Friday night film - BMC International Meet

BMC INTERNATIONAL MEET 2012 from ReelTime Adventure on Vimeo.

Nanda Devi Trek

Markha Valley trekking from 2008

I'm currently on my way to India to explore the region around Nanda Devi and Panchchuli for a few weeks. Looks like a stunning trek and hoping to do some scouting for a suitable unclimbed objective for an expedition in the next couple of years..... The photos are from my only other trip to India to trek in the Markha Valley of Ladakh and climb Stok Kangri.

An oasis in the barren Ladakh landscape

Descending from the summit of Stok Kangri

Friday night film - Meru's Fin

Friday night film - Moonflower Buttress

RIP Chris Dale

A brilliant obituary on the legendary big guy. Been a pleasure to climb and work with you. Rest in peace.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/sport-obituaries/8346303/Chris-Dale.html

The Great Climb

Sron Uladail - in the rain as usual

Today Dave MacLeod & Tim Emmett attempted a hard first ascent on the 600' overhanging Sron Uladail on the Isle of Harris, live in front of the cameras. This BBC open air broadcast harks back to the days of Bonnington, Patey and co on the Old Man of Hoy in 1967 which attracted 15 million viewers. The epic today made gripping viewing with heavy rain, wind, falls (and some truly shocking belaying) with the outcome in doubt to the very end. The route climbed through extremely steep terrain with the whole crag overhanging 150' in 600 feet. An amazing effort by the Dave, Tim and the whole camera team. You can watch the whole five and a half hours again on the BBC iPlayer

New Route in the Lost Valley

With a strong south easterly moving the snow around we headed up into the Lost Valley in Glencoe. Making our way up through the gorge there was huge amounts of ice on the slabs on the true right bank. However the cliffs around Rev Ted's Gully looked surprisingly bare.

On closer acquaintance there were some significant streaks of ice but none of the high ice routes looked in condition. We climbed a direct start to Rev Ted's Gully which isn't in the SMC guidebook but must have been climbed before? This gave a 25 m icefall at around IV/V, some easy ground with a couple of awkward steps (35m) and a second 10m ice fall (IV) to reach the bottom of the gully proper.

Once established in the gully we got the full spindrift experience. We swam up the deep snow linking some interesting icy steps. The left hand chimney variation finish was climbed on frozen turf at grade IV. We descended down the Zig Zags which are in good winter condition.


There was plenty of snow being moved on to north & west facing slopes but we also found plenty of pockets of soft windslab in the gully (east facing). The snow is still very unconsolidated but with warmer temperatures on the way things should start to stabilise after some freeze thaw cycles.Photo; 1st pitch of Rev Ted's Gully (Direct Start) IV+, 4, (c) John Pickles