I'm alive, and packing for winter

It's been a while, eh?

Sorry for the impromptu hiatus but I got to the point where there was nothing really that I was doing worth writing about and filler felt pointless. Not that I've got a huge reader base but hey ho. But now the fun begins - it's almost Christmas, there is snow on the peaks and it's almost time to unleash the ice axes on some unsuspecting Scottish routes. It's time to start checking the gear for this winter.

I'm psyched.

Packing for Winter

For all his faults Charlie is surprisingly fair when it comes to complimenting me to others. When going through some of our photos from a weekend in Wales last November we came across one of us prepping to leave the hostel, with my bag neatly packed whilst Charlie's gear was literally thrown all over the car boot and the floor. Charlie chuckles, points at me and says 'he may climb like a knob but the boy knows how to pack a rucksack'.

My neatly packed bag on the left, Charlie's...pile on the right.

When going through my emails recently there were a few with a theme - people wanted to know what goes into my pack on the hill in winter. Honestly I was a little surprised because I've spent all of maybe two weeks on the hill in winter, but as I was planning on spending a day going through all my winter gear to check what needed replacing before this season, I thought I may as well blog about it. After all, if Charlie thinks I can pack well then who am I to judge? Just don't take my packing as gospel - I'm far from an expert and there are people out there who can tell you far better what you should and shouldn't be carrying!

Pictured below is everything that would be in my pack at the start of a day on the hill, minus any of the clothing I'd be wearing from the off.

1 - Rope
At the moment our main winter rope is my beast - a 60m 11.5mm dry-treated Mammut rope. It's seen constant use in summer and winter for a couple of years now, so it's almost time for retirement but it's probably got another season in it. I'll probably be replacing this with two half-ropes for next season, purely for weight reasons - it's bloody heavy!

2 - Harness
Petzl Corax 2 - simple, rugged, fully adjustable leg loops (have you ever tried getting a harness on and off over crampons? Go ahead, try it) and comfortable enough to be worn all day.

3 - Winter rack
It's not all there I'll confess - a lot of my winter gear is in storage still. Bearing in mind I'm still seconding most of the routes we do and would only be leading on a scramble, my rack is pretty pared down compared to Charlie's. In addition to the normal assortment of quickdraws, slings, hexes and nuts I've added a pair of ice screws, a bulldog and pitons (both not pictured).

4 - Hydration
Ask anyone I've climbed with - I drink a lot. In the summer I normally have a massive 3-litre hydration bladder, but in winter I can get away with a couple of litres. In the thermos is normally hot Ribena, purely because it hydrates better than coffee or tea (both of which are diuretics).

5 - Crampons
Grivel G12 C2 crampons. In a crampon bag so they don't pierce everything else in my bag. 'Nuff said really.

6 - Pack
Those of you who are super observant (and may or may not need to get out more) will notice this is a different pack to what I was using on the hill last winter - this is a Mammut Trion 35 which if I'm honest is a far better size for a one-day trip. My Lowe Alpine is great when I need to carry a sleeping bag, tent, food and water for a couple of days but when on the hill, once you strip harness, rack and crampons out of it it's basically empty and tends to flop around a lot.

7 - Helmet
An absolute essential, especially in winter when ice and rock fall is more likely. Comfortable, impact protective with head torch webbing/clips is what you need to look for. Always make sure it's CE certified too!

8 - Ice Axes
I use a pair of DMM Fly ice axes which are pretty much spot on for what I do - straight and long enough to be used as a half-decent walking axe but with its slightly bent shaft, T-rated pick and trig rest mean it can still be used perfectly well on routes well above the grade I can currently climb. If its a walk rather than a climb I'll only take one axe and replace the pick with one from a DMM Raptor which saves my palm from bruising on the Fly's raised pick when walking with it. Oh, and leashes too - dropping an axe is never a good idea.

9 - Spare insulation
Winter is bloody cold, so a decent packable lightweight insulation layer is essential. I tend to skew away from using down in anything but a basecamp jacket purely because when down gets wet it becomes useless, but a synthetic jacket will keep me warm even if it's sodden. This is a Mountain Equipment Compressor jacket which is my go-to insulation piece at winter.

10 - Camera
Panasonic Lumix DMC FT-5 - perfect for me and what I do. Crush proof to 100kg, drop proof from 2m onto concrete, freeze proof and takes decent photos. What more could a man want?

