Wednesday 19 May 2010

Of Iron Roads

As we got higher up the mountain, we nervously ploughed into thigh deep snow, putting into practice some of the winter skills we learnt during our course, but this time without the comfort of having an experienced guide directing our every step. We weren't quite sure what to expect and whether the going would get tougher, the snow drifts deeper and the danger or falling down the mountainside on our left, even greater as we wound our way upwards.


The guide book gave directions based upon landmarks, but we must have gone past several, a signpost here, a memorial plaque there, a fork in the road. They were supposed to be ten minutes apart, but it was hard to know what ten minutes should be, being as our progress was much slowed by the snow. Round the corner to fantastic views down the Lake Garda, the guide book said. We could just see grey sky.

The cloud began to lift as we were closing in on our first bit of Via Ferrata. Descend 200m into a large bowl, but be warned, this may contain some snow early in the season. Some snow! It contained massive bloody sheets of ice! It was only on the good advice of the chap in our local outdoors shop, that we even took ice axes. It would have been very difficult without.



The Nurse followed as I chopped steps down the mountainside to the first wired section. 

Via Ferrata routes are essentially long sections of wire attached to steep bits of rock, to which the quick fix climber can attach himself using a specifically designed lanyard. They were initially built in the Italian Dolomites to assist soldiers in the first world war by helping them climb quickly to great height without the use of ropes. This route was considerably newer than this (or at least I hoped so), and I am presuming just set up for sport.

When we got to the bottom of the bowl, we put on our harnesses and lanyards and began our ascent. The first section was a fairly easy chimney, up which the Nurse led the way. 



We then hit a massive patch of snow which was concealing all of the cables into which we needed to clip. The next clipping in point was visible about 10 feet away from us - the only problem being the traverse unprotected accross an icy slope with a massive drop on one side. We decided a much better idea was to spend 20 minutes furiously chopping through the snow to get to the submerged cable. Neither of us was prepared to stand on a slide away to nothing, without at least being clipped on somewhere.

The next pitch up a large crack was a little more challenging. It wasn't quite hard enough for me to think I was going to fall off, but still hard enough for me to spend my climbing time thinking about what the concequences would be, if I did fall off. 

Place hands, place feet, haul self up, look down, remind self never to look down again ... and repeat. It was a fair distance to the top crawling over the edge and making that final clip with no small sense of relief.

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'The final pitch climbs at an easier angle', said the guide book. It didnt seem much easier to me with tired arms. The water cascading down the rock didn't assist slow progress, but did add to the adventure.

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Wearily we drew ourselves over and walked the short distance to the top of the 2,200m peak. We opened the metal box which contained a climbers log. The last entry - October 2009, meaning we were the first climbers of the season. Something to be proud of I feel, and perhaps this explains why we were wading through virgin snow  the whole way up the mountainside. One thing was for sure, the second group of climbers of the season would have a much easier job digging those blasted cables out. 

We thought to rest until thwarted by an act of nature. 

We looked each other tentatively up and down. Two lonely souls on the highest peak on the range, caught in a thunderstorm! Luckily we had long metal sticks in our hands to ward off the bad weather. 

It was back down for us through hail and snow to sun-burnt girlfriends, cheap red wine and pizza.

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We had a number of good little adventures on the trip. But I will save something for future posts!

Friday 7 May 2010

You Bugger I Voted For You!

This whole election malarky has turned into a bit of shambles for me. Last night Lucy went to the polling station in Ranmoor 9 (part of Nick Clegg's constituency in Sheffield) at around 9 o' clock. The queues were right down the street. Lucy only managed to get in to vote because she was a 'resident' and in an area afflicted by students, she managed to jump the queue. 


She was locked in the polling station at 10pm along with a bunch of other people, whilst the poor sods left outside in the rain caused a bit of a ruckus (and to be honest I am not surprised). The police were involved and Nick himself came down to apologise to the voters.

This video on the BBC website shows the problem, the first people interviewed are at my polling station, just down the road for me.

Nick also sent me a nice flyer a couple of days ago which told me 'Labour cant win here'. My constituency is essentially a Tory or Lib-Dem battleground. I voted Lib-Dem purely in an effort to keep the Tories out. Now I find that Nick is talking Tory alliances! 

You bugger I voted for you.

Monday 3 May 2010

On Doing Shots with Super Mario

So this is the end result of a weeks worth of toil on my Panthro suit. It involved a lot of parcel tape, selotape, insulation tape, PVA and garden wire. All together I was pretty happy with it! 


Liono's efforts were a little less impressive I have to say. Especially given as he is supposed to be the leader of the group (I never could understand why that was).

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It was an awesome night! 

Apart from getting accosted by a rather camp He-Man for quite some time, I spent a lot of the night talking to various members of the Motley Crue as well as Tom Cruise from Top Gun. The goblin king from Laberynth kept trying to pull my spikes off, but I am pleased to say that they held firm (that'll be the £1 poundland insulation tape then).

However alcohol is not so abundant on the planet Thundera, and after a while - us cats got a little tipsy and tired. In the absence of the Thundertank (I thought it best not to drink and drive), we got a taxi back home to the Thundercats Lair (well, actually it was my mums house - 
she had to put blue sheets on the bed so that my face paint didn't stain them).

Tigra, Liono and Panthro - just chillin'

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