Hi Guys
Its been a little while since the last blog and that's due to the amazing week that's just gone.
Our friends from Allied bakeries were back in the Alps with some big plans. Mark and Steve both climbed with us last year and now they brought their city trader big bonus mate Tim with them for extra clout. Between us we had some big plans but the rather poor weather made everything a little tricky.
Starting in Switzerland we hoped to climb the Weissmess, a classic 4000m peak as a warm up, unfortunately knee deep snow stopped us literally in our tracks a mere 150m short of the summit after nearly 5hrs of effort. Poor Tim was rather knackered at the top but rallied well on the way down...it was the sniff of the Birthday Beers I reckon.
With the forecast as it was we decided on a safe bet and climbed the Via Ferrata on the Jagihorn on Tuesday, if this wasn't hard enough there was added spice with the fact that I had to be back in London to speak at the IQ2 festival at the RGS, the pressure was on. The boys did a great job and we all simply raced up. Tim lead most of the way and Mark did an awesome job looking after Steve when he flagged a little, thanks mate!! With a mere 2 minutes on top we raced down to catch the lift, this was followed by an epic drive to the airport. I walked on stage just as the chair for the evening gave apologies for my absence...talk about skin of your teeth!!!!
Wed was an early morning flight back to France and then round to Italy for some epic coffee. The bad weather meant knee deep snow and little in the way of climbing, but this didn't stop Mark and I making the most of a break in the weather and we spent a wonderful couple of hours in atmospheric cloud walking on the glacier
Super bad weather followed with a big storm so Thursday was again spent yomping in deep snow in poor visibility, Mark seemed to love it so I sent him out in front breaking trail for a couple of hours, he was a natural and can certainly come out again if he is willing to do that all the time!!!
The end of the week brought the only good weather, the team had all come back to the valley and taken stock on a hard fought couple of days. The plan was an ascent of the Cosmiques Ridge. On the way up in the lift we broke through the cloud to stella blue skies. I think I speak for all of us it was simply an amazing day. I climbed with mark while Krister was with Steve and Tim. Highlights of the day were seeing Steve make a massive improvement from last year, shows what the climbing wall can do, while the real gem came from Tim who was trying so hard and was clearly out of his comfort zone but came up with a high pitched "I'm going to fall" while the rope was so tight above him I thought there was danger of it snapping. Joking aside the 3 lads did an amazing job so well done all. Tim don't forget those potatoes!!!
The weather contiues to be poor out here but we are already part way though our exclusive Everest training programme, this is a 10day programme to prepare you for climbing Everest with an ascent of Mont Blanc at the end. The guys are all camping tonight in the snow learning some vital camp craft skills before we do some ladder crossing training tomorrow.
Thats it for a round up....the weather won't be bad for ever so come and book you summer's fun we still have a few places on the courses.
Take care
KC and Team DG
PS photos to come
