Pakistan

Although i landed in London on the 23rd September, it seems like i'm only just getting myself sorted after what seemed like a mammoth trip to Pakistan. After a long trip i usually find i can unpack my bags in about three days if i'm motivated (really lazy i know), but i'm now on day 17 back in the country, and there's still some unpacked hold-alls on my bedroom floor.  Almost straight off the plane from Islamabad, i spent 5 days in N Wales on a BMG induction course, which although interesting and a good few days, has prolonged my resettlement time...
The expedition was a mixture of frustration and satisfaction, as they always are. A trip of two halfs would be an accurate summary; the first half full of good weather and climbing, the second half being full of bad weather, tension and frustration. However, as this report will illustrate, a lot of climbing was done, perhaps even more than we had expected.

It was on the 3rd August that i got on the train to head down to London. Its funny, but sometimes i think that the transition from West Cumbria to the leafy, red bricked terraces of south west London is a bigger shock to the system than that of Heathrow to Islamabad. Sitting in a pub that night,  Jon  and I talked about the last couple of months: I had been at my parent's home in St.Bees, working a lot and training and climbing when i could. Jon had had an extremely active and productive summer for both work and play, and as he told me stories of racing up Europe's largest alpine route in a single-push, and hanging out of helicopters filming base jumpers rocket past the Eiger, i was feeling a little hungry for adventure. Not for the first time sat in that pub in Fulham, i started to wonder what the next 7 weeks would bring.



A massive Mosque in Islamabad.

Our journey to base camp went more smoothly than either of us could ever have imagined. Flights took off when they were meant to, the jeeps didn't break down, the weather was kind, and our porters worked hard and without fuss.
      After a day in Islamabad - the highlight being our air conditioned hotel - we flew to Skardu and got our first sight of Baltistan. Unlike further East in the Himalaya, the Karakorum is very dry and not "jungly" like you imagine the lower valleys in India and Nepal. All settlements are perched on fertile, green, irrigated plateaus on the banks of rivers. Some of these are pretty spectacular and look Tolkienesque. Skardu, where we spent a day before travelling further in to the mountains, is a dusty small town, where the smell of two-stroke oil and soundtrack of beeping horns create an atmosphere of excitement as you try and work out what is for sale and what is just junk lying around.
    The 6 hour jeep ride to Hushe was one of those journeys that you don't want to blink on. Here's some photos-

After a hot and tiring day in Islamabad, we were excited to see Nanga Parbat from the flight to Skardu. The Mazeno ridge is on the right.



The Indus River.

Loading the jeeps with kit for the journey to Hushe.

On the banks of a tributary to the Indus.

The reason the journey went so smoothly - Haji Ghulamm Muhammad - the man to know in Skardu.



Me and our Liason Officer, Major Akhtar Hussein of the Pakistani army. Akhtar took time off from fighting the Indians in Kashmir to come and make sure we weren't there under false pretences....

A typical Balti village.



The Hushe valley.

On the first day of the walk in.

At basecamp.

At basecamp, we were pleased to meet up with Jesse, Shingo and Aaron, three Americans we'd be sharing a basecamp with for the next month. Like most Americans, they were good fun, and didn't mind having the piss taken out of them, even if they didn't understand our sense of humour.

Also at basecamp were Ali and Ali, who were mine and Jon's cooks, and Fida and Abas, who cooked for the Americans. These four were great company, and over the weeks i learnt a lot about Islamic culture, which coming from a place in the UK where there are no Muslims was all new to me.
       In many ways the Ali's made the trip, and in more ways than making us nice food.

Nayser Brakk

The immense Nayser Brakk, 5200m - an Egyptian couldn't have done better. We climbed the right hand skyline arete.

Nayser Brakk is a gem among mountains, and the right skyline in the above photo has become the "classic" of the valley, with a number of ascents. Ours went well, with the odd routefinding error, more due to stupidity than there being tricky route-finding!

900m of loose scree to start.

The first of about 6 pitches to the summit ridge.

