Verdes Adventure Poll

Thanks for all the great ideas for the Verdes poll.

I've put them up for you to have a vote and we'll see what comes out of the process.


That said, it looks like we could categorise: a major event involving travel and a few days through to a one day blast to achieve.

If it comes out like that, I'll split the results for a second vote. Also if you have had any other ideas in the meantime, let me know and I'll put them up.

Davie

Font Romeu, French Pyrenees, 20th July 2008

This week saw Davie in the Pyrenees for some R+R after the Skye mission.

The week kicked off with a gorge walk from around 900m up to about 1900m. The going was quite tough but the views were spectacular.

Next on the agenda was some white water rafting, followed by some hydro speeding. Rich S gave me a complete bum steer as to what hydro speeding entailed, so I was a little surprised to find myself suited and flippered up, then lashed on to a bit of polystyrene before being deposited back at the start of the rafting course.

Great fun, although more than a little bruising.

Without any let up, we then went mountain biking with some good technical stuff and some great downhill sections. Walkers were a bit of a problem though and as we meandered our way down into Spain, there were more than a few shouts of 'excusez moi!' and 'pardon!'.

I'll not bore you with details of the highest aerial extreme I have ever been at and will skip direct to our day off.

We hired a guide called Sebastian, who we found out afterwards is one of the strongest and most famous climbers and boulderers in the Pyrenees.

Kinda like a French Ginger.

Sebastian took us to some great rock outcrops and set up a range of climbs from VS to HVS. The weather was great and the HVS routes were outstanding.

Why I worried about InPin is beyond me.

In the afternoon, we went bouldering in the Targasonne area, which is very like a French version of Brimham Rocks. We tackled some easy problems to start with and moved on to 6a Grades on the Fontainebleu scale.

For the newcomers, this equates to 'bloody difficult - Spiderman qualities required'

Our guide for this was Dave. Dave is originally from Barnsley and lives for 6 months of the year in a cave in the Himalayas. He too was quite obviously descended from Ginger and seemed to climb using only two fingers and one of his toes.

A maestro of bouldering, but then he does practice 7 hrs a day in the Himalayas.

The finale to our week was a canyoning day and having done numerous ghyll scrambles here in the UK, I felt quite confident.

The reality is however, that the canyons there are much steeper sided, much faster and much more dangerous. We negotiated sumps, tyrolean traverses, zip wires, swims and about 6 major jumps, the biggest of which was 11m.

All in all a great week. Simon and Dave (our guides for the week) were superb and have stated that if Verdes want a tailor made trip next year, say over a long weekend, they will put it together for us.

Davie

What would you like to do? Verdes Poll

In an effort to bring a little variety to the Verdes outing list, here's an idea.

Tell me the 3 things you would like to do or places you would like to go.

It might be 'climb Ben Nevis', it might be 'Yorkshire 3 Peaks', it might be 'canoeing in Ullswater' or even a parachute jump....

It could be anything.

But it's something that you've thought about and have never got round to, or maybe you'd like some company or help or maybe it's a life goal.

Send me your answers by return and I'll create a poll on the blog. The idea with the most votes is first on the hit list and so on.

Let's give it a go and see how it works out.

Davie

Leeds Climbing Wall, 17th July

Today saw Davie, Rich S and Ian S head off to the climbing wall for a bit of practice.

Tried some tricky routes up to 15m and a spot of bouldering to complete the workout.

It's amazing how kit has changed over the years. One guy (see below) was even pioneering his own designs.

I'll not be buying any of that though.

1. Stickies are enough - no need for such excessive knee length apparel

2. How's he going to reach that chalk bag? It is a chalk bag isn't it?

3. Where's he going to hang his gear?

4. Call that a helmet?

5. Gloves too are an unnecessary addition to anyones rack, unless you're doing a classic abseil.

...I honestly don't know how they allowed him in.

We're going to try and make a regular thing of going to the wall because a) it's fun and a good social way to get together and b) it really does help with the outdoor scrambly bits.

Leave a comment if you are interested in coming in future.

Davie

InPin Revisited. 9th July 2008

Overnight, I realised how much of my life has been taken up by this thing since we agreed the mission.

And it's another cracker of a day. So it must be game on.

We drive round to the mountain rescue post at Glen Brittle and start our ascent. The going is really hard; yesterday was a 9 1/2 hour day and the effects of the heat are now hitting hard.

Or is it that the spectre of the InPin is working it's way insidiously into my psyche.?

Probably both because I'm tired and worried. We take a slightly different route to the summit ridge and summit Sgurr Dearg (the main peak) in good order following some exposed traversing.

When we get there, there is already a guy trying to summit via our route, so we kick back and rest in the sun. I have already made my mind up not to summit. I'm too tired and frankly I'm worried about the task. InPin just sits there, telling my sub conscious that it's better than me and that I have been right to be scared this last six months.

I mean, come on. I'm not a climber. I hate heights. Maybe 283 Munros is good enough.

The guy trying to summit, makes it. We all clap for him; what an achievement. When he abseils back down we learn that this is his 284th Munro - he's a compleater!

The girl/boy duo who helped him there now help their dad to do the same.

And all of a sudden 2 people have tackled our route and succeeded.

Next up is Ginja and he makes it look so bloody easy, one wonders why he placed protection.

I get myself settled down to watch the Verdes Team make their attempt, sure in the knowledge that I myself will not be.

