CUILLIN TRAVERSE 16-17 NOVEMBER 2011 Full story on Martin's Blog

2011 SUMMER ALPINE NEWS REPORT:

JULY: Switzerland has had its coolest July for 30 years with heavy snowfalls above 3000m drivng all but the most serious mountaineers (and hardy Brits) off the peaks. It says much when the only residents of the Vignettes Hut at the height of the season are 8 Brits, 2 Australians and the guardian. Inevitably, our Alpine courses have struggled to achieve the usual run of success, yet we have experienced some magnificent days climbing on pristine snows high above a sea of cloud. It is as though Nature has repelled the ugly hand of Man, and regained command of the landscape. It is inspiring, if like me, you grieve at the ravages imposed on Zermatt's ski slopes and lament the vanishing glacier streams, which have dwindled to rotting tongues of dirty rubble at lower levels. All is fresh. and vibrant. Huts are quiet and folk are friendlier as a result. It is a cause to rejoice rather than complain!

Our Mont Blanc fortnight was successful with Nick Asher and Peter Stone reaching the summit from the Tete Rousse after a 10 hour battle against strong winds and temperatures of minus 10C! Neil Norris was turned back at the Vallot Hut due to an asthma - so cruel after a valiant effort. It was a day when only one other person reached the top. Mont Blanc was witnessed in the raw, and was devoid of folk, save for the plethora of heavily-laden East Europeans, who still toiled skywards despite another dreadful weather forecast! Intermediate teams have been up the North Face of Pointe Marcel Kurz and out across the Mont Blanc de Cheilon Traverse and the South Ridge of L'Eveque. Six have scaled the Dent Blanche - David Cronk and Simon Raven in a very fast time and perfect conditions, Andy Dawson, Jason Greeves, Willie Lang and Graeme Lennox somewhat more slowly in thick fresh powder snow. Now it is over to the Swiss Big Three and Grandes Courses teams with better weather forecast for the first week of August, while the Swiss Trekking Peakers will set out tomorrow on their "spaghetti tour" of the peaks of the Monte Rosa range....

AUGUST: The Matterhorn was tackled on Aug 1st and 2nd in glorious weather but under a partial coating of snow, thanks to which most guides stayed away. Jason Greeves and I were the only team above the Solvay Hut on Swiss National Day. We even stopped for a sandwich half-way up the fixed ropes, normally the site of a chaotic ill-tempered throng in mid-morning. Willie Lang followed a day later with just three other guided groups alongside. So long as crampon technique is good the mountain can be climbed safely when there are snow-patches on the way up; it just takes an hour or two longer. Fresh soft snow is another matter and at the season's end Ollie Innes and Patric Franzen were denied their chance by a sudden overnight storm which laid down 3cm of powder snow at the Hornli Hut. In between Alan Bates and Nicky Moore were successful in more normal dry conditions.

Dave Kenyon's Swiss Trekking Peakers - Jesper and Ea Olsen and Mario Christofis - whipped round the Italian Haute Route in 4 days and survived a night at the Margherita Hut, Jesper proving his good health and no little wealth by buying a bottle of wine at 4500m. Kenyon's reputation was furthered by later missions to the Mountet Hut from which the Zinal Rothorn North Ridge was assailed. "The man's a human prune", gasped Louis Plenderleith on return from a Rothorn ascent followed by a 13km walk-out to Zinal during which DK had survived solely on fresh air. He does like a beer on Friday night though!

Dehydration and crevasses became the main talking points as an intense heatwave developed in mid-month. The Ried Glacier above the Bordier Hut saw the main action. Four members and one guide went into holes, the most alarming being the 50 foot plunge of David Windle. Thankfully he had one of our stronger guides, ex-marine Phil Ashby, to brake his fall and hoist him out. Nonetheless several ascents of the 4327m Nadelhorn and two of the Nadelgrat were recorded.