A cool crack at about 5000m. The last pitch to the arete was a great spicy hanging slab at about E3 5b, in spitting rain, baggy shoes and with a thumping altitude headache!

  

We climbed the route up and down in a longish day. It was only our second day in basecamp, so needless to say i was suffering with a migraine on the 5200m summit. But it was great to have done such a line on day 2.

Jesse and me bouldering. With such good bouldering a minutes walk from BC, i was determined to stay strong on this trip, but my current strength is proof that it's impossible!

FA on Sulu Peak

A couple of days after we climbed Nayser Brakk we decided to climb the circa 6000m (height depends on who you ask and what map you look at) Sulu Peak, which is a very proud looking mountain half a days walk from BC. Initially we were just going to climb the central couloir, which is a C1200 metre couloir similar in steepness to the Couturier on the Aguille Verte. But after thinking about it, we decided to make use of the good weather and try to climb the long spectacular arete which runs NW from the summit of the mountain, which to our knowledge would be its first ascent.

        On the first day we climbed around 500 meters of loose buttress to reach a large snow shoulder before the meat of the arete. We pitched our first-light here, and did our best to sleep, but being early in the trip, we'd still not quite mastered breathing!

The first bivi, on a snowy shoulder on the ridge.

Jon looking up at where we'd be going in the morning.

In the morning we set off simul soloing (which is how we climbed a lot of the route) up and round a very loose rock wall, to get in to a linking couloir, which we hoped would take us to the arete.

Just after first light.



After about 2-300 metres, the couloir narrowed and we climbed some steps and steepenings to the ridge.

Kapura and Drifika in the background.

Breaking trail, with a long way to go.

Looking back from half way-ish.

A mixed step not far from the top plateau.

Steep snow in the sun - a nasty combination. Chogolisa behind.

Our bivi on top of Sulu on a convenient plateau.

After taking many aspirin and trying very hard not to be sick i managed a bit of sleep, but it wasn't a good night. In the morning, feeling sleepy and very rough, we downclimbed the huge couloir on the east face of the mountain, and reached basecamp late in the morning.

Descending a laborious 1100 metre couloir early the next morning.

Our return to basecamp coincided with "Eid", which is the end of Ramadan, so we all had a big feast. Here Ali 1 and Ali 2 present a cake and some fried chicken - the Ali's could work miracles with their single kerosene stove!

The "swimming pool", about 2 minutes walk from basecamp, where we washed and swam when it was hot enough.

Sorting supplies at BC

Beatrice

With the weather still seeming ok, we wanted to squeeze in another route before we committed to our big objective up the valley. Beatrice is an attractive mountain just under 6000 metres and not too far from BC.

      With an early start we made the schrund after 3 or so hours walk. We needed to climb really fast, as the broad lower couloir looked like it would slough badly when the sun came round on to it. With this in mind, we left our ropes, rack and harnesses at the bottom and got on with it. 

Part way up the huge initial couloir.

Nearing the top of the initial couloir.

We ended up climbing the chossy cracks on the right, then rejoining the couloir higher up. Starting to really regret leaving our rope and harnesses behind now!

Jon hacking through the summit cornice.

Summit.



We climbed mostly snow and ice couloirs and chossy rock to within 20 metres of the summit, when all was replaced by bottomless snow. Knowing we had to down climb every meter of the mountain, it was with a little apprehension that we left the summit, but all went well and we made a quick descent.

Link Sar Attempt

Link Sar was one of the really big plans we had for the trip. At 7041 meters Link Sar is one of the bigger unclimbed mountains left in Pakistan and stands opposite the grand east face of K7 (6934m). Link Sar's faces are broad and complex, and not without serac dangers. However, after some scouring with binoculars and checking out other possibilities, we settled on what we believed to be a very attractive line on the face almost exactly opposite Urban, Kyle and Haydens cool new line on K7.

        

Me and Jon checking out the face a few days prior to going for it.

Jon getting a forecast via email. Much thanks to our Goal Zero solar set up.