11 - First Aid Kit
A small but essential bit of kit on the mountain. I'll do a detailed breakdown of what I carry in another post but a decent First Aid Kit and the training on how to use it should be equipment in the locker of any mountaineer. I really don't want to be that guy who has to call Mountain Rescue for an injury that could be easily treated myself.

12 - Goggles
Wales last winter proved to me how essential these were. Up on the summit of Tryfan the conditions were so awful that we spent less than a minute on the summit with faces bent in the face of biting, freezing hail and/or driven powder snow. These goggles allow me to see when the going gets nasty - when it's most important! Tinted lenses help to up the contrast of colours, making it easier to differentiate areas in low light.

13 - Ice Axe maintainance kit
After a bolt fell out of my axe head in Scotland I always keep a spare pair of bolts, allen keys and tape in my pack for emergencies.

14 - Jetboil and food
A warm meal can be the difference between life and death in a survival situation. In other situations a warm lunch just below the summit is a huge morale boost. I take a couple of high-calorie dehydrated or vaccum packed meals, my burner and spare gas every time we're on the mountain. Simply melt some of the abundant snow, cook your food, and hey presto, smiles all round. Use the left over water to re fill my thermos for a double whammy of warmth. Chocolate is always essential, though.

15 - Spare gloves
I was in Snow and Rock when I first started climbing and I overheard two staff talking about spare gloves, and the phrase 'have spares of your spares' has stuck with me. At least two pairs of warm, waterproof (and importantly dry!) outer gloves are always in my pack, along with a spare pair of liners. No matter what the day throws at me (or how many gloves I drop) I can keep my fingers dry and toasty.

The final product, everything in or on the pack

Not pictured, but always carried:

Snow shovel and probe
When going out me and Charlie always  have at least one shovel and probe between us, ideally with a probe each. The probes give us a chance of finding one another if either of us is caught in an avalanche and the shovel means we can dig out shelter in an emergency. A good metal collapsible design is the best, with a wide, flared blade for moving soft snow quickly.

Head Torch
A bare essential, but embarrassingly enough I can't find any of mine when I was setting up this photo. A good, comfortable head torch with fresh batteries and an adjustable beam is what I look for. Something like the Petzl Myo RXP is perfect. Oh, and always carry spare batteries.


So that's my gear. It's not an exhaustive list of everything I carry for every situation, it will change depending on what I'm doing and who I'm with and as I learn more about this whole climbing affair, but for now, I hope this satisfies some questions.

See you all soon! (I promise this time)

Winter in Wales - Glydr Fawr and Crib Goch

There's an old adgage that I've stuck by all through my time in the outdoors, one my father told me. "Any fool can rough it, but it takes a skilled man to make himself comfortable in any situation." This has resonated with me; where others will take only the bare essentials and suffer the consequences, I've been happier to carry a little extra weight for a lot of extra comfort.

However, there are times when even the most prepared man has to rough it. I had to do it, in driving horizontal sleet on Glydr Fawr. In winter. Boy was I roughing it.

The storm that the UK's been suffering for several months showed it's teeth whilst we were there - on our first day we started out on a bleak, damp midwinter's day which quickly developed into the worst conditions I've ever experienced on a mountain. Horizontal, 45 mile an hour driven sleet, rain and hail greeted us in different stages. The wind was just about bearable, but me and Charlie are both 100+kg and it was giving us difficulties, especially on the higher slopes. Whilst it didn't make the ascent any fun per se, it did make it a challenge. Even putting crampons on was sketchy, as everything threatened to get blown over the ridge line at a moment's notice. It was even windy enough to affect the outcome of an HDR shot I took of the mountain.

After we crossed the snowline (which was only around 200m below the summit) the ascent got nice and fun.
With crampons on we tramped up the approach slope, careful to give a wide berth to the cornice sat in the nearby saddle. It wasn't technical, it wasn't difficult but it felt fun to front-point up the last of the slope, haul myself up onto the summit ridge and then tramp the last few hundred meters up to the summit.

The decision on the summit was that we really didn't want to hang around - when you have to bellow to be heard and can barely open your eyes because you've got vicious winds being driven at you, you don't want to hang around on the most exposed bit of mountain. Not to mention we were both soaked to the skin having forgotten to bring waterproof trousers. We thought we'd make a swift descent to the car, dry socks and warmth. Charlie, being more sure on his feet than me in the deep powder snow we were encountering trotted down rapidly, whilst I took the slow, steady 'plunge step' approach.

