The Gower trip, organised by Naomi, was very successful, with two days of sunny climbing and one day of damp, breezy walking in some stunning countryside and on some beautiful beaches. The meet was well attended, with three members (Patrick, John and Pete) arriving late Friday morning at Nicholaston Farm campsite, situated just 10 minutes walk from The Three Tors Bay, which is adjacent to the famous Three Cliffs Bay on the Gower Peninsular. Naomi arrived Friday evening just in time for a pudding at the Oxwich Bay Hotel and the remaining members (Stu, Helen and Darren, along with Fenn, RoCs new mascot dog) arrived Saturday morning, and Mike joining later on in the morning. Helens family - Steve, Charlotte Ben also turned up Saturday afternoon with the family tent. 

On Friday, after setting up the tents on the only available flat-ish area in the field, and getting a quick bite to eat, Patrick, John and Pete walked down to the sand dune beach at Three Tors, and as the tide was going out, commenced climbing on the middle Tor.

John on his "Severe" V Diff

John managed to defeat a V Diff, which as the grades were all a bit stiff, seemed more like an H V Diff, with a definite Severe section in the middle of it. Patrick claimed two routes, one of which was a very slippery Severe vertical groove, quite challenging for us all. John did an impressive second and Pete managed to cheat his way off the ground using an illegal block to the side of the route. Pete had also led a Diff earlier, which was rather more like a V Diff (graded as such in one book). All in all, the routes were tough for the grade, and provided some fine good quality climbing for all three members in stunning beach conditions.

Pete cheating on Patrics Severe route

After returning to the camp site a 2+ mile walk along the coast took us to Oxwich Bay, where we had arranged to meet Naomi at the Bay Hotel for food and a few beers. This turned out to be an interesting route through woodland, across marshland and dunes, and finally along some fine beach grassland, following the new Wales coastal path to the hotel.

We had a fine meal and some beers in a very smart hotel in “The Snug” bar, surrounded by limestone walls, which Patrick kept eying up with comments such as “..that will go…” and “…. what lovely holds, any one watching?…”

Naomi joined us later (and polished off a fine looking pudding), so allowing us to scrounge a lift back to the site, to admire her tent erecting skills in the dark with absolutely no assistance from us at all.

RoCs gathering on Rhossile Beach

On Saturday, the damp and breezy weather dictated a walk to Three Cliffs bay where we did a recci on some routes, and a chance to explore the castle overlooking the bay. On the way back to the site, we met up with Darren, Stu, Helen, and also Fenn, who insisted in digging holes where ever he could. Back at the site, Mike had just arrived, so we all retired to the very well appointed cafe /shop on site for some food and drink.

A trip to Rhossili beach was decided, and so after exploring the cliffs and watching bouldering activities by Stu and Patrick, a short 2 mile walk along the beach took us to a good beach cafe where more food and drink was consumed. The return journey was completed along the cliff top path by some of the more hardy members, while the remaining beach lovers strayed back to the village along the beach.

View of Worms Head from the cliff top

Steve, Charlotte and Ben joined us for a final beer at the pub in Rhossili, and with the Fry family returning to the campsite to put up the tent, the remaining crew decided to look at Worms Head, which turned out to be accessible due to low tide. This allowed a visit to the end of Worms Head via a stunning and interesting causeway and rock pools.

The evening concluded in a pub just 3 miles from the site, where good food and fine beer was consumed with music provided by a near by wedding disco.

Sunday morning arrived along with sun and warm weather, so another trip to Three Tors Bay was decided, and all members were able to enjoy to the full the same routes that we had found on Friday plus some new ones and the stunning surroundings. Helen and Steve left earlier to get the kids back home, and the rest continued to climb untill high tide stopped play. Pete got dragged up a really good Severe, which he did enjoy as his last climb of the day. Patrick, John and Pete then headed off home, while Darren, Stu, Mike and Naomi were off to a non tidal bay (or quarry) to continue climbing into the evening.