The face is hugely forshortened and distorted in this photo, but our line went through the initial rock on a diagonal ramp to reach the snowfield at half height.

We bivvied a fair way from the schrund in distance and height, and were shocked the next day when it took many hours to reach the schrund through the dangerous valley above, this took a lot of time and energy that we, perhaps naively, hadn't anticipated correctly after our recce. 

A mouse had eaten parts of our rope, resulting in three nasty core shots which we only noticed at the bivi. This was a bit off putting as we had decided to rap the whole face after climbing it!

 

Jon's hydraulic legs punch a deep track up the lower gully.

Almost half height on the face, in nasty warm snow, which we were scared would slough in the sun.

Threatening weather above, as we work through a steepening.

A bottomless traverse, which took us almost 2 hours to gain less than 100 metres. 

What felt like a long way up the face, our pace slowed to a slow crawl as we hit bottomless snow. The weather had been threatening all day, and it was finally starting to snow. We made an effort to find somewhere safe to bivi, as we were currently sat in a network of flutings which would become deathtraps if the snow continued. Jon went for a look above, but to no avail, and i abseiled down on to a small snow fin which looked from above like it could be chopped at for a platform. When i got down there it wasn't the case. After a small discussion and assessment of our situation, we started to rap the face on the first of many, many v-threads. The weather forecast had predicted snow to turn in to a bad weather system, but not so early as this, but that was just one of many things not going right that forced us to bail. On the descent i started to feel very ill, i'm still not sure whether it was altitude or not, but i don't think i've ever felt as ill in the mountains as i did when we crossed the schrund later that night.

     We bivvied not far from the schrund, in the dumping snow, and returned to BC the next day. Although it hadn't gone to plan, we were only half way through our trip, and were confident that we'd be back up there soon to finish it off, with far better tactics and knowledge of the snowy hell that was the top half of the face. We weren't to know what the weather had in store for us.



Bad weather and Haithi Brak

As i've already mentioned the trip was one of two halves, and on the 2nd or 3rd September winter arrived. We'd talked to several friends about weather in this part of the Karakorum, and we'd decided that September seemed like a reliably stable time. However, we'd also heard from some people that there's the risk of it being bad due to wintery weather systems starting to arrive.

      After two days of this colder nasty weather, Ali and Fida were both repeating "weather very bad this month sir, not good September sir" and as much as we appreciated their worry we did our best to ignore them, until it became obvious they knew what they were talking about.

Movie night.

After many many days of consecutive rain and snow, we did manage to salvage the last part of the trip somewhat, by climbing a beautiful rock peak of about 5400m called Haithi Brakk, even if it was in a white-out.

The summit is the largest rock spire left of the snowy central peak.

The weather cleared briefly near the top. This gendarme is the summit just to the left of ours on the previous photo.

We climbed around 1000 metres of easy couloirs and gullies, until a shoulder between a large gendarme and the summit tower. The summit tower had some decent, if a little loose rock climbing, and a mixed pitch to a summit the size of a small coffee table with 1000 metres of air on either side. We had been told that this summit was unclimbed, but after finding some tat, we thought it very doubtful!



Chossy rock.



The final exposed mixed pitch to the summit.

Last climb of the trip.

Return Journey

Ali 1, Fida, Ali 2, and Abas. Some of my fondest memories of the trip are of conversations with these guys at basecamp.

We walked out from BC on the 17th  September and once back in Skardu started the torturous journey down the Karakorum Highway to Islamabad. Other than clearing part of the road in the middle of the night that had collapsed in front of us, and a slight delay due to riots on the road against the "anti Islamic film" made in America, the journey went well, and about 30 hours after starting we arrived in Islamabad. In Islamabad we dodged more riots, (on one day we weren't even allowed out of our hotel due to riots going on outside), moved our flights forward by two days, and located the secret bar (yes it does exist!).

Porters walking out.

Akhtar and the van on the Karakorum highway.

So, what next? Paying off my credit card bill with lots of work on the farm, building a woody in a barn at work, preparing for the next BMG course and finding a way to buy a van with no money. Possibly some cold stuff in the Alps and Norway in a few months time also, but lets wait and see.



