Enjoy - and thanks again for all your support
Cycle, Climb, Fly - Mont Blanc 2013
Thursday, 12 December 2013
Video
Three months later and the video is finally finished - so here we go!
Enjoy - and thanks again for all your support
Enjoy - and thanks again for all your support
Sunday, 15 September 2013
The Mountain said 'No'
We always knew we were to be at the mercy of the weather - and despite waiting patiently to find a weather window, it was becoming increasingly obvious that it would be impossible to find flyable conditions on Mont Blanc any time soon.
Irwyn, Jenni and Graham (the paraglider pilots) decided on Thursday that the weather and wind conditions were definitely not going to allow any flying above the Gouter hut at 3,800m and so Jam and I set out alongside our Mountain Guide, Marco Tamponi, to begin our climb on Friday the 13th. Not the best first omen.
After having some dinner in the Gouter Hut - and attempting to get some sleep (in the same dormitory as 125 other climbers) we set off for our final day and summit attempt at 3am on Saturday morning.
We spent 4 hours climbing in the dark - with only a small beam from out headlights showing the way (and the steep drops either side of the ridge!). Despite the recent dumping of around 40cm of fresh snow, we kept up a great pace - catching and overtaking many groups who had set off much earlier than us - and when we got to the Valet Hut we were amongst the leading groups.
The conditions were awful, with 40kph winds creating temperatures of around minus 15 degrees, but with 2 hours to go, we were feeling pretty strong and confident of making our way to the top. We had a short break to take on some food and as we got up to leave, Jam said 'Bloody hell - I think we might actually pull this off'.
The next hour of walking turned out to be one of the toughest that I've faced. As we climbed up and over the Bosses ridge to a height of around 4,500m - we were climbing in a whiteout, with 2 hours until sunrise, battling 50kph winds and a windchill that dropped to minus 27 degrees. We both lost feeling in our fingers and toes and my eyelashes froze my eyes open! With only 300m to go to the summit, Marco stopped us to say that there was no point in continuing and that the cold was reaching dangerous levels. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, but we had to agree with him, and so we began our descent back down the mountain. I was crushed - a devastating decision, but the correct one. As the sun came up, we got to see the fantastic route that we had covered in the dark and but, if truth be told, my head was down the whole way.
300m from the top! We got so close. And I don't think I'll be able to get over it until I return to re-attempt in better conditions.
We're both back in London now, and back in the office tomorrow.
It's been an incredible adventure - and despite being absolutely devastated about the final outcome, I've had an amazing few weeks with some fantastic people - and once the dust has settled I'll post some final thoughts and thanks on here soon. I'll also be putting together a collection of photos - and hopefully a great video montage of the whole trip - so watch this space.
Thanks a lot for all of your support.
Sam
Irwyn, Jenni and Graham (the paraglider pilots) decided on Thursday that the weather and wind conditions were definitely not going to allow any flying above the Gouter hut at 3,800m and so Jam and I set out alongside our Mountain Guide, Marco Tamponi, to begin our climb on Friday the 13th. Not the best first omen.
After having some dinner in the Gouter Hut - and attempting to get some sleep (in the same dormitory as 125 other climbers) we set off for our final day and summit attempt at 3am on Saturday morning.
We spent 4 hours climbing in the dark - with only a small beam from out headlights showing the way (and the steep drops either side of the ridge!). Despite the recent dumping of around 40cm of fresh snow, we kept up a great pace - catching and overtaking many groups who had set off much earlier than us - and when we got to the Valet Hut we were amongst the leading groups.
The conditions were awful, with 40kph winds creating temperatures of around minus 15 degrees, but with 2 hours to go, we were feeling pretty strong and confident of making our way to the top. We had a short break to take on some food and as we got up to leave, Jam said 'Bloody hell - I think we might actually pull this off'.
The next hour of walking turned out to be one of the toughest that I've faced. As we climbed up and over the Bosses ridge to a height of around 4,500m - we were climbing in a whiteout, with 2 hours until sunrise, battling 50kph winds and a windchill that dropped to minus 27 degrees. We both lost feeling in our fingers and toes and my eyelashes froze my eyes open! With only 300m to go to the summit, Marco stopped us to say that there was no point in continuing and that the cold was reaching dangerous levels. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made, but we had to agree with him, and so we began our descent back down the mountain. I was crushed - a devastating decision, but the correct one. As the sun came up, we got to see the fantastic route that we had covered in the dark and but, if truth be told, my head was down the whole way.
300m from the top! We got so close. And I don't think I'll be able to get over it until I return to re-attempt in better conditions.
We're both back in London now, and back in the office tomorrow.
