SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - Ok, so this is part III (see part I Gran Paradiso and part II Castor). This should get you in the mood for the Summer that’s not far away!

We left off in Gressoney la Trinite near the Swiss-Italian border having climbed a great route on Castor. Back in our little hire car, we sped off without a plan - all we knew was were were going towards the French border with the potential of a spur of the moment bivvi on the Dome du Gouter on Mont Blanc. While Rallying down the valley bends flicking through all our insurance documentation and trying to get the hire company on the phone to find out if we were covered to travel out of Italy into Chamonix we managed to get flagged down by some Carabiners (ok, so that’s what we called them - Police) with machine guns pointed at us for speeding. We’d been tailed all the way down the valley by an undercover police car who duly pulled in beside us and the driver went for a smoke in the police jeep. uh oh. After a bit of me talking in English, him talking in Italian and some very stern looks we drove off ticket-less, and yes - I stalled the car.

Deciding that we couldn’t cross the border and the Italian route on Mont Blanc would require an earlier start than we had (with no maps!) we headed for Cervino on the south side of the Matterhorn. This is a view of the summit block of the Matterhorn from our hotel window :-)

With a plan to ski for a day in the Zermatt summer ski area and then climb the easy 4000er Breithorn and ski off the summit the next day we headed up the cable car and hired skis in the mid-station.

The icy blue lakes below due to the glacial run-off were incredible. The Cervino valley is visible in the background.

We checked into the Refugio Guide de Cervino with a spectacular back porch view!

After a quality morning on the slopes getting back into the technique (which shut at 2pm in the summer) we sat out in the sun in deck chairs with some beers, a great meal and a book. Hours of bliss!

We hit bed very early ready for something like a 4am start. Our plan was to break trail and be first on the summit for the day. This was the view out the window lying in bed.

Waking to a cracker of a morning, we set off into the sunrise with a view like this to gaze at as we puffed our way up to the top of the glaciated ski slopes and onto the flats beneath the summit slope.

This is the Matterhorn imposing itself on us, from two angles.

Here’s the skis on Eoin’s pack. Our bags were very heavy with skis and descent boots in them! (nobody would hire us ski-mountaineering boots - they didn’t understand we wanted to ski off the summit :-)

And not before long… we we the only people on the summit…! Which is extremely rare on Breithorn due to the height of the Swiss Cable Car.

And here’s the view looking towards Castor (our previous route).. spectacular!

And… here’s the Matterhorn! We’re a bit higher than earlier now! This is the direction we would ski off - straight over than and curving around the summit to the left down to the glacier below.

It was extremely icy - I took a good tumble with my iceaxe on my back keeping me nice and straight :-) flipping me head over heels - but Eoin got down gracefully! What a great experience!

As a great final surprise back at the hut we managed to get right in under the weekly beer delivery!

What a fantastic 2 days - (note: TGU Blogger Alx summited Breithorn in 2005 and I had done it in 2004).

So that wrapped up an unreal trip to Italy! I wish I was back there right now! Bring on the summer!

-Robin.

SINGAPORE - Well it’s a bit warmer in Singapore today than it was in Vail, Colorado, USA last December. Part cold, part wanting a camera-mounting, part I was about to throw myself off a few black diamond runs… I decided to buy a ski helmet. In the USA its different - everyone has helmets. Everyone. Helmet = ‘cool’. Helmet with camera on-top seemed to = ‘ultra cool’ or so the comments I got suggested.

I bought a Boeri Vortex (own one? click [Add To My Gear] above if signed-in) The helmet is in the low-mid range, I think I paid close to US$89 + tax for it. It’s very comfy. Nice and padded. Very warm ears (important in CO!).

I can’t tell you how it performed on impact as I didn’t have any - but it felt very secure, nicely fitting and snug. My goggles sat over it perfectly and had no loss of ventilation affecting de-misting. I wore a Rat Race Buff underneath it to protect my neck & chin as the temperatures were hitting -12C. So cold the Buff would come off frozen in one solid piece the shape of my face!

So the interesting bit is the camera. It’s a small security camera with an A/V output. It’s attached to my helmet with a large elastic band (so it can break off if in a fall) through the vent hole. Three leads come from it (audio, video, power) which run down under the padding on the inside through the vent and out a vent at the back where the small 9V battery to power the camera sits under my goggle strap. The Audio & video leads run down my outer jacket collar and under my right arm into the chest pocket on my smock where the AV Recorder (very simple video recorder I bought in Bangkok) sits in the warmth to preserver batter power. Here I can easily pull it out to watch playback while on the lifts.

