I recently returned from Italy where I had the chance to spend a couple of days at the amazing granite crags at Cadarese. Although I’d heard of the area in the past, I didn’t really know anything about it, and was amazing when we arrived to see an entire valley of granite. The crags themselves are quite a small area which makes me wonder how many more sectors could be opened up in the future.
I recently returned from a trip lead by the International School of Mountaineering (ISM) to explore and climb in the central At-Bashi range in Kyrgyzstan. We understood this section of the range to be unexplored save for a short reconnaissance mission last year lead by the same company. After a few days acclimatisation the whole expedition team embarked on a mission to climb the highest peak in the range (according to maps and visual confirmation), understood to be unclimbed. You can see the glaciated (white) peak in the middle of the following image, taken from just past our advance base camp position.
Continue reading “When is a first ascent not a first ascent?”
You may have noticed the period of extreme summer temperatures in the UK until some time last week. I did too, and cancelled a trip to Chamonix in order to capitalise on the conditions- some of the classic routes in the Lakes and Wales take a while to really dry off, and have been in famous condition recently. Jen and I sat in the van in traffic for about 7 hours in 36 degree heat with no air conditioning. The night we arrived was beautiful though- I slept soundly in the cool mountain air, the silence a welcome novelty after a week in London.
I returned from the Bugaboos at the beginning of last week. What a trip! Great climbing, great company, and almost total isolation from the civilisation (we did get world cup updates but neither of us actually care about football so…)
The trip started with a blur of air travel, jetlag, hours of driving through pouring rain and a hike up nearly 1000m of elevation carrying upward of 35kg in an ill designed backpack. However after a rainy rest day playing cards in the Kain hut everything came back into clear focus. From then on we had great weather- sunny when we wanted to climb, and rainy when we needed an excuse to rest.
I don’t love thinking about gear that much, I’d rather just go climbing. Well, thats a bit of a lie. I get obsessed with gear choices and purchasing pretty easily, so I try and avoid it. I know it’s always possible to spend more to get diminishingly small returns on improving performance or weight. Usually these benefits are at the cost of something else- durability, function etc.
However, I also really like not lugging an enormous pack uphill if it’s unnecessary. Next week I set off to the Bugaboos in Western Canada. This is a fairly remote range which requires everything you need for camping and climbing to be carried in, with the walk in taking several hours. Moreover the climbing itself is mainly technical, meaning that you really want to be carrying as little gear as possible- otherwise you will never get near your grade limit.
As always, the more you think about it, the more ‘necessary’ it is to cut the weight of your gear down. So last week, when I started really thinking about the trip, the obsession phase started. I’m going to talk a bit about a few choices I’ve made- the things I think will provide the biggest bang for my buck.
Something that climbing has taught me, over and over again, is to try and limit my expectations when tackling something new. I try not to assume a climb will be easy and also try not to assume it will be really hard. Thinking a climb will be easy is a recipe for getting caught out at the crux. Thinking a climb will be too hard is a recipe for giving up when you could have just pushed on. Confidence is valuable, complacency is not. I’ve found approaching climbs with the wrong mindset often leads to feelings of disappointment and demotivation.
On Monday we rocked up at Frogatt to take on Valkyrie, one of the lower graded ‘Classic Rock’ lines at HVS, and also one of the shorter climbs at just 20m. I had been feeling the long term build up of fatigue and wanted to just get another tick on the list. As you may have guessed, this wasn’t a great plan.
We climbed at Kilnsey on Saturday- another super steep limestone in Yorkshire. Steep enough to be climbable despite the fact that it was chucking with rain all day. Whilst the practicality of being able to climb in the rain would normally appeal to me greatly, by this point in our trip I was slightly less enthusiastic.
Quick retrospective post about a climb we did in June last year on the third day of our summer road trip across Western Canada. The picture above gives a glimpse of the scenery of Kananaskis Country- I’m not going to try and describe it in superlatives here but I will share a warning for people who might follow in our footsteps.
Today Jen and I stopped off at High Tor in Matlock, Derbyshire to tackle another route from ‘Hard Rock’ called Debauchery. This is a two pitch climb, graded E1 5b, which traverses diagonally leftward and up across the majority of the large and steep face of the cliff. The wall itself is a very impressive limestone face, looking down into the town, with some very difficult routes going vertically upward through various overhangs and steep features.
I feel like I’ve become quite a bit more confident with trad lead climbing over the last few weeks. I thought I’d have a little think about what has changed. It think there are several components to my mental approach that have changed a bit which I will describe below.
aguyclimbing 