Vertical Patrick

Our thanks go to Naomi for organising her first meet so well, and finding us an excellent campsite in a stunning location, along with almost perfect weather in a very good climbing area. I am sure we will return to this venue again.

Just finished breakfast

I have posted some pictures on my Facebook page of the trip, and I am sure there will be other pictures to be viewed from various club members.

Thanks again, Naomi for a great trip.

Pete

Pete's new tent surviving at Toms Field

On Saturday morning, while eating breakfast Mike and Mark phoned to say they had arrived at Toms Field in the New Forest, which appeared not to be where they thought we were. After some desperate searching on Helen’s phone, a correct Post Code was found for the camp site, and they finally turned up at the correct Toms Field in time for a days climbing at Hedbury Quarry and Dancing Ledge. Mark enjoyed his return to outside climbing, and Mike his introduction to real rock. A good time was had by all, and Petes new tent proved to be very capable of withstanding the howling sea breeze at Toms Field without being torn to shreds.

The plan is to try and revisit Dartmoor sometime in the year, so keep a check on the website posts.

As this was so successful, I see no reason not to repeat this type of venue later in the year, so keep a look out on the website. Pete

Snowdon view

On the recent January RoCs trip to North Wales, we encountered 3 night and 4 days of rather windy conditions. The original idea was to catch some snow, but that all went away over Xmas, and so we were expecting cold dry weather to enable us to do some mountain treking. Three of us (Patrick, Roland and myself) decided to use the usual camp site next to the Bryn Tyrch pub in Capel Curig. This is a basic, usually sheltered site, handy for the pub. Unfortuantly, the pub was closed for refurbishment, which meant that our fourth member (Stu) had to use another pub in the valley to stay at, and we were forced to have to drive to the pub each night.

My Tent on the left before the storms

We had 3 very stormy nights in the tents, with winds up to 40mph, gusting at 50mph throughout the nights at Capel Curig. God only knows what it was like in the Ogwen Valley near Tryfan. On the hill in the daytime we were experiencing winds of up to 50mph gusting at 60mph up on the ridges. Safe to say, we did not go high to get that experience. We decided it was all we could do to stand up at a lower altitude.

Patricks tent with extra storm guys added to stop total collapse

The end of the weekend arived, on Sunday morning, and we all started to pack up our tents. I was the last tent to come down, and while taking the guy ropes out, I foolishly did not hang onto the tent , and a sudden unannounced extra strong gust of wind ripped the last of the pegs clean out, and the whole tent, poles and all, shot off across the field like a kite, at about 30mph – gone in a second. It stopped a hundred yards away after wrapping itself around a barbed wire fence, totally trashing the outer shell, and breaking one of the poles. Considering it had withstood 3 nights and 4 days of storm weather, it had done very well for a 4 season winter grade tent. (Jack Wolfskin Tundra II RT)

The moral of the story is don’t take your eye off the ball when taking down (or putting up) your tent in windy conditions, even if the tent is winter rated. It needs all of its guy ropes to stay up. (or do not camp in winter?).

Damage to tent-all is lost

The good news (for me) is that I have managed to find a replacement tent at a bargain price. A North Face Mountain 25 four seasons rock solid mountaineering grade tent worth £540 in a Blacks sale for £216, so I am very happy, and cannot wait to try it out in adverse conditions. It is far more solid than the old one, so I should get a good nights sleep, with nothing rattling and blowing about.

My new Mountain grade tent (Windy Wales proof?)

The picture shows the tent in normal or winter option,  fully up with outer fly, and below, the hot dry summer option of inner only.

Please do not let this article put you off camping on any RoCs trips. The conditions were very exceptional for the time of year. Some members have camped with £25 Pop-Up tents in May!!

Pete

Hi all,  just thought i would share a few photo’s from my trek to Everest Base Camp in October with my daughter Kerry, the trip was booked through Adventure Peaks and took 23 days in all. the itinerary was a day and a half in Kathmandu sightseeing then packing our gear.

A chorten at monkey temple

Day 4 We flew to Lukla 2800m, very scary, then started to walk to Pakding 2610m.