There is no way i could undergo trips of this size if it wasn't for the invaluable support of my sponsors, for which i am very grateful - buy their kit, it works!

Lift Off

Tomorow Jon and myself fly to Pakistan, and if all the travelling goes well, we should be established at our basecamp in the Charakusa valley by next saturday, fingers crossed!

Scafell from work. My boss wasn't happy last time i put up a photo of his farm as he said it looked dirty..... So here's a nicer one.

Jake on the Gravity Wave project. Although the weather's been pretty bad this summer in the UK, i've been out a fair bit, but mainly on the legs, with lots of hill reps.

The awesome Goal Zero "Sherpa 120" solar set up.  Powering weather forecasts and much more at basecamp. We've always had big issues with solar panels in the past, but it looks like for this trip we've got it sorted.

I'll be here next week. Basecamp will be on the moraine in the bottom left of the photo.

Pakistan

In the first week of August myself and Jon Griffith are going to Pakistan. Based from the Charakusa valley in the Hushe region of the Karakorum, we'll have about 40 days to get something big done. The coolest thing about this trip is the idea of not having one fixed objective. Although its fun focusing on one line or idea, and letting it singly absorb all your thoughts and energy, I've learnt from the last expeditions I've been on that the most important thing is to have a variety of options and to keep an open mind, as whether you'll even get to step on to the thing you want to do is probably around 80% luck.

Big faces and no routes. Credit Urban Novak.

So we're just gonna get ourselves there, and try and treat it like a climbing trip - "Hey that looks good, lets get on it."

I found out a few weeks ago that I've been accepted on to the BMG/IFMGA guide scheme. So the day after our Islamabad - Heathrow return flight, i will be in Llanberis for my first induction course, starting the long process of becoming a guide. I'm expecting it to be a hard 4 years which will require a lot of work, patience and sacrifice, but hopefully fulfilling and interesting, with one of the coolest jobs in the world at the end of it.

Spring

Not for the first time this week, i logged in to Facebook this morning to be greeted by an album of photos from a friend's successful Alaskan spring. To counter the liquid jealousy that started coursing through my body as i sat scrolling through the photos, i reminded myself of what you gain when you think you're missing out.

Although devoid of big adventures and hair-rasing, digit-freezing routes, the last few months have been crammed full of more pleasurable activities.

The awesome crag of "Euskal" Val Pennavaire Italy. Lots of trips to this valley over the last couple months.

A classic 7b+ at Bionassay - the best sport cliff within 30 mins of Cham, (by a long way....) . I've spent a lot of time here in the past, but i've still barely made an impression on the amount of great routes there.

A slide we triggered skiing in the Oberland this Spring.

Rob Greenwood teetering up the bold classic "Supernatural" on Gable last weekend.

I'm off to Pakistan in August, which gives me plenty of time to train like crazy and work the rest of the time. Details on the Pakistan trip to follow...

The best type of climbing.

Spring, well maybe even summer, has well and truly arrived in the alps. The last week of March saw me in t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops fighting against the sweat on valley sport crags with my friends Adam and Mike.
    
The beautifully settled weather was now in its third week, and it was with not even the slightest bit of regret or jealousy, that when my friends Jon, Jesse and Maury headed up to the Dru for another winter mission, i headed through the tunnel in to Italy for a few days clipping bolts in the Sun with Amanda, Heather and Benjamin.

The idyllic Val Pennavaire is the main climbing valley of "Oltrefinale", a relatively new, almost world class sport venue in between Genoa and Monaco. This narrow valley clothed in Olive groves and limestone outcrops is a far cry from the alps, and after a few days makes you want to buy a van, find a beautiful 8a climbing girlfriend and become a sport climbing hippy who never would be so stupid as to set foot on a north face...

The beginnings of a road trip.

Ahh limestone...

The river that runs thorugh the bottom of Val Pennavaire is a good place to spend the parts of the day too hot for climbing.

