World's End and Craig Y Tonnau 24th & 25th April 08

Just back from two days with the guys from ProAdventure in Llangollen learning a few techniques for setting up single pitch climbs.

Day one saw us heading out to the limestone crags at 'World's End'. A fabulous place with dozens of routes but, more importantly, a good number of natural anchors to learn setting the rigs to climb.



Here we set a couple of routes to allow bottom rope climbs on simple HVD and S grades.



For day two the weather turned very wet so we head off to Craig Y Tonnau. A crag with strange rippled, igneous rock where grip is not a problem in the wet. The only problem here was the lack of natural anchors and the need to use gear to set our rigs.



We set two top rope routes here including a rig using a single rope demonstrating different techniques that can lead to multi pitch climbing. After setting another couple of routes (we forgot the guide book so didn’t know the grades) we spent the afternoon climbing the face.

Next steps...

1. Get the credit card out for some rope
2. Find a willing volunteer to come climbing.... anybody?

Richard S

Great Gable, via the Climbers Traverse, 24th April 2008

Today saw John D and Davie on Great Gable in poor visibility and low cloud.

Finding the climber's traverse from Sty Head Tarn is just as testing as the books say, but a little experimentation saw us on our way.



The poor visibility on the tops meant that we didn't actually see the Needle this time and we did the circular route around the back of Great Gable, taking the Kirk Fell path to reach the top.




A good day out until John had a small mishap on the descent, doing an amazing face plant into the sharpest rock he could find. Some hill first aid saw our hero safely on his way but stitches will probably be required - I did offer to put some in for him in situ, but he bravely said he would prefer to keep walking.



Did he fall or was he pushed?

Who knows....

Haystacks, Lake District. 17th April 2008

Today saw Davie doing a recce of Haystacks and the surrounding area, prior to our camping trip and 'expedition'.

Weather was excellent although a cold front was blowing in from the east bringing snow. Fortunately I managed to see it in my rear view mirror as I left.



The views from Haystacks were fantastic and it's easy to see why it was Wainwright's favourite mountain. I've often seen it from the Pillar side of the valley but today was my first visit to that area.



The views back across the valley were outstanding too and it was nice to see Pillar from a different aspect. There were great view across to the Gables and Sca Fell Pike was peeping throught the gap between Kirk Fell and Great Gable.



It would have been easy to spend a few hours up there and it should be a great place to wild camp - we might need to be a bit clever with tent placement though.

No way could this be called a 'quality mountain day' in ML terms, but still a great day out.

Ill Crag, Lake District. 15th April 2008

Decided on a bit of a leg stretch and headed over to the Lakes. Weather was glorious here in Yorkshire, but as is so often the case, once I got to Penrith.....

Weather was changeable on the way up to Esk Hause and I decided to have a quick recce down to Angle Tarn at the foot of Bow Fell to look at potential campsites for the future.

There was a lot of snow lying about on the northern slopes and a cold wind was blowing from the north threatening a blast of more snow.

Not a day for hanging about.

Retraced my steps back to Esk Hause and followed on up to the base of Great End before carrying onto to Ill Crag, north east from Sca Fell Pike and listed in Wainwrights tops.

In all the times I've been up Sca Fell Pike I've never taken the detour to take in the views from Ill Crag. Looking over the edge at the shear drops, I know why.

The weather was closing in on Sca Fell Pike and after a photo session I beat a hasty retreat across the snowy plateau in search of some poor sucker to take a picture.

In the meantime, someone was doing it in style on top of Great End, landing a helicopter to take their snaps... bloody snobs!

Confirmed the scramble route up to Sca Fell Pike that I've mentioned before and it looks great - one for the summer perhaps.

Going to try and get back over tomorrow and have a crack at the Fairfield Horseshoe in the Helvellyn area.

Post to follow.

ML Training, Cairngorms. 31st March - 5th April 2008

Well, a great week was had by all.

There were times where the weather was more like a winter ML, but in all fairness it would be in conditions like these that the tools and techniques would have to be used so it was great experience.

Course agenda went like this:

Day 1 Hill day: personal navigation skills, timing, pacing, group skills, navigation, environmental issues. Weather talk. Ropework session, knots etc.







Day 2 Mountain day - group management, route choice, safeguarding group on awkward terrain. River crossings. Environmental issues. Party leadership issues.



Day 3 Security on steep ground, deployment of rope in emergency situations. Emergency procedures, mountain rescue. Pack for expedition.

Day 4 Depart for expedition, looking at navigation, group management, party leadership, environmental issues. Night navigation exercise. Camping.

Day 5 Return from expedition. Session on consolidation period between training and assessment.

Day 6 Mountain day, reviewing technical steep ground procedures. Group debrief, individual debriefs.






... and highlights? The night navigation exercise, with Ginger beasting us over the peat hags until the 'wee small hours' of the morning. and the severe ground days, especially Saturday, with Pete making the sessions very lifelike.


Many thanks to Pete Hill for a very professional and informed approach and a huge thanks to 'Ginger' Lee for his friendship, support and inspiration over the week.




Assessment already booked for September... so the training begins in earnest!

ML Course - Cairngorms, 31st March

This week sees Davie heading northwards (again) to undertake his ML training in the Cairngorms.

Having looked at service providers in the Lakes I decided to go for a course run in Scotland. Course is run by Peter Hill MIC and will run for 6 days. Pete has climbed the Eiger North Face and has written a few books on mountaineering so I should be in good hands.

Pete's site is found at : www.petehill.mic.com

If I get the chance to get some pics I will get them up when I return.

Watch this space!

Conival and Ben More Assynt

The weather really deteriorated over night with snow fall above 700m and winds coming in from the north as a cold front came in from the Atlantic.

