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August 2000 Stories and Articles
Down Memory Lane
From left to Right:
Bob Milward, John Warburton, Jim Gregson, John Whittle, Colin Garthwaite, Dudley Moore and Denis Grey's former wife Loni.
Photo D Gray
Beorn Again: the saga of a hat - Author: Duncan Lee.
A hat, according to the
dictionary is " a head covering, often with a brim, usually worn
to give protection from the weather." The hat in question most
definitely fitted the definition despite its gaudy Rasta colours and
the lack of a brim or any shape or even a modicum of style. Certain
nasty individuals have even claimed that the hat protected the
weather from my dreadlocks but regardless, or possibly because of its
pre mentioned failings it was undoubtedly my favourite hat. It was
more than just a hat however; it was a good look talisman that had
accompanied me through thick and thin for years in the mountains of
North America, Britain, Spain, France, Italy and Morocco. The hat and
I had been inseparable for years despite strong objections from many
a fashion conscious climbing partner. Alas however, on a cold
windswept November day our beautiful relationship was to come to an
end.
The fateful day greeted
us with a slate grey sky and a healthy strong breeze blowing in from
the west. A perfect day for a leisurely breakfast and a spot of
retail therapy in Llanberis. Finally after festering away the morning
Sabina and I headed off up The Pass to Dinas Mot for an ascent of The
Cracks. By the time we reached the crag a howling gale was lashing
heavy drizzle horizontally up the valley. Undaunted we set off and
despite the large quantity of moisture all was going well until a
particularly violent gust of wind suddenly ripped the sodden hat from
my head and blasted it away upwards and eastwards round onto the East
Wing of the cliff. I was grief stricken. An extensive search proved
fruitless and I resigned myself to a period of mourning for my hat;
my trusty loyal climbing companion for years. After all, the hat had
never uttered the words; "that is the last time I agree to one
of your stupid ideas."
The winter snows came and
went. The spring monsoon turned into the customary soggy summer and
the hat was still deeply missed but not forgotten. Thus on a club
meet at Millstone in July, when Lee mentioned that he and Kevin had
been on the East Wing of the Mot I optimistically asked. "I
don't suppose you saw a hat lying around up there?" A surprised
look passed over Lee's face as he nodded before proceeding to
describe my hat down to the last pom-pom. He even described its exact
location; stuffed securely into a crack at the start of Beorn; an
esoteric gem by all accounts.
With the hats whereabouts
known a subsequent trip to Snowdonia in August provided me with a
chance for a reunion. I even managed to find a partner gullible
enough to venture onto the vegetated ramparts of the East Wing.
Overnight rain ruled out any cragging on the slow drying East Wing
itself but Stairway to Heaven on The Nose provided a fine preamble to
the serious business of the day. Scrambling up the choss to the base
of Beorn, where to my joy, my hat still resided. Patiently waiting
for me after a mere nine and a half months on the hill. A true epic
expedition for a battered woolly hat that looked non the worse for
wear after its ordeal.
Filled with glee I
quickly removed The Hats inferior replacement and plonked the genuine
article upon my head once more. A beautiful relationship rekindled.
Cheers Lee I owe you a pint.
P.S. Unlike the dreads
the hat has been washed since its ordeal.
Telekinesis, Bosherton Head
A great place to get your Air Miles...
New Ground in Greenland to the Roof of the Arctic - Jim Gregson
Maternal Eider ducks with
their crèches of downy ducklings waddled unconcerned along and
across the runway at Isafjørdur airport in north-west Iceland,
for the most part oblivious to aircraft landing or taking off.
We were waiting for our
onward charter flight by Twin Otter ski-plane, to take us across the
Denmark Strait and into the Watkins Bjerge, Greenland's highest
peaks, and home to Gunnbjørns Fleld, at 3693m the roof of the
Arctic. While the hours ticked round we also spent some time watching
quite a variety of other bird-life in the vicinity of the airport
terminal. On a series of pools and lagoons Just off the tarmac we saw
a pair of nesting red-throated divers, redshanks, a number of
red-necked phalaropes and a whole colony of Arctic terns, garrulous
yet graceful.
By the curious logic of
private charters into the Arctic, our turn to fly came just after
midnight when the five of us boarded the small 'plane and took off
into the non-setting sun, this being the middle of June. After only
thirty minutes of flying out over the ocean we crossed the edge of
the pack-ice, stretching out a long, long way from the Greenland
coast and not yet starting to break up for the summer. In time the
darker shapes of the mountains climbed over the horizon and then we
were among them, threading a way towards the big glacier on which we
were to land.
