Sunshine, Mountains and Cloud Inversions!

The Lakes in early February

The Lake District trip earlier this February was one of my favourite UBES trips. We were lucky to have beautiful sunshine all weekend, basically no wind and the not-yet-melted snow from the flurries the week before to play in (a great combo).

Saturday morning’s drive from Thirlmere to Glenridding was spectacular: low morning light and misty fields. From there, a group of us tackled Striding Edge, bumping into another group at the summit of Helvellyn who’d walked up from Thirlmere. Striding Edge was in basically summer conditions, with no ice and patchy snow; we felt a bit silly in our crampons!

We met a woman who reminisced of her student days, when her university hiking club would hire a minibus from their union for £5 for the weekend, fuel included! How times have changed.

Looking down onto Red Tarn from Red Tarn Cove (spot the UBESters!)

…Some things will never change, and we stopped at Red Tarn, after descending via Swirral Edge and a snowy, bum-slidy gully, for an inevitable lake bag. This involved hacking through 4’ thick ice and very little dignity. Luckily, Hugo’s Jetboil restored some warmth to icy limbs.

Alex’s pleasant afternoon dip

In the midst of these naked antics, we spotted Laurence, Ben and Duncan on V-Corner (III) on Red Tarn Cove.

The boiz on V-Corner (III) on Red Tarn Cove

Another group had a brilliant day on Blencathra, via Sharp Edge (involving equally heroic *assisted* (people lowering other people into icy water holes…!) lake bags), and another an ‘awesome’ epic, doing a long loop encompassing Langdale Pikes, Bow Fell and Crinkle Crags.

Team Sharp Edge

On the Sunday, Striding Edge and Sharp Edge were revisited, along with some some lower level walks. It was another beautiful day, with stunning cloud inversions.

What a weekend!

For more photos check out our Flickr page!

Snowdonia 2

This weekend, forty of us set off for a wintry weekend in Snowdonia. In case anyone was wondering what we got up to, I thought I’d write a brief trip report! 

Going crazy on the Carneddau

On the Saturday, ten of us optimistically set off up the Miners’ track in search of a winter climb on the Trinity face of Snowdon. Despite the thaw the day before, we found Central Trinity in slightly slushy, but climbable condition.

One party soloed, and two parties roped up for the snow gully, which cuts straight up from Glaslyn to the top of Snowdon. It had a chockstone and a teeny bit of almost ice to give interest, and it was great to get the axes out. We were slightly bemused when we topped out to see crowds of people crawling up to the summit in trainers, and then sliding back down again.

An intrepid group of UBESters on the wintry Glyders

Other walks took on the Carneddau and the Glyders, finding plenty of wintry excitement and a fair bit of scrambling too. Tim lead one of his classic slogs, taking in twenty kilometers of epic Welsh hills, and returning late enough that people were talking about getting in touch with Mountain Rescue (It's okay; they were either joking, or had had a considerable amount to drink). 

We all returned ready for a nourishing dinner, however we were not aware that disaster was about to strike. A hole was discovered in the rice pan. The starchy water gushing onto the stove somehow managed to ignite, creating a small fire and a lot of excitement. After consuming copious quantities of delicious slop, cooked at last, the Saturday evening contained its usual dose of organised fun, a bonfire and a disco! 

One of the climbing officers gearing up for a very serious climb

On the second day, which was warmer, wetter and windier, several groups set off to take on some of the smaller peaks. A group of twenty took on Moel Siabod, some of us attempting to run it, to greater and lesser degrees of success. Other walks included a miniature 'three peaks', involving the all important driving aspect of the more grandiose UK wide challenge.

There were many lakes bagged this weekend, one of the more ‘heroic’ ones on the Sunday walk up Cnicht, was described by the bagger himself. “It was too shallow so I had to wade out into thigh deep mud, and the weather was like a moist apocalypse, but less exciting.” Sounds like great fun!I had a great weekend; I really hope everyone else did too.

A massive thank you to everyone who helped organise it, and I look forward to seeing everyone soon!

A postgrad officer looking like a pro!

Topping out on the summit of Snowdon

Castle Ridge (III), a winter adventure.

Castle Ridge, a classic winter route on the UK's highest mountain!

Check out the short video below! 

Ben and myself set out early on Sunday the 28th December 2014 to tick my first winter climb of the season, and Ben's first ever!

