Alpine Skills weekend

Attendees:

Becca G, Andy L, Kaisa M, Phil M, Will F, Tom A, Claire H, Sean C, Jess B, Amee, Yvonne K, Harry P and me. UTS participants Jess P, Heather D, Nils E’s Son.

A great weekend with a great many skills shared across Alpine climbing and self-rescue disciplines. Good food (says the chef) enjoyed and a superb Karabinge film lineup to completed the day. With a stream of UTS participants dropping in and out at the hut over the weekend as their respective races started and finished.

To the sound of the UTS event announcements echoing up from Llanberis, the teams set off on a very good non-climbing day into the quarries to variously get wet and learn/teach an array of techniques to aid both a successful day on the hill and to become equipped with skills in the event a successful day turns into more of a challenge. Team Alpine-skills headed by Phil and Jess took the Alpinists; Becca, Andy, Will, Tom, Harry and Claire, to the glacier located near the turning circle, while and I took self-rescuers; Yvonne, Amee and Kaisia to bus stop belay-stance. We had a fine day learning how to be a top-notch helpful climbing partner, although, the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue KMC division spent the day with raised eyebrows at ‘unorthodox’ techniques. The Alpinists, not being used to Welsh drizzle, retreated to the refuge to practice ascending stairway crevasse, while the mountaineers stuck it out to hone their prusiking skills on Wales’s finest slippery slate. Yvonne took her moment to shine, being able to defy gravity with a perfect cavers ease.

Back at the hut to get dry, compare notes and enjoy refreshments, all agreed they had learned a great deal. Heather had arrived back from her UTS 80K, in fine spirits, despite running through the night and day, while Nils and his son made preparations for his 20K race the following morning. Tom and Kaisia decided they needed a bit more of a soaking and went for a dip in Padarn and others headed down to Beris to gather egg custard supplies to accompany the strudel dessert. Sous chefs Becca and Andy had a guacamole making contest that was, despite scepticism, all demolished, along with the veggie chilli. After dinner, while the custard was being crafted by pâtissier Phil, Karabinge cinema producer Harry, got the theatre ready for action, while Jess B and Amee went to collect Jess P, having successfully completed her UTS 50K in very good time.

The final hours of the day were spent with eyes on the big screen watching mountain adventures and mishaps unfold, all quietly confident they have the skills needed to tackle whatever might come their way on their next big mountain day.

Sunday was spent by everyone either walking the Carneddau, climbing at Bus Stop Quarry (the main quarry being unfortunately closed due to more filming) or climbing at Tremadog, all enjoying a bit of sun contrary to every available forecast. No incidents of self-rescue or crevasse-rescue were reported at the time of writing.

Thanks all for attending and making the weekend such fun.

Please get in touch if you'd like to join this.  Atm we are probably at max capacity for participants to have a meaningful training experience with the number of people we have to share skills with. 

Thanks

KMC alpinists and climbers, what better way to consolidate all of that alpine training or self-rescue training over the years by giving the gift of knowledge to your fellow climbers?

This is going to be an informal skill share event, held over two days, based at the hut and a day out on the hill (hopefully not to practice!)

If you have previously received either crevasse training or self-rescue training, please consider giving some of your time, to refresh your knowledge and share your skills.  

This weekend is an opportunity to either learn, practice or refine those less often used skills to make them all the more memorable if the time to use them ever arises.

We will be in small groups depending on how many volunteers/participants we have. I may limit places of participants to allow volunteers a productive group size to work with.

When signing up, please message to say if you want to be a participant or a volunteer.

We'll be enjoying a communal meal on the Saturday evening followed by a mountain film screening.

Volunteers will get a free hut stay and meal. For Participants, its £5 each to cover dinner and any other costs. 

Thanks,

Thanks!