The pilot turned the
machine between striking white peaks and we slanted down to a smooth
touchdown on the even surface at three o'clock in the morning, with
the sun shining brightly. We stepped out into fairly deep snow then
quickly pulled all our gear and rucksacks from the 'plane to allow
the crew to get away home to Iceland. Once the little aircraft was
gone, blasting us with blown snow, the cold silence gripped the scene
and we hurried to get our tents pitched and the kettle on.
Later in the morning the
sun's strength made it feel too warm to stay in sleeping bags and we
emerged to try to orientate ourselves. There were very good-looking
peaks not so far away as well as some of the bigger mountains which
number among the highest in Greenland. After we had sorted through
our kit we agreed that we would try to get up some of the virgin
peaks - amongst the more elegant ones we could see - as well as
attempting some of the higher ones. Gordon, at 64 our oldest team
member, was keen to find some tops suitable for ski ascents,
protesting his non-technical climber status. In fact he coped
splendidly with everything we tried and surpassed his own
expectations.
We opened our account the
next day by skiing to the head of the Woolley Glacier to get to the
north ridge of Forefinger, 3367m, the so far unclimbed 10th highest
peak in Greenland. Mist and light snow swirled around us as we kicked
steps up the ridge, straining to see how close to the corniced edge
we were. At the top we waited for a while, hoping for a clearance
which never came. We descended the ridge then skied quickly back to
camp, happy with our first ascent.
The following day we
decided to try to get onto a nighttime schedule for climbing to
benefit from firmer surfaces and set out northwards to some more
untouched peaks. Again we were overtaken by mist and poor visibility
as we gained height on a narrow arête. A couple of rock steps
had to be negotiated, with loose material needing careful handling,
before we reached the twin tops of Terra Nova Peak, 3020m.
The mist receded and we
emerged into sunshine, reminding ourselves that it came from low down
on the horizon to our north as this was the middle of the night. We
were intent on traversing our peak and going on to its neighbour but
the ground fell away very steeply down a convex slope which we could
not see. Scott offered to go down on a rope to investigate, so I
stamped out a big bucket seat from which to anchor him. He was soon
back to say that two rope-lengths would get us back onto a narrow
linking arête, so I stayed in my icily upholstered seat to
safeguard everyone down. Scott redescended to set a double deadman
anchor, then the others followed and eventually I could lever myself
out of my stance and go on down to the exposed perch where the others
had stopped. Without delay we regained the narrow arête and set
off in a fine position to go up to the top of Flash Point, 2960m,
another unclimbed peak until now, from which another ridge allowed us
to go down to complete our horseshoe outing.
Now we thought we might
go a little higher so we tried to make a ski ascent of Julia, 3455m,
Greenland's 7th highest top. This went well at first, as
we skinned up the mountain's eastern flanks, until we got as high as
3200m. Unluckily for us, the weather now intervened as the sky
clouded up and strong winds began to gust and blast us with
spindrift. As this became more uncomfortable we decided to abandon
our climb and turned downhill. Getting off was made difficult by the
fierce wind and we were glad to get back to the shelter of camp, as
this change proved to be the start of three days of on and off storm,
keeping us tent bound apart from excursions outside every so often to
dig off the drifts. Our other exercise in this bad spell was to
indulge in whisky-tastings.
When the weather started
to behave itself again we were wary about avalanche conditions, so
decided to try to make a ski ascent on the more gently angled slopes
of the 3609m peak of Paul-Emile Victor, the 4th highest on
the island. This gave us along day as even on skis we were sinking
into the copious fresh snow, but we gradually won out onto the summit
plateau on a fine sunny morning. Around us stretched countless peaks,
mostly untouched, including the nearby high tops of the Watkins
Mountains and the summit block of Gunnbjørns Fjeld thrusting
up through a layer of inversion cloud.