The team, Andy, Kerry, Me and Roy

Day 5 we started the long haul up to Namche Bazzar 3440m, a very scenic walk to Monjo then Jorsalle for lunch, then a few bridge crossings then up 800m to Namche

One of the many bridges

Day 6  was spent acclimatizing around Namche, moving up to the Everest view Hotel,

Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam

then down to Kumjung, which is home to our guide Ang Tsering or “A T “. Then back up the ridge and down to spend another night in Namche.

View from our lodge in Namche

Day 7 Walked to Mong 3950m and had lunch then it was down to Portse Tenga 3680m, some very narrow trails.

Day 8 saw us walking to Dole 4050m then on to our lodge in Lapharma 4330m with views of Cho Oyo 8201m.

View of Cho Oyu in the background

Starting to feel cold now, and had a banging headache for the rest of the day, also started to miss my wife Sally and daughter Michelle at home.

Above the clouds on Gokyo Ri 5357m

Looking towards the Renjo Pass top right

After lunch we moved across the Nguzumpa glacier in the mist, guided round all the cravasses by AT, on to Dragnag 4700m.

Day 11 An early start 04.30 with diarrhoea, some porridge then more diarrhoea, walked for an hour and a half up to the ridge, we can now see the Chola pass about an hour away.

On reaching the bottom we could see how steep it was, only another 400m to climb/scramble.

Glad I'm not a porter

Eventually made the top of Chola Pass 5330m.

Exhausted on the cho la pass

We still had another 3hrs down the glacier with no crampons (a bit iffy at times) to get to our lodge at Dzongla 4850m.

Our route down the glacier

Day 12 and we walk into the Khumbu valley, the views are stunning, just looking around we can see Cholaste, Ama Dablam, Nuptse, Lhotse, Kumbutse and Pumori, we finished the day at Lobouche 4940m.

Pumori with kala pata in front

Day 13 and another all day headache, but the views more than made up for it, ended the morning at Gorak Shep 5164m.

Gorak shep with Changtse at the back

As it was a nice day AT suggested we climb Kala Pata 5643m after lunch, a really hard slog for me,

Hard slog up kala pata

but it was so worth it, the best views of the trek, Everest felt so close you touch it.

Kerry, Andy and me on kala pata

 

Everest and Nuptse from Kala Pata

 

Our guide Ang Tsering surveying his back yard

Day 14 was an easy but rocky walk to base camp where we were camping for the night, we got to base camp about 2pm and congratulated each other while AT and the porters walked to the real base camp along the Khumbu glacier to flatten the rocks and put up our tents, we were the only people there, camping at 5364m.

Roy,Andy, Kerry and me

 

All alone at base camp

Kerry got a signal on her phone so I had a chat with Sally, and got a bit emotional, but it was good to talk. The night was really cold and I didn’t sleep much, and kerry was ill much of the night as well. Hearing lots of rockfalls and avalanches all night was a bit scary.

Day 15 and what a place to wake up    Awesome !!!!!

With the tents packed up we watched the sun rise over Nuptse then walked back to Gorak Shep for lunch.

Sunrise over Nuptse

Walked to Thokla 4620m in the afternoon to our lodge.

Day 16 left Thokla in the snow, climbed up to a ridge and saw loads of memorials to climbers and sherpas that have died in the mountains, unfortunately thats all we saw as the clouds were low, but our guide said it was usually one of the most spectacular viewpoints on the trek.

Scot Fishers Memorial

Coming down in the forests again and we can feel the air getting thicker and it’s warm enough to take my fleece off, ending the day at Denboche 3820m.We were the only people in the lodge because of a couple of days of mist at Lukla there are no flights in or out, hence no trekkers coming up, and hearing there are about 3000 people in Lukla waiting to fly out.

Day 17 walked for an hour uphill to Tengboche Monastery.

Tengboche Monastery

Had superb views of Everest,Lhotse and Nuptse, then walked all the way down to cross the river, then headed uphill again for lunch at Tashinga 3450m, we finished the day at Kenjorma.