Our heroes were unperturbed at this and decided after a hearty breakfast to give it a shot.

The wind was gusting at around 80mph with average windspeed at 60mph. Moving was very difficult on exposed ridges and combined with the snow, ascent was precarious to say the least.




We had decided early on that an attempt on Ben More from Conival was probably stupid, especially on an exposed ridge in the teeth of a 70mph gale. There were only 2 parties of two on the hill and we met the other guys on the way down; they confirmed that conditions on top were too hairy to even contemplate a ridge walk to Ben More.



Conditions were really appalling , with the streams turning into rivers and the paths disappearing under water. However, 3 1/2 hours later we were on the top and back at the hotel in 7 hours, soaking and exhausted. (Well I was ...Davie)



We would like to thank Richard and Jaimie at the Inchnadamph Hotel for their Highland hospitality and making us so welcome; great company, great food and a really comfortable stay.

If you're ever in the highlands this is a must stay place: http://www.inchnadamphhotel.co.uk/

Ben Klibreck 19th March

Today saw Rich and Dave attempting to summit both Ben Klibreck and Ben Hope.

The weather was threatening to rain/snow and a frost overnight made the inital going quite good.

Getting up to the saddle was hard going and visibility was down to about 50m at times, but as height was gained the weather started to clear and eventually gave way to sunshine over the valley.





We followed the ridge route round to the final push to the summit and slogged our way through fresh snow to the summit cairn.




Time to the top was 3hrs 20 and over all journey was 6hrs 30 mins (with apparently 30mins delay down to Davie faffing about).





Once back at the car we established that we had been given some duff gen by the hotel owner and his suggested route had added about 6km to our journey (about 2 hrs). This and a very knackered Davie meant that a secondary attempt on Ben Hope was beyond reach. (DAMN!)

Arrived at Inchnadamph to get ready for the next leg - Conival and Ben More Assynt tomorrow. Post to follow.

Trip to the frozen North

Thanks to a business cancellation this week, Rich and Davie are heading off to Sutherland in the North of Scotland.

As part of 'Davie's Quest' to bag all the Munros before his 50th birthday, tackling the outlying hills in the far north was going to be a project for later in the year.

Further 'projects' in this quest will be posted in the Verdes Calender and the link to this will be sent out to all members when we get back.

Hopefully, if the weather holds, we're going to do Ben Hope (most Northerly Munro at 927m) and Ben Klibreck (962m) on Wednesday 19th May and Conival (987m) and Ben More Assynt (998m) on Thursday 20th .

It's a long drive (800 miles round trip) but it will be a good test for the Range Rover...

We'll get some pix up on the site when we get back.

David

Winter Skills - Ice Factor, Kinlochleven. February 2008

Rich and Dave attended a Winter Skills course in Scotland a few weeks ago.

First couple of days saw the dynamic duo throwing themselves down a couple of Munros in order to practice self arrest using ice axes.

Use of boots alone, boots with axe, boots and crampons and then all 3 in 'perfect harmony' were practised and practised until we got the message.

In the midst of all this fun, we also climbed 3 Munros:

Stob Dubh and Stob Coire Raineach (Buachille Etive Beag) and

Aonach Mor.

Day 3 was an opportunity to brush up on mountain navigation and day 4 was indoors, giving it loads on the largest indoor ice walls in Europe, practising our front pointing technique.

All in all a great week and thanks to the lads at Ice Factor.

Skiddaw, 5th January 2008

First outing of 2008 was an attempt on Skiddaw, with a good turnout in spite of bad weather warnings.

Winds on top were 'a bit extreme' and gusts to 80mph made moving very difficult, especially on the icy terrain.

We didn't quite manage the summit on this occasion, turning back about 300m from the summit.

Sadly a climber was found dead near the summit and recovered by Keswick Mountain Rescue just before we made our attempt.

A sobering thought and one that proves out the maxim ' getting to the top is optional, getting home is compulsory'

Still a great day and thanks to all the Verdes Numpties who gave it a go!

Well done!

Causey Pike, 31st December 2007

2008 was racing towards us and we just had to get a good walk in before last orders...



Causey Pike is an old favourite of Phil's and we decided that this should be the venue for our last 2007 outing.

We had a good turnout and the weather was relatively stable; little wind on the ascent with a stiff breeze on top.



A good day out and a nice cup of tea in Keswick afterwards... pure Verdes moment!

El Teide 2007

The 3 amigos had so much fun last year on El Teide, we decided to have a return match.


This time, instead of departing from sea level to make our ascent (who needs acclimatisation!) we opted for a night at the hotel at 7000 ft. This made it a little easier on the breathing front, but an invasion in the early hours by a lizard kept Davie on his toes and not knowing how to operate the air conditioning put paid to Rich's sleep plans too.



As always, the zig zags up the refugio at 10000ft were a nightmare and the effects of low oxygen were apparent. However, the push from the refugio to the summit seemed a little easier than last year and before long we had got to the top.



I even managed to remember the flag this time and for a small moment, much to the chagrin of my colleagues, the summit was in Scottish hands.

Welcome to Verdes Adventure Therapy!

At last... a way to tell you all about us!.

Verdes Adventure is the brainchild of 3 friends, Dave, Richard and Paul. We came up with the idea a few months ago over a fine bottle of red in a fantastic Italian restaurant, having just summited El Teide on Tenerife (Spain's highest mountain).

We're going to use this forum to tell you what we're up to and where we've been and to give people the chance to join us.

All you need is an idea, the guts to give it a go and the ability to have a laugh and a pint afterwards; we like to keep membership simple!