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 (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-

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) - Thanks to user “Crosshaven Lifeboat” for submitting a link to the personal diary of Emil Grimsson on the support crew while filming the BBC Top Gear Arctic Polar Expedition to the ‘Magnetic North Pole (1996)’. It’s a good look behind the scenes of one of their best episodes.

I remember people getting colder this day but then again a lot of time was spent waiting. I really admired the endless energy the presenters and the film crew had to try to make the best program possible.

You can read the diary here and view the modifications they made to the Hilux trucks at www.invinciblehilux.co.uk.

-Robin-

(Image Credits: Arctictrucks.com)

ÖREBRO, SWEDEN  (Team Geared Up) - I just came back from my season in Whistler, British Columbia in Canada and thought i’d share some of the tips and tricks I learn’t during my season! So it is about time I got around to writing one of these posts. Procrastination is a terrible, terrible thing!

To do a season means different things to different people. It mainly involves living and working in the snow, up the mountain, where you will ski or snowboard as much as you can! I chose Whistler to do mine for a few reasons:

• I can speak the language
• Two mountains to play on
• Far enough away from home
• One of the top 5 ski resorts in the world
• Record breaking snowfall
• Spring and summer skiing
• Amazing après ski, nightlife, shopping and dining

So once you decided on a location, getting there is the next step! In Ireland there is only one option for a 1 year work/travel visa. You must go through USITwho has the monopoly on the whole system. If you are under 35 you can apply for the visa through them. They will look after your flights, insurance and everything else you need to know, but it is pricey. The UK equivalent is BUNACwho run the same programme across the water. But if you are a UK citizen there may be other ways of getting a work visa (Canada being part of the Commonwealth). Once you get to Canada SWAP take over and give you an orientation and support if needed. If you are interested in going to Canada from another Country their website has a list of their partners in different countries.

You will hopefully land in Vancouver Airport in Canada. From there you will need to make your way to Whistler. It is about a 2.5 hour drive north. You can get there many different ways from the airport to the resort.

• Greyhound Canada - The Basic Bus service
• Perimeter Bus - Door to Door/Airport to Accommodation option
• Snow Bus
• Whistler Limo 
• Or splash out and arrive by Helicopter!

You may want to spend a few days in the city and explore. There is loads of ski and snowboard shops in whistler, so there isn’t many deals or bargains to be found in Vancouver.  The ideal time to arrive in Whistler would be the start to mid-October. It is still really quiet so there should be no problem picking up accommodation. You can also start looking for a job and get settled. The big sale is around Canadian Thanksgiving. Everyone wants to clear all their old stock from last year making room for the new stuff. You will have a new set of gear by the time you leave so why not get it at the start when it is cheap!

I will hopefully have more to write about and tell you soon. If you have any questions about doing a season please leave a comment!

-Darran-

LONDON, UK (Team Geared Up) - TGU blogger Eoin arrives here in London in 14hrs time. Friday 1920hrs we fly to Turin, the location of the last Winter Olympics to hire a car and drive north. We’ll be laden down with ice axes, screws, crampons, ice-line rope, poles, winter boots, shed loads of gortex, fleece, softshell & ripstop. We’ve 8 nights in the Italian/Swiss Alps planned.

First stop is Gran Paradiso National Park to climb ‘Gran Paradiso‘ (above), the highest mountain wholly in Italy at 4061m. It should be a climb without difficulty if the weather is good to us. We’ll head up on the Saturday early enough to acclimatise over the day, and include a route recci for the low-light dawn start & some refreshers on glacial travel.

Next stop will be Castor (4226m) pictured above and Pollux (4092m), which Aoife & myself aborted in 2004 due to a week of bad weather in Zermat giving us only a window to complete Breithorn (4164m) safely. This year, we plan to complete both peaks in a single summit day, leaving the Sella hut in the early hours of the morning from the Italian side (rather than Swiss) and drop down to the col (joch) in between the peaks before ascending the other. We reckon the second peak will add an additional 2.5-3hrs to get back to first summit before descending.

This still leaves us with 3 free days to play with. We’re keen to open to the floor for some 4000er recommendations if any readers have any (You may have noticed, we’re climbing no more than PD routes on this trip).

In other news today, courtesy of Aisling we appear to have our 7th TGU Blogger soon to begin writing here. The only hint I can give right now is, they’re a very keen Irish mountain biker.

-Robin-

Image Credit: Top photo, Summit block of Gran Paradiso, Italy.