It's been an incredible adventure - and despite being absolutely devastated about the final outcome, I've had an amazing few weeks with some fantastic people - and once the dust has settled I'll post some final thoughts and thanks on here soon. I'll also be putting together a collection of photos - and hopefully a great video montage of the whole trip - so watch this space.
Thanks a lot for all of your support.
Sam
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Summit Date
WE HAVE A SUMMIT DATE!
After a lot of watching of the weather and mountain hut availability –
we have decided our best bet for a successful summit of, and flight from, Mont
Blanc will be early morning on Saturday 14th. We’ll climb up to the
Gouter hut (crossing the notorious Grand Couloir) on Friday and then set off
around 2am on Saturday morning. Winds at 5000m are still forecasted to be
around 50km/h – but hopefully by dropping down a couple of hundred meters we
can find a safe launch site. Very, very exciting. Bring it on!
Sponsorship continues to fly in and we are really grateful for all of
your support - if you haven't donated yet, please click on the big picture
above!
Thank you
Chamonix 9 - 10
Monday was spent mountaineering – getting
used to climbing at altitude, practicing ice climbing and learning safety
techniques for crevasse crossings.
This was Jam’s first time walking down the
knife edge arête from the Midi station at 3,600m – and he headed down roped to
Irwyn, whilst I was tied in a three with Jenni and Graham. We had a good couple
of hours trekking around the Valle Blanche glacier – the weather cleared
beautifully and we had a quick snack on the ice ledge that I’d flown off a week
earlier.
The weather started to change though – and as
we headed back up the arête the clouds came in and the wind started to whip
across the ridge. We kept the pace up and tried to ignore the ridiculous slopes
either side and I particularly enjoyed Jam’s face as he emerged from the mist –
he was waving at me, but he was wearing mittens and it may well have been with
only one finger.
Tuesday arrived and the summit date is
getting closer – so we were up bright and early for an early morning fitness
session. We go on the first lift up to 3,800m – way above the clouds – and did
sprints, stairs, burpees, star jumps and some serious flipcup to get the heart
pumping and lungs working on the thinner air.
We then drove to Annecy to do some ground
handling and drills to familiarize ourselves with our new wings.
Today we
confirmed sponsorship from ITV paragliding – a company steeped in paragliding
fame.
After creating one of the first specific paragliding wings, ITV
have always been involved in the evolution of the sport, peppering its history
with famous names and innovations: multicells, eliptical geometry, line
technologies, V-ribs, diagonal reinforcements (most of which means
nothing to us – but it sure sounds good!). The wings we will be using are the
Awak 2s – a really lightweight tandem wing that are easier to inflate and
importantly at less than 7kg will reduce the amount of kgs we have to lug up to
the mountain. We’ll weigh the total kit with harnesses and ropes before we
leave so we can figure out the total loads we’ll be carrying.
Details of ITV and the new wing can be
found here: http://www.itv-parapentes.com/en/products/paragliding/awak-2-tandem.html
We spent the rest of the afternoon playing
in Lake Annecy – beautiful scenery, crystal clear waters and more importantly rope
swings and trees to jump off.
Flights and more training tomorrow - and a final kit check before pulling together our summit gear.
Sunday, 8 September 2013
Chamonix: Days 4 - 8
Jam:
Beer with breakfast, not the start I was
expecting (wanted), but Sam’s achievement of taking his first tandem flight
from an icy ledge @ 3800m was worth toasting… The agenda after that was to
start my acclimatization, which simply involved taking the lifts up to where
Sam had just flown down from, walk the stairs and get sun burnt (not sure the
latter was required, but we did it anyway). It’s amazing how just a few steps at
that altitude can get you out of breath and make you feel dizzy – everyone had told
us the importance of acclimatizing and my first experience up at 3800m really
proved that point. Over the coming days waiting for a weather window – we aim
to spend as much time at altitude as possible, taking it easy, reading books
and perfecting our flip cup skills.
On Thursday the weather was good to fly so
we took this opportunity to become familiar with the kit we’ll be carrying up
and flying down in. Irwyn and Graham were fantastic; they found a gradual slope
strapped us to the paraglider (“wing”) and told us to run. To be more specific;
the task was to try and run with the wing correctly inflated and in control
whilst keeping enough forward momentum for a quick and safe take off. Sam went
first and I videoed (laughed); the learning curve was steep but after a few
attempts the battle of wing vs sam started to shift in his favor. I followed
and wasn’t much better.
The next exercise was to strap Sam and I together on
the wing, one playing the role of the pilot and the other the passenger. The
reason being that a quick and safe take off is a team effort; the pilot
controls the wing and the passenger drives everything forward to the point of
take-off. Irwyn and Graham wanted us to experience this from both sides, making
us all the more prepared for the challenge ahead. However, two people although
being heavier, produced a lot more power and meant that the wing quickly was
over our heads and in a position where we could fly.