Once Ginja is set up, Rich S goes first and I try hard to spot for him after the crap conditions of Monday. Once past the crux moves, its apparent that he's going to make it.

Thank God. A Verdes success.

...and then... I don't know what happened. I was walking calmly to get my harness. I got fastened in and was roped up. I didn't act on John's excellent spotting, I was going my way. I'd got into my stickies without really thinking and had not even removed my buff, which was worn pirate style.

At no point was I intimidated, this was a fear that had to be laid to rest.

Today. Now.

I summited InPin to a delighted Ginja and Rich S.

... and the black dog that had followed me for so long ran off whimpering.

I abseiled back down after letting a party through to find the boys ready to go.

... and then John did it....

... and then Rich M did it.....

I know it's soft, but once we were all back on terra firma, it was my proudest Verdes moment.

We executed a swift descent back to the car which saw Rich S do some off piste Ghyll scrambling, which also saw him fall in, bashing his head and drawing blood - numpty!.

And so the Skye mission was complete and all that was left was a piss up and a long drive home.

InPin was kind enough to let us get to the top the second time. Day 2 was immense.

.. and Ginja the Ninja is still king of the hill.

Thanks mate. We couldn't have done it without your help.

What we gonna do next?

Davie

Day 2. Sgurr nan Gillean, Am Basteir and Bruach na Frithe. 8th July 2008

This is the day for doing the InPin - it's gorgeous. The sun is out and I can feel the bloody thing laughing at my discomfort - some day mate , some day!

Anyway, today we're going for some hard Grade 2 and 3 scrambling. Sgurr nan Gillean is our initial target and once we get to the top, we'll abseil down a gully to pick up the path to Am Basteir - the tooth.

Finally, we'll drop off the the top of the tooth and retrace our route back around Am Basteir's base to tackle Bruach na Frithe.

All of us except the bold Ginja, feel the effects of a scorching day.

We get to the ridge where we start our summit route and in a moment of madness (or is it Verdes?) I agree to lead the group up through the scrambles.

Why? I'm still asking myself. But as we make our way ever upwards, with the exposure getting more and more extreme, I can't help smiling. To hell with the don't look back and don't look down motto. If you look down the adrenaline kicks in immediately and you just want to keep going.

A couple of hairy bits and we're there - the summit. We all have 'shit eating grins' on our faces and wonder how the hell we're going to get off.

More adrenaline is the answer and after a bit more scrambling, the bold Ginja leads us to a 30m chimney that is our route to the path.

Gulp!

We get roped up and set off. This is Verdes after all... it's easy!

Ginger poses for the camera on a pedestal with about 1000ft of drops to all sides and then we set off for Am Basteir. The views are stunning and we can see the whole Cuillin range arrayed before us.

And there, on the horizon is the InPin. Even at this range it freezes my heart.

My dread for this damn thing looms larger than ever and I'm not even near it.

Am Basteir looks scary too and very, very pointy.

However, once you get to the base, the summit is quickly achieved, with only one really tricky step involved. In itself, this step is ok, then you realise you're coming back this way and you're going to have to climb it!

After a safe passage we found ourselves at the base of Am Basteir ready to ascend the scree path to the top ridge of Bruach na Frithe. This is really hard going with one step up and two back and I must confess to having to cut my shreddies off at this point, continuing in the commando fashion.

Bruach was straight forward from the ridge and after a big photo shoot, we took the ridge line escape to reach sea level.

It was a scorcher of a day, so bad in fact that John D decided to grace the river with his presence. Luckily, the sea eagles were either roosting at the time or maggots are out of season, because he returned unscathed...

A well deserved slap up meal in the bar was in order as we planned the next stage of our mission.

InPin Revisited..... Coz the weather forecast looks ok.

Will I ever stop fearing this bloody thing?

Post to follow

Sgurr Dearg - The Inaccessible Pinnacle, Day 1. Skye, 7th July 2008

After a sleepless night, we set off round to Glen Brittle to have a go at the InPin.

The summits were covered in cloud as we left and this bode ill for our route in. After parking up we set off up into the corrie and that's when the rain started.

After a few attempts to negotiate a safe passage up the wet rock, we managed to gain the ridge that took us up Sgurr Dearg, the peak that has InPin as its summit.

The weather by this time was awful and the cloud was right down.


A Viking Day, as Ginger refers to it, and strangely enough a day that brought out the full character of the Cuillins.

Dark, foreboding and slightly spooky.


Just when I thought it couldn't get spookier, I crossed the ridgeline to be confronted by the West side of InPin in all it's scary beauty.



A real jaw dropper.




...and now I have to climb the bloody thing.


Ginger descended the scree slope to make an ascent of the fin so that he could top rope us up the West V.Diff side (I repeat!). A fantastic piece of climbing by the bold Ginge in terrible conditions - a real Ninja.



Well, we had 2 or 3 goes in the lashing rain but the rock was just too slippy to make purchase.



Ginger abseiled down and we decided to forego an attempt at two other local Munros and to get back to the hotel.




Descent was very rapid and was achieved by scree riding the biggest scree slope I have ever seen.



Battered, bruised and dare I say a little relieved, we adjourned to the bar to discuss tomorrow.


An attempt on the 3 hardest Munros, straight out of the hotel door.


... and still the InPin beckons.


Post to follow.