Chromosomes with wings

Had a bit of a shock over the past week going from the hilliest place in Europe (Chamonix) to the flatest (Cambridge). And from very rarely thinking about fly genetics to thinking continuously about fly genetics. I was on a Wellcome Trust Genetics and Genomics course which was very good and worthwhile if you are into that sort of thing!

It was based at Downing College which again is about as far as accomodation can get away from a Quecha pop up tent, so I had to remember to do things like keep off the grass and eat with table manners. By the end of the week I think I had managed to re-educate myself back into being a socially acceptable person (maybe), which can only be a good thing.

Kings college appearing from over the riverbank

Other good things were meeting fellow friendly Drosophilists, learning lots of potentially very useful information that I am trying hard to remember and being able to get enough exercise in so that I hadn't totally lost my alpine fitness. Training activities included going for long very flat runs, occasionally experimenting with going fast just to mix it up a bit, bouldering at the Kelsey Kerridge centre where some friendly locals (thnaks) showed me some of the problems and punting which is a prime cross training activity. Another highlight was being fed custard most nights (essential training food!).



Girls punting day out





More punters...



Me at the helm

Extreme running terrain along the River Cam, if I lived in Cambridge I would live on one of these

Really tasty blackberries!



One of my favourite kids books was called 'The Cow that fell in the Canal' and it ended up in a cheese market in Amsterdam. I wonder where this cow has been?



Vite et leger le part trois - wacky races on the cordier pillar

Clare 'Emergency veterinarian' Muir and well known car mechanic Hazel Findlay perform complex mechanics with wire and tin foil

Our next objective was to be the Cordier Pillar, which is evidently quite a popular rock route reaching the summit of the Grand Charmoz from the Plan des Aiguilles side. Despite its popularity it seems to be a difficult task to find any decent information on the route and Office de haute Montagne were even pretty vague as to which guidebook or even what mountain it was on. Eventually we found the topo (in the old Piola book) which was pretty basic and lacked any written description. We also scoured the internet where several people suggested the need for one or maybe even two (!) No. 4 Camelots. This was a problem, as we didn't have one and we definitely like placing gear above our heads, especially on offwidths.

Our efforts to find said piece of gear were successful and not only did we get a cam but a fab girly night in too (thanks Sandra, Hazel and Maddy!!) and a crash course in improvised car mechanics. And so we set off on our last foray into the mountains. We thought that maybe as there was no info on this route that maybe no-one did it except maybe british people. We were wrong. There were three teams already insitu at the bivi situ on the Plan des Aiguilles (all wanting to look at our topo then realising it was the same crap topo that they had). A much more worrying problem was the constant stream of rocks falling down the Nantillons glacier. It would have made a pretty good geography video 'Erosion in action' or something like that....

We swapped the tent for giant silver blankets this time....

Climbing! On the pillar

Surveying

One team decided to pack it in after watching the rocks but the other two thought it was fine and there was a relatively safe route to the base. We were pretty anxious about it but decided to stick to the plan; most of the rocks stop short of where you cross and in the morning it would be pretty stable so we would just have to do one 'dodgy' crossing.

Abseiling!!

Clare climbing up to our highpoint.... this time in the sun

So we made it and started climbing out of the chilly bergshrund with some spanish guys infront and some friendly poles behind. The climbing was totally ace and certainly the hardest pitches we had climbed so far. Hence, we didn't make it to the top because we just couldn't climb fast enough and we had a bit of route finding faff but it was great fun anyway and a good recce for next time! We packed it in the evening and abseiled back down and then had the totally gripping trek across the glacier. Arriving unscathed back at the bivvi site was a big relief, especially after watching some impressively large blocks tumble from really high up on the blatiere. Despite not reaching the top again we both felt like we had learnt alot from the experience and are totally keen to come back and do it again! Also, our sagely route finding wisdom that we dispensed to the new arrivals at the bivvi site obviously stood them in good stead, as 10 the following morning they had already embarrassingly reached our highpoint.....