The second Mont Blanc team looked destined to fail when a huge rockfall swept the Grand Couloir on the Gouter Ridge and the route was subsequently closed. However, the team got properly fit by the middle of their second week and cruised a one-day ascent of the 3-Monts route from the Aiguille du Midi - well done to Alasdair MacLean, Kim Jones and Kit Lucas. At the height of the heatwave we took four of our regulars - Roy Fitzsimmons, Aidan Roe, Bill Shaw and Des Winterbone - on a road trip to solid granite on the Piz Badile N Ridge and Salbitschijen South Ridge (see Blog diary). Ascents were also made of the Douvres Blanches Ridge (D, V) on a Himalayan expedition training weekend, Dent de Tsalion W Ridge, Grand Cornier, Dent Blanche, Alphubel Rotgrat, N Ridge of Rimpsfischhorn, N Ridge of Weissmies, S Ride of Lagginhorn, Weisshorn E Ridge, Chere Couloir, Eperon des Cosmiques, Gross Fiescherhorn, Jungfrau, Monch and Mittellegi Ridge of the Eiger. As always our Guides and Aspirants did a superb job and newly-married Judith Hawtree created a family atmosphere back at our chalet base in Evolene and produced wonderful baking and delicious dinners , whatever the hour and however short the notice. Thanks to you all and to our clients for making another memorable Alpine season.

ALPINE SUMMER PHOTOS: See our latest pictures on Flickr

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HIMACHAL PIONEER EXPEDITION Sept 16th - Oct 11th 2011:

Our team of 9 climbers (Steve Birch, Gustavo Fierro-Carrion, Allan Isherwood, David King, Martin Moran [leader], Gary Motyer, Chris Sloan [doctor], Mike Timar, and Robin Thomas [deputyt leader]) and 4 support staff (Govind Singh, Mangal Singh, Saran, Thukpa Sherpa) successfully completed one of our most challenging and strenuous Himalayan expeditions. Our aims were to complete a circuit of three difficult 5000 metre passes on the borders between Lahaul, Zanskar and Kishtwar regions, to survey the wealth of virgin peaks in this area and, if possible, to climb one of them. The journey over the Kang La (5450m), Poat La (5490m) and Sersank La (5130m) was 150km in distance with 5300m of ascent. After a day's journey from Delhi to the thriving resort of Manali via sleeper train and minibus, we crossed the 3960m Rohtang Pass and continued down the Chandra Bhaga valley to the provincial town of Udaipur where our trek commenced. The first five days followed the Miyar valley for 85km - at first by valley road through cultivations and villages, then by open grasslands and alluvial flats, and finally by 26km of glacier, the surface a variety of boulder moraine, dry ice and wet glacier. We used 20 low-level porters to get our food and kit to 5000m on the Miyar Glacier. From here we would be on our own for 12 days. To carry unnecessary equipment would seriously slow our progress; to forget something vital would be disastrous. A frantic appraisal of gear resulted in our sending our mess tent, second kerosene stove, 20kg of food, climbing kit and all spare clothing and personal luxuries back to Udaipur. Despite our best efforts to cleanse our members of their personal attachments a Kindle, a monstrous zoom lens and several pairs of weighty trekking shoes escaped the scrutiny of leaders Martin and Robin.

Throughout the trip we were blessed with wonderful clear and settled weather. Snow conditions were generally excellent, with a foot of monsoon snow sticking to the glaciers above 5000m. The Kang La is a fairly benign pass in slope angles, but Gustavo soon discovered hidden dangers when he found himself 5 metres down a crevasse slot. Martin's first attemopt to hoist him out served only to lower Gustavo three metres further down when a Ropeman prusik device was inadvertently attached the wrong way round. With some help from Gary our glorious leader corrected his mistake and Gustavo was plucked back to life. Kang La is a bleak spot, the summit adorned only with the upturned skeleton of a wild bharal sheep. Beyond we looked into the arid ranges of Zanskar, but immediately Martin's eye was caught by a shapely snow peak 10km distant. While we recovered and recce'd at a camp at 4425m in the Tidu valley our high-level porter/Sherpa staff team ferried two 25kg loads over Kang La. Now committed geographically we pondered our escape option if anything went wrong - a 25km northward trek to Padum village, 300km jeep drive by Kargil to Leh in Ladakh and a flight back to Delhi. As we were operating in the ankle-snapping territory of stone-clad ice moraine it was a sobering prospect. However, the lure of the "snow queen" we had spotted on the north side of the Tidu valley proved too strong to resist.

Eight of us set out up a morale-sapping boulder gully to make a bivouac in the high valley under the peak, but due to illness and fatigue only five were still moving upwards when dawn found us on the south face at 6am next morning. Some pitched grade II ice climbing took us over an ice serac, then we side-footed up endless slopes to a final bergschrund and short ice slope leading to the summit ridge. After a 10 hour climb of 1060 metres from our bivouac we teetered along the corniced crest at 11.15am. On all horizons were an array of unnamed, unknown peaks, many of them over 6000m and most of them of spectacular dimensions. We named our own peak Eva's Peak in honour of Mike's new baby daughter and established its height as 6119m (20,075ft). Descent and recovery from this arduous ascent was not without crisis. Allan arrived down next day minus his crampons, and was unable to remember how or where he had left them. We had omitted to carry any spares. Mangal proved to be our saviour. That evening he produced a pair of battered old Camp crampons that belonged to Vinod, one of our staff who had returned to Udaipur.