Our hard working porters

This year, we are going to The Old House at Home in Romsey and I hope you will be able to come.

Click here for the Main menu and click here for the Dessert menu

If you would like to join us, please make your starter, main course, pudding choices and send them to me together with a cheque to cover the cost.

Drinks can be paid for on the night.

To make the group booking, I will need your reply before the 21st January please.

I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at The Old House at Home at 7 30pm on 4th February 2011.

Helen Fry

We have two meets organised for your suffering:

• North Wales on or around 21st/22nd January – click here for details
• Scotland for around a week 18th – 25th February – click here for details

Please register your interest on these pages to allow accommodation to be booked (especially for the Scottish trip).

Happy climbing!

Around the Trient glacier there’s a good selection of summits requiring scrambling or the odd easy pitch to get up. None of the tops are massively high so acclimatisation shouldn’t be a problem, though I’m assuming my desperate puffing and panting was due to altitude rather than a total lack of fitness. We staying in the Orny hut, which is slightly less well positioned than the Trient hut, but has good food and a very helpful guardian (the ISM guides are very picky about which huts they use – as they live half of each week in huts I can understand why – which is useful to note if you don’t want evenings of discomfort on top of knackering days).

At the end of the week I picked up my own guide (arranged via ISM), a chap called Mike ‘Twid’ Turner. He’s based in Switzerland and turned out to be another massively experienced rock climber, ice climber, mountaineer, who’s got heaps of enthusiasm and is a really top bloke. Unfortunately for us though, the weather crapped out, which put paid to my plan of climbing a more serious peak. Not to be put off, Twid drove us over to Italy and we climbed some fantastic multi pitch bolted routes in the Aosta valley – up to 8 or 9 pitches of totally solid rock, before returning to Switzerland to finish up with a via feratta and some more bolted routes in the Rhone valley (there was a via feratta at Leysin as well, and both of these used metal rungs and wires throughout for hand and foot holds, which I found a bit less interesting than the via ferattas I’d previously done with the club in the Saas valley, which use more natural holds for hands and feet and the wire more for protection). It was a bit disappointing not to get up a big hill, but it was good to note the fantastic, almost unlimited potential of bolted climbs in Switzerland and Italy, which would be well worth exploring in their own right, or on days off from the mountain tops.

On final word on visiting the Alps right now; it’s incredibly expensive in Switzerland…..

Come and join us at the Old House at Home, Romsey on Thursday 3rd November from 7:30pm onwards for a drink or two, maybe some food and some good old banter.

Some of us may take the opportunity to plan a trip North of the Border for some Winter snow and ice action early next year…!

Post a comment if you are intending to come along:

1. John
2. Mark (arriving around 9:15)
3. Stu
4. Pete (if recovered ok from a cold)
5. …

If you don’t know what a ‘bivvy’ is then I almost don’t want to spoil the awaiting pleasure of discovering a world you don’t think should really exist. Just start reading and learn about such things as

‘The basic law of bivvy accommodation : the warmer the wetter’ i.e. you’re either wet or cold.

The book covers everything related to bivvy practicalities and the experience as a whole. All sorts of anecdotes about the authors numerous trips, lovely photos of bivvying in blizzards, partially related ‘historical’ bivvy info etc. etc. The section on food has some unusual tips : ‘glacier sorbet’ can be made through the combination of a pot of jam and a glacier : Hans Blodig – the first man to do all the 4000m Apline peaks – survived on a diet of all-butter and neat alcohol (fantastic calorie to weight ratio apparently).

On top of all this, and actually the real point to me, is to read a book that is basically totally inspiring, with a complete love of mountains and the outdoors that leaves me pining to be out there : after eating soggy mash with plastic spoons on the summit of Ben More Mull ‘the lighthouses came on from Oban to Benbecula. Iona swam away in a sliver haze, the sea went purple and so did the sky, and the moon came up from beyond the other side of Scotland’.

Priceless.