After surviving the nantillons crossing

Looking up at the monster glacier

Our sagely route finding advice is (obviously this only applies to the bottom third of the route): At the start its very easy route finding as there is a fixed rope up the first two pitches (tied off to the second belay). After about 5 pitches you arrive at some broken ledgey ground. Here if you want to keep to the good rock and fixed belays go up and right. If you want to climb an easier but loose gully with no belays go up and left. Both  ways are possible but the righthand way is probably more desirable. Then after maybe 4 pitches up the righthand way at some point the route then goes left (after a stuck cam I think) and that is as far as we got. Losing the route is quite possible, one team went into the gully and made it to the top but chucked quite a few rocks down in the process and the other guys missed the left hand turn and climbed into no mans land and retreated a little before us. The only other piece of advice I could hope might be useful is if you are planning on rice and tinned fish as bivvi dinner do not choose fish in an 'ancient mustard' sauce and if you do try very hard not to spill it on your trousers.

Le bon sunset

Bivvi site

So we had a sad final descent back to the valley the following morning for a poco loco and ice cream breakfast. I finally got a bit of triathalon training in, doing 10 widths of Lac du Passey, where the water is way clearer than padarn (so you can see the fish, big fish!) and then we had the roasting drive home....

Triathalon training Lac du Passey - big pikes watch out!

New feature - Holiday Recipe of the week (courtesy of Sandra)

Ingredients
semi thawed frozen raspberries
sugar
yogurt

Method
Mash together!!!

Vite et leger le part deux

Another weather window meant a quick turn around, shower, visit to the laundrette and back up the hill! The next scenic camping location was to be lac blanc on our own little private beach! Perfect location for attempting the Aiguille de Perseverance the next day and near to the refuge that offers proper man size hot chocolate.

The amount of wildlife on show in the Aiguilles Rouges is fab, especially if you are around early mornings and evenings. Lots of really tame bouquetin showing off their horns and cuddly looking marmots. Anyway, enough fauna, back onto climbing.

Sexy bouquetin

Funky chamois

The Aiguille de Perseverance is pretty different to the climbing in the Envers, where the rock and climbing is good right from the bottom. There are 3 interesting pitches on the Perseverance, inc one lovely exposed pitch, but you have to climb alot of choss to get there. We found that we were much more efficient at climbing proper rock than we were at climbing easy choss and it took us quite a while to get to the climbing. Nevertheless we got to the top which was pretty windy and cold and quickly found the ab points to go back down the other side. The descent is a scree slope that is probably twice the height of the peak and about as fun as soul destroying glacier descent that we did the other day.

Clare coming up first nice pitch on the Perseverance

On top, not my best angle....

Looseness on the descent

The next day we got up early, but not early enough to beat two other teams to the foot of the Chapelle de la Gliere (near the index telepherique). This is an interesting ridge with plenty of good solid climbing on it. There is a really lovely pitch up some corners and then a novelty rasoir edge pitch! It ends at a funny rock finger that is the Chapelle (chapel, not hat as we originally thought - it doesn't look like a hat). And despite some frustrating waits for the people in front we managed to make it back to the cable car and so could eat in Poco Loco again and not have to suffer another night of seafood rissotto.

Mmmmm savagely yellow rissotto

Some welcome rain was due the next two days, giving us time to consume much needed burgers and pain au chocolats. We also had time to pop over the border into the Rhone valley and do some catching up, (as well as purchasing some amazing Valais roadside apricots).

Mmmm fresh swiss apricots

Fast and light - Part 1

Bonjour from Chamonix!!



Clare- fast and light

Been out here for a week now and there has been some stonking weather! I haven't really been rock climbing around Cham much before and have been totally shocked this time by how much there is and especially how much trad there is around. Our first expedition was up to camp by the Envers des Aiguilles refuge and after trying to pack as light as possible we still looked like students on a D of E training expedition....

Adjacent scenic camping spot

After pitching our tent in the most scenic location possible we went for our warm up route - the Magie d'Orient, which might be one of the best routes in the world (according to select guide to the world 'Parois du Legend'). It was predictably pretty good! However, holdless granite slabs came as a bit of a shock... we have discovered we climb about 3 grades harder on cracks than we do on slabs. Anyway we sucked it up and enjoyed all the crack pitches and whimpered and cried our way up the slabs to reach the pointy sommet du pointe orient. We pretty much styled the abseils, only getting the ropes stuck once (everyone we spoke to got their ropes stuck also on the penultimate ab due to an inconvieniently positioned spike). Ate some awesome tart at the refuge and listened to a totally wacky world war II style weather broadcast.