After an early morning 5am alpine start, we walked in from the North face car park up to the CIC hut to start our route.

The line of the route can be seen as the ridge on the far right of the picture below.

 

We were met with beautiful views as the sun finally rose over the mountain side and lit up the snow covered slopes.

We got to the start of the route, geared up and got excited.

Once on the route we started moving together up the easier angled slopes, only stopping to pitch the 2 difficult sections, including the "awkward chimney."

The whole route seemed to last a lot longer than the 200m stated in the guide book, with us topping out Carn Mor Deag just as the sun was going down, after a full day of alpine style winter climbing!

 
 



Laurence

Morocco Summer Trip

From late August to mid-September, a group of 15 UBESters hiked, scrambled, swam and haggled in the incredibly beautiful and arid High Atlas Mountains of Morocco. After Arriving in Marrakech, we spent the first week hiking in a loop around the area north of Imlil (a large valley town in the centre of the Toubkal region) taking in the remote, non-motorised town of Tacheddirt and the high ski-resort of Oukaimeden. Sleeping in a combination of refuges and tents, we use this period to acclimatise to the altitude by slowly increasing our sleeping height day to day, and to tackle some beautiful peaks – Adrar Tamalaroute (2724m) which dominates the Imlil valley and the spectacular yet terrifying peak of Adrar Angour (3616m), all in preparation for the ascent of Mt Toubkal (4167m) and others the next week. The hot weather didn’t dampen our spirits and in fact the dryness of the air meant that it wasn’t all that unpleasant (mostly!), however finishing walking before 2pm was desirable.

  

The second week saw us at a higher average altitude, and as well as climbing Toubklal and Ouanoukrim (4083) in spectacular wall to wall sunshine, we visited a lake and another beautiful partly terraced valley in a demanding three day loop finishing back in Imlil. The valleys cultivated and terraced by the local Berbers provided a welcome break from the rocky, arid and exceedingly steep landscape higher up. After returning to Marrakech we explored the world famous Place De Jema (main square), visited some of the city’s lovely gardens (full of wildly different types of cacti) and haggled ferociously for gifts from the bustling, colourful, and seemingly never ending souks.

Highlights of the trip included experiencing an out of this world view from the Toubkal summit along the Spine of the 1000km Atlas and to the Sahara and beyond, climbing the two highest mountains in North Africa, meeting some very hospitable and helpful locals, and a hilariously fun evening by Lac D’ifni which included a limbo competition and some seriously hard core night-time photography!

A full trip report will be posted soon, but in the meantime, if anyone is thinking about going to the High Atlas, I couldn’t recommend it more highly! The area is very cheap and easily accessible from Marrakech and the UK for that matter, and with some of the highest mountains in Africa and landscapes, culture and weather different to anything European, this has to be a prime location for any keen expeditioner wishing to venture out of the continent.

A Monday Night Cycling Microadventure

 

While some UBESters are scaling alpine pinnacles, others are traversing Transylvanian ridges and some are journeying as far east by bike as they can get, some of the rest of us are spending the summer hard at work on our PhDs, medical degrees and summer placements here in sweltering Bristol. No adventuring for us then? Well think again, this is just what the 5-9 microadventure concept is for. Anna and I (Dave), being the studious types we are, had been discussing a weekday evening microadventure for quite some time and this week we finally had the weather and the gap in our schedules to make it a reality.

The concept: get out of the city at 5pm, get in some adventure, bivvying and swimming and get back to work the following morning.

The transport: rag tag team of road bikes, mountain and trail bikes with panniers & rucksacks.

The team: Anna (medic), Tim & Jon(engineers), Tom (PhD chemist),& Dave (PhD biologist).

The destination: Brean Down on the Somerset coast.

 

Road selfie!

Under Tim’s roughly printed guidance we set off in the heat covered in bags, helmeted and head-torched to the nines on a picturesque ride taking in Nailsea, Yatton and that village where the Thatchers cider factory is.. The 55km journey was almost too easy and had to be livened up with some super dodgy on-the-move selfies in true UBES fashion.

Cows!

Shortly before the ominously named village of ‘Uphill’ we realized that the fastest route to Brean would be off-road. With the three road cyclists suitably nervous we set off through kissing gates, herds of cattle and lumpy-bumpy tracks until the sun set and we got some real adventuring under-way ragging it down pitch-black tracks all the way to the fish & chip chop in Brean.