We were now camped at 5080m under the Poat La. Robin and staff ferried loads over the pass and established a route down vertiginous rock ramps on the far side. Next morning the whole team crossed this splendid pass and descended the Zanskar-Kanthang Glacier amidst an impressive array of virgin peaks and rock walls. Progress ground to a halt in the ocean of live moraines that covered the lower glacier. Having carried 20kg+ plus loads all day we were all getting exhausted and a little fractious. Yet, so tight was our onward schedule that we had to keep pushing until nightfall. We bivouacked in the open on the moraine but our amazing staff soon had a "dahlbhat" cooked up, followed by custard and dates. A new moon rose as we settled on to our gravel beds and all seemed well with the world again. We now had just four days to get over the last pass, Sersank La. All we knew about the pass was that it harboured a formidable icefall and had repelled Satya Dam's Indian team five years earlier. If we couldn't get over it our best option was to pioneer an alpine route over 5500m peaks on the southern rim of the valley. Any margin of error and we'd be missing our flights home.

Next morning, Robin and Martin left soon after dawn to forge a route over the ZK Glacier and recce approaches to the Sersank. After two and a half hours of moraine-bashing they reached a meandering side valley and made easier progress to the glacier snout. While the rest of the team followed, they then climbed into the Sersank valley and beheld a crumbling icefall that was patently impossible to scale, unless one is possessed of suicidal inclinations. However, there was a line of ramps crossing the mountain wall on its right side that might outflank the ice cliffs. We put all our money on this line and next morning, Govind, Mangal, Martin, Robin and Thukpa headed up to prove its worth. Very quickly we threaded a line up shale screes and rocky bluffs to gain the ramp, and then strolled up the screes and meadows, high above the debacle of ice. Some fortuitous wanderings round crevasses above the first icefall led to a second barrier. We decided on a frontal attack and after a couple of ice pitches threaded our ropes through a criss-crossed crevasse field to arrive below the pass. Our escape was assured, and the team were heartened to hear that we had found a route. We feasted on oatcakes and spreads, David and Mike's scrumptious cheesecake, and Saran's last dahlbhat, then performed a ritual burning of all combustible rubbish, including the leader's spare underpants, and finally made a stash of spare kitchenware in a shepherd's shelter, for their use and collection in summer 2012.

On October 5th the whole party moved up to a high camp at 4850m under the mighty north wall of 6000m Shiv Shankar.At 10am on the 6th we surmounted a slope of vertical shale to gain the pass at 5130m and looked down the gentle wooded folds of the paradiscal Sural valley. After a last day back-packing 20kg loads we reached the village and roadhead of Khangsar, the first ppeople we had seen since leaving our porters under the Kang La. Right on cue the clouds gathered, raindrops fell and for the first time in 22 days we put on our shell jackets as we loaded the jeeps for the long drive home.

As a self-supporting pioneering venture we had achieved a memorable result, and the outcome was in doubt until the last two days. No party is known to have made the circuit of these three passes in recent times and Eva's Peak was a notable first ascent - a beautiful 20,000' mountain, discovered, admired then climbed - all within five days. Mountaineering doesn't get better than that! All members had played a vital role in the success, shouldering big loads, carrying all personal kit and doing extra shares of load-ferrying, cooking and camp management. Our sense of achievement and satisfaction will be correspondingly greater, but we still owe an enormous debt to our staff - Govind, Mangal, Saran and Thukpa - who performed double carries and took on loads of up to 30kg whenever necessary to keep our caravan on the road.