Whether it be for sport climbing or skiing, no Italy trip can be undertaken without huge amounts of Pizza and ice cream.

In terms of climbing, i felt reasonably strong for the start of the rock season, onsighting lots of 7a's and getting 7b+/c second go. With no Alaska this year, my sport climbing motivation is reaching dangerously high levels!
 

Manitua

I'm an alpine climber and my experience of big walling is pretty much zero, but a route on the north face of the Grande Jorasses which could almost be classed as a "big wall" has been on my mind for several years. "Manitua" splits through the centre of the extremely compact and steep monolith which forms the left flank of the Croz Spur. Starting up the Croz couloir then traversing towards No Siesta, before launching through the wall and moderate mixed ground above the Croz icefield and the Croz its self, Manitua could be described as a "mini-big wall" sandwiched by an alpine winter north face.

The line. Credit: GMHM Bohin/Ratel/Perillat

First climbed by the legendary Slavko Svetecic in 1991 in summer, the wall section was given 6c and A3, with a single bolt placed on the blank crux aid pitch, which was ripped out by a falling Remy Escoffier, making this pitch a real spicy one. As it stands in 2012 the route has seen a handful of summer repeats, and a smaller handful of winter ascents, which in this vogue, makes Manitua a very cold, slow and heavy ordeal.

The legendary Slavko Svetecic. The year before he put up Manitua, he soloed the Harlin on the Eiger in 26 hours in January. He died on Gasherbrum IV in 1995.

I first became aware of the Manitua wall when i was about 12, and i was flicking through an oldish "High Mountain Info" Lindsay Griffin piece about Mauro "Bubu" Bole, who over several trips over several months in summer had redpointed a free route based around Manitua at about 7C as far as the Croz icefield. Although that ascent was not what really inspired me, a photo from a helicopter of Bubu crimping on to a blank 7C granite wall 700 metres up a big north face, tantalizingly close to the snow field of the croz really stood out as one of the wildest photos i'd ever seen, and made me aware of this crazy corner of the Jorasses.

Since then i have stared over at the wall from the Colton Mac, Walker and No Siesta, and it never fails to take my breath away.

A view from the Walker a few years ago. If you look real close you'll be able to spot the offwidth bivi.

Another shot from the Walker, albeit very tilted.

It seemed like as good a time as ever to get on the thing this week with a solid forecast, and relatively (for March) nice temperatures. Jon was keen and most importantly so was Geoff Unger, an American friend and guide living in Chamonix. Geoff has a decent amount of aid and walling experience behind him, but very little big alpine mileage, in fact this was to be Geoff's first north face. With a third person being absolutely crucial on a route like this, we felt that as a three we had the necessary skills and experience to give the route a good shot.

Geoff

Due to a very unfortunate slip about 2 hours away from the safety of the Boccalatte hut on our descent, one of our bags containing two cameras, several of Jon's SD cards, two sleeping bags, about 15 cams and some lesser stuff went for a long ride down the glacier never to be found, which is unfortunately reflected in this blog post by the photos starting at day 3.....but i will do my best to paint the scene leading up to that point.

Walking down the Midi arete i realised that i hadn't been on ski's since last June in Alaska, so with our huge bags full of aid kit and food for 5 days i clipped my Phantom 6000's in to my 150cm approach skis and took the Vallee Blanche easily down to the junction of the Leschaux glacier.

The approach from here was a sweaty one, dressed for a winter north face the sun beat down on us until we crept in to the shadow. Its such a weird feeling setting out on a route which will take a long time, you casually stroll over the schrund and it begins. When climbing a route such as this you don't just have to slow the pace of the climbing, you also have to slow the pace of your thinking, chopping it in to small stages, because if you start thinking about the last bit of the route, in 4 or 5 days time, it just seems too far away and unlikely to even contemplate.

That afternoon we climbed about 300 metres, up the Croz couloir then branched out across the ramp beneath the monolith. I led and Jon and Geoff followed with the big packs at a slow pace, until i found a small snowfield which looked like it would yield a bivi after some work. That night we spent on three small ledges a few metres apart, in partial sitting positions.