Clare arrive au sommet du pointe orient

After finding our 'warm up' pretty absorbing we then scoured the guide books for routes without hard slabs, settling on a route no one has ever heard of 'Desir du Alain' on the 3rd pointe of the nantillons ridge. A perfect place for adventure aparently! It didn't disappoint, with an ardous approach up a steep very sloshy glacier where I got to use my ice axe arrest in anger (and it worked hooray!), then a bit of a struggle to find the start of the route and then a struggle to find the first belay. It was definitely looser, grittier, more vegetated than Magie but really fun steep climbing (and no slabs). We reached the second belay (in four pitches) and decided to bail as we were super slow and the belays were not equipped as promised by the guide book. Although this would not be classicly termed a success we irrationally felt pretty successful and celebrated with another piece of tart after a soul destroying slush descent down the glacier.

Me after soul destroying slush descent

The next day was the day we ran out of food, but we managed to squeeze in a route Petit Nicholas before the grand descent to the valley. This was one of the bolted routes under the refuge which are toatlly different in character to the higher routes and we managed 5 pitches (inc. a slab) in under 2 hours to our immense suprise. Shows a big difference between following a line of bolts in a non-serious situation and questing around with a trad rack trying to follow a vague topo....

More to follow if i get my blogging act together.....

Sarnia cherie

I have been home in Guernsey for the past week which has been lovely! Had lots of relaxation time and seen family and friends again. Been out on the cliffs quite a bit and after a few days I feel like I've got my running legs back. Also been making use of Guernsey's premier climbing facility - the cave. Its a shed in a top secret location that has been converted by the keener members of the mountaineering club into a top notch bouldering facility! I think its really impressive and shows what you can do if you put your mind to it.

My mum is 'into' video analysis (the picture is a still from one of the videos) and I have never really watched myself climb before and I think this sort of thing could be pretty useful for working on difficult problems.

The traditional boxing day swim in pretty balmy temperatures!

In search of the holy grail

This is a bit of an outdated post now, but I haven't quite got the hang of writing blog posts punctually (or sending birthday and christmas cards on time for that matter).

A couple of weekends ago a blog post on the Skye Guides website (http://skyeguides.tumblr.com/), showed stunning pictures of the Cuillin Ridge (the holy grail of uk winter mountaineering) in mint condition. This caused great excitement on Goodman Street and bags were packed with bivvi kit and stoves and Ainsley cous-cous. Plans were made for the all-night driving epic. All that was needed was the weather, visibility being high on our list of priorities. The forecast was not looking primo, but we decided we might be lucky and would leave it to the last possible minute to give the forecast a chance for improvement.

By the time we reached Glasgow however, the met office was conspiring against us, the updated forecast read something like 'Weather everywhere will be glorious, except the weather on Skye which will be shite'. Based on this unambiguous information we accepted our dreams of aquiring the holy grail had been shattered and ate a packet of jelly babies to quell the disappointment.

The sat nav was reprogrammed to Glencoe (incidentally, home of the Gorge of Eternal Peril as featured in Monty Python and the Holy Grail). The damp, dark and chilly morning dawned and we ended up soaking as we trudged up to Stob Coire an Lochain, being hit with big wet snowflakes. The conditions were very wintery, with alot of ice in the cracks and a uniform covering of verglass and hoar and mounds of powder on any ledges. Rob decided on Central Grooves, a classic VII/7 and made pretty short work of the initial tricky section, but then came to a halt looking for runners which were not in abundant supply. The runner situation did not resolve itself, I unclipped from my belay with the idea that perhaps I could heroically throw myself down the approach slope and prevent rob hitting the bottom (after standing on a really cold belay for a while I end up with lots of strange ideas...). Luckily that was not required and he arrived at the belay relieved. I followed and found the initial section savage but overcame it with a bit of swearing and trying harder.

