jumped into the menai straights off britannia bridge. The money going to the RNLI, Helicoptor and Coastguard.
It brings up the thorny subject of charging for rescues, something that the mountain rescue teams of the UK are against. However, the Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team had over 180 call outs last year, an unsustainable number for a voluntary team. Given that a rising number of these being attributed to 3 peakers, what can be done? Everyone has a right to climb Snowdon, and I’ll be honest on a good day, pretty much anyone with reasonable fitness can make their way safely up and down the mountain via one of the major footpaths. However these teams are often exhausted, and see that they ‘have to’ climb the mountain come hell or high water.
The challenge was of course made more popular last year when Chris Moyles and a team of Celebrities completed the challenge as a warm up for Kilimanjaro. These guys completed the challenge in full on winter conditions and had the assistance of local guides. However, that is something that many would be challengers forget, and believe that they know best.
Should the three Peaks challenge have a well publicised set of guidelines(if you read these its all well and good, but it doesn’t help you be safer? take the first guideline –Inform authorities at Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike, and Snowdon of your event – timing and numbers. Who should they inform?!). Should challengers pay an insurance fee to local teams? Should teams charge these three Peakers for rescue? The answer is I don’t know, however it is a growing issue locally on Snowdon and and even bigger one in the Lake District, which has a stream of three peaks challengers drive through the area in the middle of the night, climb the mountain and disappear to Wales.
Basically the Lakes District gets little in the way of local spending from the event, yet has to put up with unsocial driving. SHould the challenge not be a 24 hour challenge, as anyone can make this deadline giving enough fast driving (It should be noted that most properly organised events have strict driving times based on national speed limits!). It would still be a hard challenge if you did it over three days, and would help spread the secondary spend across all three mountainous areas that are used.
What can be done to stop a do or die mentality, i really don’t know. Maybe if there was death on an event then maybe some challengers might listen for a month or so. Other than that there is very little we can do.
Two things that I enjoy. Today I was up and 6 at work for 7, and cooked what seemed like a million bacon butty’s, well buttered the bread! I was KPing for Huw, he was incharge of the Kitchen, which I was grateful for seeing as how busy the weekends are compared to baking and latte’s during the week, and maybe knocking out a lunch of four.
Anyway I went soloing on the Teyrn, did a HVS possible new route, Via Media an awesome VS, A pleasant if hard to find (must remember the guide next time!) Tongue and Groove, then a Ann Cornwalls Climb.
Now all these routes are good, but the last two have a a little too much moss on the holds through climber neglect. Although when dry the routes are fine to climb, and a few teams of climber wiping holds clean as they went would really transform the crag.
Anyway more cafe action tomorrow, a dual of butter and bacon at dawn me thinks.