This is a shot from No Siesta, but we spent our first night on the face here, and the enxt day launched up the wall above. Currently it is much much drier than this.

It was crucial the next morning to get stuck in to the start of the difficulties as fast as we could, as we knew that to stand a good chance of reaching the Croz icefield on day three, we would have to fix a pitch above the bivi, to save time the next morning. So it was with much annoyance that we crawled along the horrible brittle black ice in the morning trying to access the start of the crack system. After an involved traverse in from the left, Jon reached the start of the crack system, and it was time to get the etriers out.

Immediately Geoff got going, lowering down in to the opposite corner, then back cleaning his way up level with us and then just kept going. A few pitches led us to the incredible "Offwidth Bivi". We hadn't had much practice before hand with regards to our hauling set up, but things had gone relatively smoothly, Geoff would fix the ropes, i'd jug the dynamic while wearing one of the big bags, cleaning the pitch and sorting the rack, while Jon would jug the free static and then haul the other big bag. We were going without a haul bag, which at times was a little scary, but with care it worked OK. Although not exactly mentally draining, jugging and hauling on these pitches was extremely physical and tiring.

Behind Jon is the offwidth that all three of us squeezed in to for the night.

While Jon started to excavate the Offwidth we would be sleeping in (just imagine sleeping inside a 40cm wide pipe), Geoff fixed the long first pitch of the next day. I have to say that that night was the most surreal bivi experience i've ever head. We could just and so fit three of us lying down in the offwidth, by shuffling to the very end and slightly overlapping heads/feet, but forget doing anything once in there, it was like sleeping in a straight jacket, and even my relatively narrow shoulders were squeezed against the sides of the crack all night. We took some good photos from inside the crack, its a shame no one will ever see them! It was a crazy feeling to be sleeping inside the mountain, halfway up such a wall and not tied in.....

The mornings were of course tough, cold and tired, my socks were also wet for the whole route after the warm ski in, and i never quite managed to dry them out. Geoff started jugging the free hanging static back up to the highpoint of the night before, while i jugged the dynamic, and cleaned the pitch which has some wild swings through a roof. Geoff however had the biggest wake up that morning when 4 metres away from the anchor, he found a serious core shot in the 11mm static.

Geoff jugging the static, while i clean the pitch from the dynamic.

We semi short fixed the next pitch, and i led off while Jon was still jugging the pitch before. A brilliant free pitch up a steep ramp for 50 or so metres with gut renching, base jumpable exposure. Flash pump while dealing with heinous rope drag on the steepest bit felt pretty wild straight out of bed.

Here we could finally see the last three pitches of aid climbing to the Croz icefield, the last one being the crux A3+ pitch. Jon put in an awesome effort jugging this diagonal pitch while wearing the heaviest bag, and joined Geoff and myself somewhat red-faced.

Myself jugging a pitch near the top of the shield.

The aid kept coming following a fantastic line through this phenomenal bastion overlooking the Colton Mac, and Geoff was ploughing through at a decent pace. These pitches were going diagonally leftwards, which resulted in some extremely scary swings on the static for me, while jugging and hauling. Jon would lower me out over the abyss with the big bag between my legs for maybe 20 metres until the anchor was directly above, and i could start jugging, then Jon would start cleaning.

Jugging and hauling fast so try and make as much ground as we could was pretty tiring.

Up until the last pitch, the aid was on the whole pretty straight forward. This pitch however was the infamous A3+/4 pitch with a snapped bolt, spicy slab and invisible bat-hook placement. It was hard to watch as Geoff worked at unlocking the sequence high above on the lip of the roof, it would be destroying to not make the Croz icefield that night. We could almost touch the thing, he was literally 5 metres away from it when he made a very unstable top-step move on a thin blade and fully extended attempted to poke a C3 in to an out of reach crack. Twice he came down hard on the pin on his etriers as his strength ran out. But third time lucky and we were through.