We had an interesting ski
run back down, snow conditions varying as we went from sun to shade
at different slope angles, but it was good to be in action again
after the storm days. Before our move towards Gunnbjørns Fjeld
we were strongly drawn by a very elegant arête on another
virgin peak just north of camp. Skiing to its foot was a simple
matter and we were soon making a very direct ascent on the sharp
crest. As we were out in the night we called this mountain Midnight
Peak once we had reached its top at 3249m. Despite the night sunlight
it was very cold and not wishing to linger, Scott, Jon and Gordon
soon left to reverse the ascent route. Sandy and I opted to try to
complete a traverse so we headed down the northeast ridge, dropping
steeply into a small col. Just before the col we crossed the
crestline onto easier ground, but found ourselves in very deep and
very cold powder snow dumped by the storm winds and not yet
consolidated. The effort of wading through this stuff re-warmed us,
but also gave us some anxieties about crevasses we may have
unknowingly crossed. Still, no mishap befell us and we regained our
skis not long after our friends had completed their descent.
Once we decided to move
camp, everything had to be packed into rucksacks, or loaded onto
pulks for hauling. We tried to lighten our loads by more whisky
drinking, and firing a few target-practice rounds from our polar bear
deterrent rifle, but this did not significantly reduce the weight to
be shifted! Fortunately our move took us down the very easy gradient
of the wide Woolley Glacier and then back up a tributary ice stream
to make a new camp by the Gunnbjørns Fjeld massif; a 10 hour
journey to cover 25 kilometres after which we awarded ourselves a
rest day, with a couple of hours of telemarking practice on a nearby
slope to earn our dinners.
Gunnbjørns Fjeld
is a fine mountain to look at, and can be approached on skis to a
height over 3300m, leaving a short final climb to be completed on
foot. We left our camp in the cool of an evening and worked our way
up towards its southwest ridge. After leaving our skis we cramponned
up a narrow crest to a steeper section by some rockbands, then easier
ground to the summit which we reached at about four o'clock in the
morning. We were blessed with calm air and sunshine, enjoying an
unhurried hour at the top as we photographed and looked at the
seemingly endless array of mountains at all points of the compass -
scope for expeditions for a long time yet.
When we had regained our
skis we set off down on what was a delightful 10 kilometres of rapid
ski running over very firm surfaces, putting in hundreds of turns as
we lost height, finally sliding back into camp after a 13 hour round
trip, well satisfied but hungry.
In the final days of the
expedition we went to try to climb the 2nd and 3rd
highest summits of Dome and Cone. On Dome we skied to a high level
then climbed along its northeastern ridge until at about 3600m we
were stopped by what we judged to be dangerously unstable windslab
which we declined to risk. We also turned back from Cone and
contented ourselves with another very long ski descent.
Our last day we spent in
leisurely packing, pausing to watch numerous avalanches from peaks
around the camp triggered by the heat from very powerful sunshine. We
also studied many potential lines of ascent in case we are ever
fortunate enough to go back to this wonderful area. The next day we
heard the engine drone from our ski plane for a few minutes before it
flashed into view and slipped down onto the ice by the tents. In
short order we had everything on board and the pilot powered up for
an unbelievably short take-off before winging over the mountain tops
and heading out towards the sea and Iceland, as we pressed our faces
close to the windows hoping that we can make a return visit.
The Tangent Watkins
Bjerge- Gunnbjørns Fjeld Expedition members were: Scott
Umpleby, Dr Jon Dallimore, Gordon Downs, Sandy Gregson and Jim
Gregson. We were in Greenland from June 16 to July 3 1999.
In the next issue: HALLINGSKARVET, Skiing Wild Norway
UNCLE B*STARD'S PROBLEM PAGE
All your personal,
mountaineering and climbing problems answered by the KMC Newsletter's
very own caring and sensitive correspondent. All names, of
potentially fictitious individuals - who may not even be members of
the club, have been changed to protect the guilty.
Uncle B & Auntie B
have been away on their summer hols. So only time to deal with one
email this newsletter.
Dear Uncle B.
At a recent KMC meet in a
far, far extremity of the British mainland, an alien ship landed in
the campsite. There followed a request "Take Me To Your Leader".
I had to admit that I was unaware of his whereabouts. What am I to
do?
Yours, Closely
Encountered of Chorlton.
Dear Closely Encountered
of Chorlton.
Was the alien ship a
little like a large white Vauxhall people carrier? Is Torridon a far,
far extremity of the British mainland? If so, you obviously had a
serious problem and you'd certainly never find your leader. Nothing
I can add to that. Ordinarily, of course, your leader is at the other
end of your rope - self evident really?
Yours ever helpfully,
Uncle B*stard.
Well, that's all for this
time. And don't forget, either email me some serious scandal or I'm not going to let the
truth get in the way of a good (or bad) article.
October Newsletter Index.
Copyright © 2000 Karabiner Mountaineering Club
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