The Swiss Alps..........not long now!

Well......
Tomorrow I set off on my travels to Switzerland. Though due to staying in an airport hotel thing we don't actually get there until Sunday, where I shall be heading up the cog railway to Leysin to meet the guides and participants on the ISM student alpine week. Here I will learning all the skills needed for mountaineering in the alps and throughout the week we should be doing all sorts from: Rock Climbing, to Ice Climbing to Crevasse Rescue. We should also be summiting a 3300 metre peak, which will be the highest I've been so far. While I'm doing all of this Mum and Dad will be going around Switzerland on the train. In the second week we will then be heading over to Lucerne a beautiful Swiss city laying under Mount Pilatus. Don't know what I will be doing in that week, but I'm shall I'll find stuff to do. Hopefully we will visit Zermatt where there are stunning views of the Matterhorn aswell as going up the Cog railway where we will see the highest Northface in the alps....The Northwall of the Eiger. Pretty excited about that. Anyway the down side to this beautiful country though is that everything is likely to be ridiculously expensive. So it will unlikely that we'll be eating out on this holiday, but thats alright because we are staying in a house with this guy who owns a pub in Lucerne and there will be self catering facilities. I am pretty excited about this whole thing. I'm still getting over my last holiday in the Picos de Europa, where I went up Pena Vieja at 2613m the highest mountain I have been up to date aswell explored other mountains in the area. Its in places like that where I am in my element!

Anyway will post about the course when I am in Lucerne at the start of second week (this is previding the internet cafes and too expensive!), and will perhaps post about my second week towards the end. I remember in Potes in the Picos it worked out at about 50p for 30minutes internet time, but it some how seems unlikely in Switzerland.

Keep an eye open for any news.....

Ethan

What I've been up to recently.......

Have been up to various bits and bobs recently. The weather has been fairly restrictive in terms of getting outside climbing but I have been doing quite a bit at Kendal wall. Have also been doing a bit of running. I also took part in slightly different activity to usual with Calum and Fergus, camping in the forest (the natural way, despite the saucepan pasta). I have the odd photo below if you're interested.
Have also got hold of a second hand bouldering mat for when the weather picks up a bit. Headed down to Coudy Rocks in Appleby on Tuesday, but the boggy ground meant my shoes were too slippy on the rock to do anything other than easy grades, with large foot holds. Still at least I completed one boulder problem even though it was rather easy 'In the Corner' V2, I filmed it though so put it up.

An evening run across the pennines.

This is one of the joys of living in Cumbria. A 10 minute drive/40 minute cycle and I am at the foot of the North Pennines. Certainly one of the countries most spectacular and quite probably most underated mountain ranges.

Joely (my sister) had a friend over called Hannah. Hannah goes to the same uni as Joely in London but is from Norway. I took them up Scafell Pike. It was my 5th time as the highest person in the country but there first.

The mighty buttress of Sca Fell Englands 2nd highest peak taken from Scafell Pike

Preparing tea

We all decided that we would try and 'live off the land' for a night. You can tell by the photo that we weren't quite successful, as I'm pictured next to Fergus cooking pasta but it was over a camp fire though (however that was lit using a fire lighter and some dry kindling from back home)! But it was hard enough keeping it going in these camp conditions. Me and Calum finished our shelter after tea (pictured below). They were surprisingly water tight. We were quite envious of fergus at first as he had a very comfy bed of moss, while we had only fern. But I was secretly rather amused to find that our simple bed of firn had dried out by the fire, while Fergus' moss held its and then soak his sleeping bag when he lay on it! Thanks for a great night guys and the photos Calum (better late than never!).

The completed shelters

Sorry I had to remove the video to stop it messing up the page!

The rain had finally stopped, so I went to Coudy Rock in Appleby to try and use my bouldering mat, before it came back again. The rock was dry, but the ground certainly wasn't. This meant my shoes weren't dry enough to do anything too technical and grippy. But I did manage to do 'In the corner' a nice little V2 with usable foot holds. Only slipped once!