It really works well. Video quality is pretty rubbish - but it’s only an experiment for the web. Here’s 2 embedded videos take on the first day of the trip.

Part 1.

Team Geared Up: Vail, CO. (Part 1) from Robin Blandford on Vimeo.

Part 2.

Team Geared Up: Vail, CO. (Part 2) from Robin Blandford on Vimeo.

Homemade video camera work well. But what I really want is the O’Neill Backpack Alx reviewed.

-Robin.

(Image & Video Credits: Vail, Colorado in December. By author with thanks to Aoife for the shots of me!)

SINGAPORE (Team Geared Up) - At present it may be U.S. resorts only, but Liftopia.com is attempting to get cheap ski-tickets to snow sports enthusiasts.

Liftopia partners with leading resorts across the nation in an effort to get people like you to their slopes more often. We work directly with our Resort Partners to identify opportunities for discounts and promotions that give downhill adventurers more opportunities to ski and snowboard for less. Liftopia is the best place to find great lift ticket deals at mountain resorts nationwide.

From what I make of this, ski-resorts will post up cheap tickets on Utopia for low-days where not enough are forecast to be sold. It doesn’t cost them any extra to have a skier on the slope once the lifts are running. Better to have some money than none. I guess this is not far off the RyanAir / Budget Airline model of once the plane is flying you may as well fill it.

It’ll be interesting to see if this is a success and transitions to Europe.

-Robin-

KILDARE, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Here’s an interesting one while reading the climbing news on Kairn this morning.

The ski resort of Les Deux Alpes has launched an avalanche simulator to let you experience what it’d be like - for 20 seconds that is. “The simulator has two cabins and a large fan to blow cold air. The simulator can rotate around six axes and can throw the user through an arc of seven meters.” The simulator does have a noble goal as it’s been created by “a local businessman Marc Dode who lost a ski instructor friend and his client in an avalanche several years ago.”

Sounds like an interesting experience all the same.

- Neal :) -

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I’m fully expecting Tango & Cash to have these new underglow lights on their Mountain Bikes at the next event. Boys, go for blue ones, way cooler.

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GoBlog do it again (we love you guys!) with two great videos. Embedded below.

Combining a ski jump with base jumping off the 39th floor of a tower block. Bizzare!

And a safe way to ice-climb by using 4 ice-axes to do it. Slow you mean! This is very tongue in cheek!

“The climber brings up some very good point, however they are on his crampons and no where else.”

lol

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I’m in the market for a good waterproof headcam, and this kayaking video on The Outsider made me want one even more. Video from Broadbandsports.com.

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The Adventure Blog links to a great post on Mountain World about how to get great expedition photos. I need to sit down and read this in full.

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-Robin

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - So, you may get the hint here, I’m a little giddy :-) As of today I’m all booked up - flights Dublin>Chicago>Denver, greyhound bus Denver>Vail, hotel, ski rental & ski-pass. I’m ready to hit Vail in the Rockies, North America, for 8 days in 2 weeks time. How good will this be!

Video:

Just advance warning, as you’ll hear more on this one at Christmas! Mind you, I’ve still to write up part 3 of the Summer Alpine Mountaineering!

I want to do the advanced sessions, herself things I’m a joke on skis and thinks we should join the intermediate group. Hmmm. Look what happened the last time TGU went to a ski resort!

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - With a tagline of “The Other Desert Race”, Sleepmonsters emailed me this Canadian ultra race notice yesterday. I suspect some of you guys may have got it too, it’s the Rock & Ice Ultra.

COLD FOOT CLASSIC
A 75 km, continuous foot and snowshoe or XC ski race. Compete solo, as a three+ member team, or as a 2 - 7 member relay. The Cold Foot Classic is a fully supported race. There are 5 road accessible check points along a well marked trail and racers are encouraged to cache food, gear or have a support crew on stand by.

K-ROCK ULTRA
A 135 km foot and snowshoe or XC ski race. Compete solo or as a three+ member team. The K-Rock Ultra is a partially supported, 3-day / 3-stage race following a well marked trail. Racers are required to pack a gear box including all the necessary food and equipment for camp. The gear box will be transported to stage camps by Rock and Ice volunteers.

DIAMOND ULTRA
A 225 km foot and snowshoe or XC ski race. Compete solo or as a three+ member team. The Diamond Ultra is a self-supported, 6 day / 6-stage race following a well marked trail. Racers are required to pack a kit including all the necessary food and equipment to survive for the duration of the race. Racers must also possess navigational and map reading skills.