Geoff on the crux.

And again.

Another scary jug through thin, increasingly gloomy air saw us on the icefield. A big relief, above us the top third of the Croz spur looked like a dawdle in comparison. It was now late and pitch black, after cramponing up and sorting the ropes and huge rack, i traversed the whole breadth of the icefield in haste to find a cave/boulder feature i knew existed and thought we'd be able to dig out. After bringing the others across, a tiring digging session began until we all had a bum seat and the ordeal of sorting kit and melting snow could begin.

Dosing as we operated the stoves, we felt relieved that we were on easy ground, albeit with another cold night and big day (or two) still to come.

Third night on the face, Geoff falls asleep with his torch still on, while we melt snow.

The alarm went at 5.30 the next morning and the ritual of stoves, freeze dried mush, boots on, sleeping bags away and so on began. Jon led off up bullet hard black ice for about two rope lengths while myself and Geoff seconded with the big bags. The original way that Svetecic went to reach the croz spur took three moderate pitches of rock and placage to join the croz 200metres from the top at the breche on top of the tower. We decided that in its current, disgustingly dry state that this would be very unwise so we took the right side of the tower up on the Croz. This decision was confirmed as a good one when i looked down the pitches from the breche to see some horrible rotten rubble. Only one of the repeats i know of have repeated these three pitches, whether that was because of conditions i don't know.

100 metres of bullet hard ice to start day 4.

The big bags really hurt on the upper Croz.

The horribley dangerous top pitches were an unwelcome sting in the tail for our tired minds.

So close!

The day dragged on, with the big packs now full of all the excess rack crunching our shoulders and zapping our energy even more. I took over the lead again on the final tower (we went direct at the top of the Croz rather than the goullotte on the right which has become popular of late). I was shocked by how dangerous the climbing was, these last pitches do carry a reputation but i find it hard to believe that anyone could accept the risks currently on this section; tottering piles of jenga in steep grooves, which require you to pull on them rather than tip toe around. I downclimbed certain that if i went further a rope would be chopped or much much worse. I then traversed left in to a wide corner then broken spur which yielded two also loose, but justifiable pitches until i found myself standing on top on Pt croz with the sun on my face and the realisation that we'd just climbed Manitua. Well i say realisation, but i usually find these never actually sink in.

Can't quite believe it.

Another Jorasses descent dragged on and on, but could have been a lot worse if it wasn't for the firm snow. So close to the Moraine and Boccalatte hut a careless yet understandable mistake resulted in the aforementioned loss of a bag. A night of disturbed sleep and cramping muscles in the hut and another 4 hours of painful trudging and down climbing the next day saw three tired and dishevelled climbers stumble through the forest at Planpincieux on to the ski du fonde track, to the curious gazes of glamorous Italian families enjoying a saturday stroll.

Last Scottish Fling

Ten days ago i made my last trip up north to Scotland for this winter. Along with employees of Outdoor Research in the US who had come over from Seattle to see what all this scottish winter business is about, and the guys from the Mountain Boot Company in the UK, we spent 3 very soggy but fun days up on the Ben, staying in the CIC hut, which managed to keep its roof on for the duration of our stay.
     On the first day we caught what might have been (but hopefully not) the last decent Scottish conditions in a while, and i had a great day climbing with Alex Kutches, the president of Outdoor Research, and Glyn Padget, sales director for OR in the North of england. We climbed Comb Gully Buttress in alpine conditions. I climbed this route years ago with one of my original climbing partners, and so the day was also a little nostalgic for myself.
        The next couple of days were soggy to say the least, but i think the Americans left having had a "good" experience.

Alex Kutches, OR president, beginning to understand what is required of clothes in Scotland. Credit- Rich Bentley

As i say, that's Scotland over for me this year, but i had some great little trips with good friends and did some decent routes. I'm in Chamonix now, trying to sort myself out; find a new place to live, train, and hopefully climb some big stuff. And even start to think about big big stuff, a trip to Pakistan in the summer is starting to take shape.