Enjoy our Himachal Pioneer Photo Gallery on Flickr

Himalayan Photo Galleries: Enjoy our 2010 Satopanth Photo Gallery : plus other galleries on file:- Nanda Devi 2009 , Himachal Pioneer 2007 and Ladakh-Kang Yatze 2006 photo selections and check our web pages for full details of 2012 expeditions; book early for extra discounts:-

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SCOTLAND REPORT: A SPRING OF TWO HALVES: The Scottish Spring has been dramatic in its contrast between a glorious heatwave from mid-April through to May 5th and a ferocious spell of high winds and rainstorms through to the present. Our early courses had fantastic conditions. Two full traverses of the Cuillin Ridge were completed - congratulations to Nigel Worsey, Jimmy Smith, Alasdair White and Raoul Tufnell. An adventure rock week with Patric Franzen saw ascents of Route 2 (HVS) and Black Streak (E1) at Diabaig, Cioch Direct-Arrow Route-Integrity (HS) on Skye with Patric leading the crux pitch on Integrity, Cioch Nose Superdirect-Cioch Corner in Applecross (first ascent after extensive cleaning last autumn and now a superb 8 pitch HVS), and best of all an ascent of the mighty Bullroar on Carn Dearg Buttress, Ben Nevis (11 pitches of sheer terror and exhilaration traversing the steep slabs sandwiched between huge overhangs, a real old-school HVS, far harder pyschologically than most E2's on outcrops).

Later courses had to contend with the most challenging conditions imaginable in May, but Skye Munro collections were completed by some - congratulations Arthur Curtis and Geraldine Ward, and everyone came to respect the Cuillin. In the words of Tom Naish:- " Yes it rained pretty much everyday but somehow it made the mountains appear greater; vast spires of rock with wreathes of cloud and rain twisted around them." For Welshmen Huw Ellis and Dylan Parry their first taste of Skye culminated in getting pinned to the tower of Clach Glas in hurricane force gusts. They made a fine traverse from Mhadaidh to Bruach na Frithe - definitely the hardest stretch of the main ridge - in greasy conditions on their last day. Alex made a heroic attempt on the Ridge traverse with Paul Rowntree and Rod Winton - somehow finding their way to the In Pinn cave on a day of 60-70mph gusts.

The gales reached their zenith during the Sea Stacks tour where Robin Thomas led Deszo Hajdu and Martin Hulme. Robin made a brave recce of the Old Man of Stoer, crossing a fraying tyrolean rope above high seas before realising the hopelessness of the task. The team retreated to the east coast while the 80mph gales battered the western seaboard, climbing at Golspie sport crag and Sarclet sea cliffs in Caithness. A rough crossing of the Pentland Firth on the evening ferry set the scene to grab the week's only weather window to climb the Old Man of Hoy. In the words of Martin Hulme:-

"As expected, crux pitch 2 was a bit of a nemesis, but we struggled up the crack not entirely cleanly I hasten to add. I think I need to do a course in hand jamming! Meantime the old wooden stake and the head of a rusty old piton aided my ascent. Robin had even thoughtfully drawn a smiley face and an arrow with chalk to encourage us where you have to leave the relative comfort of the vertical crack and boldy move out. After that the climbing was superb, including the sensational final pitch. I was wearing the oldest top I could find for passing through the fulmar zone, but whilst I only got a bit of vomit, poor old Dez was plastered all over his expensive goretex! The abseils were superb, and I relished the final 60m drop in space, so surreal above the crashing waves."

Now there was just time for a second look at Stoer. Martin continues the tale:-

"Robin calculated that there was a small morning weather window on the last day, so after returning to Stromness on thursday we headed back west to camp at Clach Toll. The morning was still showery however, and even Robin was questioning what more he could do to make things happen, but we got lucky, and the sun came out on the approach back to Stoer, it was low tide and Robin  hopped the channel to set up the Tyrolean. Once we reached the base of the crag proper which meant a nasty slimy hand crack traverse, the climbing was again very good. We managed up and down by early afternoon and got back to the car before the rain came on again."

Congratulations to all three climbers for a brilliant effort.

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ALPINE CLUB GUIDEBOOK by MARTIN MORAN

Martin Moran's guidebook to the classic routes on the 4000m peaks of the Alps published by the Alpine Club Signed copies on Mail Order: £23 (incl post & packing) 240 routes from F to TD- standard described; 80 photos and photo-diagrams; peak lists, historical review, practical advice and information Use our secure web booking form to order your copy (all major cards accepted)

MOUNTAIN EQUIPMENT SPONSORSHIP:

For 2009 we are pleased to team up again with Mountain Equipment - Britain's No.1 manufacturer of gear for the serious mountaineer - in recommending the right kit for your climbs with us. Mountain Equipment supplied the jackets, clothing, rucksacks and sleeping bags used on our successful first ascents of Nilkanth West Ridge and The Godfather (VIII) (Beinn Bhan). For full details of their range and a list of stockists go to their web-site: www.mountain-equipment.co.uk