The next two pitches were of seemingly equal difficulty and boldness and had in them some tremendous climbing, which could be appreciated once the hotaches had left. After walking down the ridge to avoid the unstable gullies it was time to enjoy some eccles cakes and tea by the bags before a good bumslide down from the coire.

The next day I woke up with a terrible headache and I remained thouroughly grumpy all of the walk in, despite the glorious morning. It was my turn for a route and I decided to have a second go at Crest Route V/6, which I had tried a few years previously, but had been defeated by a savage crack on the second pitch. I swam (boderline drowning) up the first pitch and arrived at the stance below the crack. I was hoping I had missed something obvious first time round, but it looked exactly as I remembered. I got one axe fully wedged at the back of the crack and used it as a sort of arm bar and then reached around for hooks and wiggled some gear in. The complete absence of footholds means really fighting witn your arms for every move and I repeatedly went up and down and dropped my nuts down the previous pitch and went down and came back up and tried again etc etc. But time was passing and eventually i had to admit defeat for the second time and hand the ropes over to the better climber. Rob made it look a whole lot easier and it was frustrating to think that maybe I had't tried hard enough or been committed enough. Crest Route 2 - Helena 0.

I was pretty disappointed with myself for not managing it and I wonder what exactly i need to improve. Certainly some more pull-ups would not go amiss, I am notoriously poor at pull-ups and the crack was a very physical bit of climbing. Then also, perhaps I wasn't motivated enough, perhaps there was the motivational stumbling block of knowing I was with someone technically better, I could just second it and the I wouldn't have to deal with the stress instead of properly rising to the challenge?

Anyway, we got to the top, and avoided all the cornices along the rim of the coire collapsing in the rising temperatures on the way down. It was then time for the long pizza fuelled drive back to reality.

You take the high road and I'll take the M6

This weekend marked the beginning of what hopefully will be a winter-long ritual of harrowing long drives. It was exciting for a number of reasons. Firstly because I had never driven the big red DMM party bus before, which was particularly exciting for the passengers. Secondly because we nearly got hit by a shooting star. Twice. And thirdly we went climbing.

The extreme seconding team on the Ventricle

After a cosy night in the van me, Rob and Ben trekked in to Coire nan Lochain by the light of the full moon and were rewarded by some nice hoared up buttresses. Most excitingly a flaming ball seemed to pass very close over our heads, nearly making the ground what seemed to be only 20m away. If anyone has any expertise on the subject I would like to know whether this is possible or was I hallucinating?

Rob was keen for something hard so we went for Ventricle VII/8 because it has a plethora of good ledges to belay off and some interesting climbing inbetween them. Rob did a stirling job of torquing, crawling, bridgeing and offwidthing and me and Ben followed with much scratching and popping of axes. The hot aches were particularly severe, hitting about twice per pitch and causing me more pain than I can ever remember experiencing on a winter route before....

The day ended, as it should, in the chip shop with plenty of saturated fat and carbonated drinks. Next in the recovery plan was the Glenmore Lodge bar where I had a rehydrating shandy and met up with my friend Becky to make plans for Sunday.

We decided to head for the infrequently visited Stag Rocks to climb Albino IV/5, because we liked the picture in the guidebook. We made it to the base after a long slog over the scoured plateau and then some deep snowdrifts on the lee side. We stood at the bottom and did the normal thing of proclaiming that it looked extremely easy and we'd walk it. However, the first pitch, despite being easy angled was pretty devoid of hooks or footholds, my calves got very pumped, my axes got very blunt and our overconfidence got a bit dented but I made it to the belay nonetheless. Next it was Becky's turn on an exciting airy traverse round the corner and up a blocky groove with some great turf placements saving the day. Then it was just a womble up a snow slope to the top and back to the van for tea and cake....

Ohno hot aches....

'Hero' Rob Greenwood on forst pitch of Ventricle

Becky Stedham on first pitch of Albino

After another visit to Smiffy's we could finally psyche ourselves up for the drive back. We suffered a puncture (which was dealt with with pitstop efficiency by Rob and Ben) then unbelievably had another run in with an intergalactic object that seemed to be aiming for us! (Or we were hallucinating again)
And finally we were safely back in North Wales,  for some badly needed sleep and recovery before the next two day hit.



Concentrating hard on the road....