All in all, though, it only took us 3 hours to go up and down a 1001m mountain - a massive improvement on my pace from Scotland, which is a positive. However we were absolutely drenched - I had pools of water in my boots and I stretched my softshell trousers beyond their elastic limit - they went all baggy! I'll tell you something for free - the drying room at the hostel was very well used that night, and I was very, very thankful we decided to stay in a hostel rather than camp. We'd have had a mare of a time if we'd done that...

Day 2 was to be a winter repeat of a route we'd done the last time we were here - the Crib Goch route up Snowdon. Whilst you might say what's the point, it's something you've already done, it's a totally different undertaking when covered by a thick blanket of snow and blasted by icy winter winds. Especially when that snow is poor condition, thick, deep and exhausting. Much of it was the same, yes - but much of it was different, and it was an interesting approach. It took longer than last time, and we had some whiteout, which was an interesting experience. Everything just dissappears and you lose all perspective of distance, space or even direction - thankfully I had a massive yellow lump to follow who knew the ridge and the line we had to take. At least there was one of us...


The walk off Snowdon, however, was the most difficult bit of the day. The snow was terrible - incredibly deep and seemingly hollow underneath - me and Charlie both repeatedly fell into the snow up to our crotches, but only one leg at a time, so the other would fold comically underneath us as we struggled to use our axe and hands to stand up. I even snagged some pleasant holes in my softshells, including putting my front points through the back of my knee, which wasn't too much fun. It's just another thing to buy, I guess...

All in all though, this trip was more a battle with poor conditions and exhaustion than a technical challenge, orfun per se. But hey, you've got to have the bad days to make the good ones worth it. Hopefully a period of calm some time in the next month or so will allow us to have some fun before this winter season ends. Having said that though, a good portion of me is excited for a summer's climbing. I graduate university in May, and after that all I have to do for summer is find a job and climb.

Adventures in Scotland: Day 3 - Curved Ridge (again)

Another day, another mountain. The previously planned day off after our attempt on Ben Nevis went by the wayside thanks to a friendly little weather forecast; having popped into the pub for a meal and talking to the barmaid, we checked out an accurate forecast which told us Wednesday would be awful, but Tuesday would be clear and dry. So the decision was made for us.

As we'd been held up by my slowness on Sunday, we decided to have another crack at Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor and actually summit this time. We set out far earlier, catching breakfast at our B&B and getting onto the walk-in for 9am just as the sun came up, in near-whiteout conditions with low lying fog blocking out the mountains, but undaunted we set off.








Eventually we reached the start of the route, after some fun but sometimes sketchy crampon-less front pointing and losing sight of Charlie (and the ascent route) several times. At about the same height (but further across) as we finished on Sunday, we started actually climbing the route, with Charlie leading the first pitch up and over the ridge. After he got safe I followed. The route was really good fun; not overly technical but challenging for someone new to mixed climbing. There was very little ice or decent snow, so most of the time my ice axe picks and crampon points were teetering on very thin rock seams or torqued into little cracks. I did have one fall, though - a bit of a swinger as I finished removing gear from the wall. My precariously positioned crampon points slipped off their hold and my only placed axe blew under the pressure. It was a bit of a tumble, and I ended up horizontal, facing the wrong way but it wasn't all bad; the line it put me on was a far easier climb, and after burying my axes in some frozen turf I hauled myself up to Charlie's belay position.

We quickly changed over gear and I belayed him on the next pitch. However, as he went up, he realised that the rest of the ridge was poor quality snow and difficult climbing - even the gully that followed next to the ridgeline was full of slushy, partially melted snow and as such was a no-go. After a bit of a discussion we decided it was best if we just cut our losses and descended. Charlie directed that instead of down-climbing the pitch we'd just ascended, we'd traverse around to the snow field we'd played on during Sunday's practice.

Despite being disappointed that we didn't complete the route, we were pleased with our maturity in making the decision to descend (the right one apparently - as we drove away an hour later the entire north face was blanketed in thick cloud) at the right time and the competence we'd both shown in both ascent, traverse and descent was a solid achievement.

Now Wednesday will definitely be a day off. We're going to go into Fort William and spend money on things we don't need. That's the best fun you can have on holiday, isn't it?





(The Adventures in Scotland series is a collection of all my posts from my first foray into winter mountaineering. Find all the others here)