Chip shop!

After a hearty dinner including extra free chips from the owners who clearly pitied our Monday night insanity we headed off down some even bumpier tracks to the end of Brean Down peninsula, home to Brean Down Fort (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brean_Down_Fort) which would be our slightly creepy bed for the night. We found a spot in the moat and settled down in our bivvy bags to watch a few shooting stars and check out the milky way.

A view only seen by Tim..

In the morning, Tim was up at 5am to catch the sunset and take photos of the rest of us sleeping (cheers, Tim..). One short hour later we were on our bikes and avoiding the local goats on our way to Burnham-on-Sea for an ill-judged and extremely muddy dip in the sea.

We hopped on the train at Highbridge and were back in Bristol in time for work. That is, of course, if work starts at 11.30.. All in all, a great foray into weekday microadventuring to remind us all that you don’t need to have fancy touring bikes or mountaineering equipment to enjoy all the excitement the UK has to offer.

Dave Wilby

@goinginanyway (twitter.com/goinginanyway)

goinginanyway.wordpress.com

Alpine Adventures–Conville Course

This summer I travelled out to the French Alps for my first ever foray into the world of slightly higher altitude mountaineering. I was lucky enough to be able to take part in a Conville course. The Jonathon Conville Trust was set up in memory of the young mountaineer who it was named after, who died on the Matterhorn in 1979. They provide subsidised courses in the Alps, among other things, which are aimed at helping young mountaineers start their alpine career safely, with knowledge of techniques such as crevasse rescue and safe rope work over technical ground.

So I packed up my bags and headed out to Chamonix, to live off a diet of tinned food and cheese, and far too few showers, for my first alpine season.

On the first day of the course, after a quick briefing and kit check, we caught the Montenvers railway up onto the Mer de Glace, to practise crevasse rescue technique and roping up. The day started with the descent of over 250m ladders, to get us down to the level the glacier had retreated to. We watched with envy as groups of school kids marched out with us. Why didn’t my school do that! We were greeted at the bottom by the cool breeze off the glacier, and the smell of ice. Crevasse rescue turned out to be fairly fiddly and tiring work. We split into teams, three Convillers to a guide. Our guide taught us how to improve the system to make it efficient as possible, but I still reckon I’d have a hard time pulling someone out. As one of the lightest, it seems likely I’ll fall into the role of crevasse poodle (literally).

The second day we caught the amazing Midi lift (the third most visited tourist attraction in the world), up to the grand height of 3800m at the top of the Aiguille du Midi. We started by roping up in the famous ice cave entrance, and then slowly tiptoeing our way down the thoroughly exposed Midi arête. The day was spend applying the previous day’s learning, doing the first two points on Pointe Lachenale (one of them is definitely more of a bump), and slowly acclimatising to working at altitude.  

The third day we made our first attempt at a route, in the slightly lower Aiguilles Rouges. The three of us moved together, along the Traverse of the Crochues, a PD+ ridge, while our guide soloed alongside us, cajoling us along, so as not to turn the trip into a faffalanche. It turned out at the abseil that two of us had taken the motto ‘fast and light’ too far, and our guide was not impressed by the lack of belay plates, so we were plied with his and told to be snappy. Climbing in big boots turned out to be a lot of fun, and also surprisingly practical, in stark contrast to my pre-Alps practice in the gorge, which as by all accounts, traumatic. All in all, it was a fantastic route, covering lots of interesting ground, surrounded by amazing views of the Mont Blanc Massif. To top it all off, there was enough snow for a speedy descent, practising both our skiing, and more often than not, our bumsliding. 

Over the next few days I spent plenty of time watching the rain gush down the windows of the refuge, and studying various ambitious routes. When the sun was shining, I did manage to fit in the Cosmiques Arete, an exciting variation on Pointe Lachenal, some long mountain sport, an epic valley level ‘grade 3’ scramble, and some ice climbing on the Mer de Glace. I had a great time and I can’t wait to get out there next year.

 

More information about the Jonathon Conville Mountaineering Trust: http://www.jcmt.org.uk/

If you want to see how little it has changed, this is an article my friend wrote 11 years ago (Midnight Express has been a thing for that long, and you still can’t get it in every café in Wales?!!): http://www.jcmt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Summit_37.pdf

 

Rebecca Millington