Set in an extreme Canadian environment, a recent city climate study ranked the nearest civilisation first in 13 categories, including: Coldest Winter, Coldest Spring, Coldest Year-Round, Most Cold Days, Most Deep Snow Cover Days, Extreme Wind Chill, Most High Wind Chill Days, Driest Winter Air.

Photos of previous years here.

The prizes are crazy:

1st place foot and snowshoe: a 1 carat, brilliant cut EKATI Diamond valued at $13,000!
1st cross country ski : a 1 carat, brilliant cut EKATI Diamond valued at $13,000!

This would be a great race to compete in, and if not, even volunteer as a marshal.

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - The Red Herring brings the KiteWing to my RSS reader this morning. The Kitewing is a wing shaped kite. Many people call it “the wing” for short, just because of its shape. You can use Kitewing with your skis, snowboard, mountainboard, ice skates or in-line skates etc. Many say it is like a mix of kite surfing and wind surfing.

Most riders learn to cruise with the wing in half an hour. At the same time there seems to be no limit to the amazing jumps and tricks that are being developed by many keen riders around the globe at the moment: Speeds up to 100 km/h (62 mp/h) and 5 m high, 40 m long jumps on flat surface are not unusual.

Video:

Would I like to try one? Yes - big time. But probably on water or snow!

-Robin-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - An email has come in from the Irish Ski Club PR people to tell TGU readers that they’ve a big weekend coming up! Oktoberfest is the Irish Ski Club’s annual celebration of skiing and snowboarding taking place over the last weekend in September when the dry slope re-opens.

There will be music, demonstrations and instructors from the Wilderkaiser Ski School in St. Johann who bring a unique Austrian flavour to the event.

Lessons are available at 11.00, 14.00 & 16.00 on both days. Three different standards of lessons are available over the weekend - Beginner, Advanced Beginner and Intermediate/Advanced. Ski lessons are available for adults and children aged 7 or over. Snowboard lessons are available for those aged 13 and over.

Call the Ski Club Office on 01 295 5658 to book lessons.

-Robin-

DERRY, NORTHERN IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Climbing all 14 of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks is old hat, so a new generation of adventurers is gearing up for what could be mountaineering’s next great challenge — getting down them on skis.

Heading into Nepal’s Himalayan mountains this month is Fredrik Ericsson, a 32-year-old extreme skier from Sweden, who will be trying to get a head start in what he predicts will become a race to take his sport to new heights.

“There are not that many people trying to ski all 14 8,000s (26,400-feet mountains), but I think in a few years there will be,” he told AFP before heading off to attempt the first ski descent of Dhaulagiri, the world’s seventh-highest peak.

“I hope to finish all of them before I am 40,” said Ericsson, who has already chalked up one “8000er” — Gasherbrum II in northern Pakistan — and has skied down from just below the summit of another, Shisha Pangma in Chinese Tibet.

“Skiing all the 8,000s is one of my big goals. I am not sure if I am going to make it. So far I have done one and a half… and if I am going to do all 14 I’ll have to go back and do that one again,” he said.

The first to make it up and down all 14 8,000ers on foot was Italy’s Reinhold Messner, who completed the challenge in 1986. He was closely followed by Poland’s Jerzy Kukuczka, who used no oxygen, and put up several new routes.

Since then a steady stream of climbers have completed the challenge or have died in the process. Several sporadic ski and snowboard descents have been made, with several fatalities also recorded.

“In Europe there is anywhere between 50 and 100 doing extreme skiing. I myself know about 20,” said the Swede, who skied cross-country to school as a child in the icy Scandinavian north and has been extreme skiing professionally for five years.“It’s not that big but it’s growing,” he said of the sport, which essentially consists of descending hair-raisingly steep slopes, sometimes on sheet ice, where the slightest error can result in a very long fall and possible death.

At 8,000 metres there is also just one third of the oxygen there is at sea level and even the simplest task — let alone performing a jump turn — in the so-called “death zone” can be incredibly difficult.

“Avalanches are the thing you can do the least about, because you can never be 100 per cent sure,” said Ericsson, who will not be using supplementary oxygen but will spend around a month acclimatising at the mountain’s base camp.

If all goes to plan, it will be four days walking up — and then the first ever ski descent of the 8,167 metre Dhaulagiri.

“I’ll get back down in around five hours,” Ericsson said