On Friday the plan was to walk down from
the Aigle Du Midi towards the cosmiques hut so that we could gain some
experience walking with crampons, ropes and using ice axes. Sadly, the bad
weather that had been forecast for Fri evening beat us to the top, making the
conditions unfavorable for what we intended to do. As we are quickly realizing,
plans are important in the mountains but they are entirely weather dependent
and we always have to be prepared to react to changing conditions. With this
knowledge, we descended down to the middle station (~2500m) where conditions
were perfect for a 5km alpine walk over to the mer de glace glacier. Here we were
able to put on our crampons and got to walk on some steep ice! To keep things
interesting, Irwyn demonstrated some of the skills used for steeper and more technical
ice climbing.
On Saturday the weather above 3000m wasn’t favorable
meaning it would be another day at low levels trying to keep our fitness up. Our
advice; walk up to the middle station from the valley bottom (~1000m vertical
climb). This was the perfect opportunity to use my new Rab 100% morino wool
base layer. The guy in the shop told me I could sweat into this 4 times before
it needed washing. When we got down, it needed washing.
But my absolute
highlight of the day was Sam getting a phone call from Rich Webster to say that
he’d missed his 2pm flight out to come and see us due to a big Friday night….
He booked on the first flight from Gatwick for Sunday morning.
Sunday started with a 7.30 phone call from
Rich, he’d missed his flight again due to a messy Saturday night… But the old
rule stands, 3rd time a charm and he made it in to Geneva for 2pm.
As this was our rest day we took the chance to go down to Lake Geneva where we
had lunch in a beautiful medieval village called Yvoire and then headed to a pier to perfect our acrobatic diving and backflips - whilst also getting in a solid Waboba
session.
Chamonix: Days 1 - 3
After bidding farewell to Albert – who headed
back to Nice early on Monday – I met up with Irwyn whom we had done some
training with back in April – and discussed training plans, weather forecasts
and dates for summit attempt. The weather was looking great for the first few
days, but pretty shocking for the end part of the trip – when the summit is
scheduled. Fingers crossed conditions improve.
Training and acclimatization was to start
straight away – and we headed up to the Aguille de Midi lift station – a cable
car up to 3,800m – allowing anyone to
access the amazing views of the mountains and being a great acclimatization aid.
Once at altitude and after taking in the amazing views – we had a sandwich and
then ran up and down as many stairs as we could find – being this high meant I got
out of breath very quickly and even felt a bit dizzy – but the more I can do
this the better prepared I will be for reaching the high summits.
We agreed that I’d take a rest day to give
my legs a break post cycling and I wandered around town a bit to get my
bearings before heading back to the apartment for a great curry cooked by
Jenni, and met Dan and Shane – other paragliders who were hoping to fly off the
top of Mt Blanc this summer. They’d be in the Alps for over a month and had
already summited Mt Blanc. Looking at
the mountain forecast – weather looked perfect for a summit attempt and so Dan and
Shane were planning an ascent. We decided we’d join them for the trip to the
Cosmiques mountain hut – from which they would start their final ascent at 2am
and we would try to fly from an ice shelf off near the Aiguille de Midi. So
much for my rest day!
I was pretty terrified. My first experience
with crampons would be walking down a knife edge arête with huge slopes either
side. I was roped to Jenni and Graham and we took it nice and slowly – and I
soon relaxed. It was about a 45 minute hike to the mountain hut and I enjoyed
every moment.
A good hearty meal in the hut, a beautiful
sunset, a terrible nights sleep – and we were up at 4:30am ready to go. The
hike up to the take off point was along a similar route as we had taken the previous
day, so navigation in the dark wasn’t too much trouble, and we found ourselves
on the ice shelf above Chamonix just as the sun was rising. Incredible.
Now for the flight! When flying a tandem –
my job is to be the engine – run with as much power as possible to pull the
wing up into the air and give us enough speed to take off – before we plummet
off the edge of the cliff.
First take off was a failure. Running at
full pelt but in deep snow and we couldn’t get enough speed up, and so I heard ‘abort,
abort’ shouted from behind me as we approached the cliff edge. Pretty
terrifying so I hit the deck straight away.
Second time around - we nailed it. Full speed off the cliff –
and before I knew it we were soaring up over Chamonix. Amazing feeling. I took
controls for a little while and then we had a bit of fun pulling huge spins and
descending as fast as possible – felt some serious G and a massive adrenalin
rush.
We landed around 7:30am, with Jenni
following us down, and I headed back to the apartment to meet Jam and have a
celebratory beer. A great first couple of days in the mountains!
To hear from Jenni's perspective: http://blinkandbreathe.co.uk/2013/09/07/sams-first-flight/
Friday, 6 September 2013
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