Wednesday 23 March 2016

Hills, Trains, Beer... and the stag do of Darren Neil Axe

These are three things that may or may not frequently appear on the tick list for stag do's these days. Hills, they're pretty mainstream these days and the pursuit of hill bagging seems to be one of those peculiarly male dominated persuits; one that wives can only roll the eyes at when it is announced that another bleak, rounded, mist shrouded hill must be ticked from the list. Trains; it's a well known fact that all boys aspire to be train drivers when they grow up and of course not many actually do so the rest are left with a feeling of excitement every time they hear the sound of a locomotive whistle on the wind. Beer; I'm sure there is no need to describe the association between that one and stag do's, that is except for the fact that a fine Scottish ale from the Cairngorm brewery goes by the name of 'Stag'. Enough said.


All gathered at Dolwyddelan station on the Saturday morning awaiting the train to Blaenau Ffestiniog.
It was under the notion of these three commodities that I managed to bring together 21 of my fine fellas to the small village of Dolwyddelan in North wales for my stag do in mid-March 2016, exactly 5 weeks before our wedding. For those setting out from Lancaster on the train on Friday evening it turned out to be a rather entertaining journey as even without the usual stag paraphernalia such as group antlers, we still managed to attract great interest from those around us. Firstly a drunk passenger headed for Preston on board the Llandudno Junction train (!) who took a strangely intense interest in the two physicists among us. Secondly, after missing our bus at Llandudno Junction and deciding to wait out time for the next train in the Old Station Hotel, we once again proved quite an attraction to the locals next to us who most of all seemed fascinated that we were headed for Dolwyddelan for a stag do! Luckily for them, most of the others had had relatively benign journeys and we all congregated in Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan for evening beers.


The southern portal of the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel surrounded by the slate spoil dominated landscape of Blaenau.
Saturday morning, the chaps were awoken on the dot 06:30 to a soothing series of blasts on one of my railway whistles. The early start was to enable us to get organised for the first activity of the weekend; crawling around inside a hollow hill. We were headed for the newly opened 'Zip World Caverns' a series of ladders, bridges and zip lines in the disused Llechwedd slate caverns at Blaenau Ffestiniog. This, of course was preceded by a compulsory bit of trains, with us all catching the Conwy Valley line train through the Moel Dyrnogydd tunnel through to the aforementioned slate mining capital of the world! It was an appropriately grey and cold March morning, adding to the drama of the slate laden hillsides as we arrived triumphantly at the marvellous station where Network Rail and Ffestiniog Railway metals lie side by side. The Llechwedd Caverns are the product of the Welsh slate rush and following the decline of this heavy industry from the 1960's onwards, have provided underground tours for visitors. The development of adventure tourism within this post-industrial landscape is a relatively recent thing, with there now being downhill mountain biking, outdoor zip wires, the caverns Via Ferrata and the evocative 'bounce below', essentially a massive underground trampoline. Blaenau has long needed a boost, having originally been left out of Snowdonia National Park, and walking around the town it certainly felt like things were on the up. After a thorough training session with an instructor, we were all let loose on the main cavern exploration. It starts in a vast hollow, with a series of zip lines that gradually descend into the depths of the chasm, crossing piles of slate spoil and flooded hollows. There are then a series of narrower passageways, bridges and further traverses on solid Via Ferrata rungs that link several smaller caverns. It's all rather disorientating and every now and then large openings in the passageway walls open out on the main cavern. The tour finishes with a steep climb over cargo nets and through vertical worm-hole like passageways back to the starting point, which is suddenly reached, somewhat anticlimactically. It's a wonderful exploration, and really gets you right into the heart of this impossible myriad of man-made tunnels and caverns.
Upon resurfacing to daylight, the barren, grey landscape of Llechwedd and its fellow spoils seemed intensely bright and sharp after several hours in the relative colourless abyss. However, after a quick lunch and march up the verge of the A470 to the Crimea Pass, the drab slate dominated landscape was exchanged for the usual parched, sepia tones of the uplands in late winter. The bleak Moelwyns are one of the lesser walked ranges in Snowdonia. We were getting in the next bit of hills in by ascending up and over the lofty 524 metre summit of Moel Dyrnogydd. After this, the most direct route down to Dolwyddelan involved a rather rough tramp over tussocky grass down into the relatively more benign sheep pasture dominated landscape of the valley. After passing a series of scruffy farms, with the first of springs’ lambs bleating and stumbling around we skirted Doowyddelan Castle and back to Bryn Tirion.


Entering the abyss of Llechwedd Slate Caverns
Our beer based entertainment had been orchestrated in the form of a train-themed fancy dress night thanks to Graeme, one of my best men. This had been taken on board to varying levels of enthusiasm, and the costumes certainly provided entertainment for the owners and locals frequenting Y Gwydyr pub in Dolwyddelan village. Thankfully we had been given our own room, off to one side of the bar, within which to keep ourselves entertained and enjoy a convivial meal and drinks. Given the demand for real ale, the single pump was dry by about half time and by full time, all supplies of a bottled St Agnes (Cornwall) brewery beer had been consumed. Last but not least, a big tick was placed in the beer box.



Traversing the cableways and gantries of the 'zip world caverns'.
After an action-packed Saturday, it was agreed that a lie-in would be granted for Sunday morning. No piercing blasts on the whistle to wake up to and no early trains to catch. We took on board hearty porridge once again and enjoyed the March sunshine that was breaking through. Rowan had organised a navigational-riddle based challenge for us that involved finding toy soldiers in hidden localities around Bryn Tirion farm and Dolwyddelan Castle. It had been promised to keep us all occupied for about an hour. However some of us  (me included) manage to miss the most critical element of the briefing session (that there were a couple of decoy locations on the list and also not to take the grid references bit too seriously) resulting in much frolicking around the moorland searching for the (un-)promised little plastic soldiers for significantly longer than an hour, much to the entertainment of the ‘winning’ teams. This activity, filled with much merriment drew the big weekend to a close and a prolonged period of goodbyes and departure then followed. For those on the train (via the mid-afternoon bus to Llandudno Junction as there is no winter Sunday Conwy valley line service), there was time for a picnic in the spring-like sunshine over in Dolwyddelan. For the Lancaster folk, our train journey back north was far less eventful than the Friday, just as well as we’d had just about enough excitement for one weekend.

And there we have it, hills, trains, beer, all successfully accomplished. The countdown to our wedding now officially commences.


On the top of Moel Dyrnogydd

Tuesday 15 March 2016

en-route to the International Mountain Leader Award

I'm writing this on board the TGV Perpignan-Paris, returning from the Pyrénées-Orientales, venue for my IML winter assessment. We're now north of the the Rhône valley (the scenic bit) so there's some time between now and Paris to do some writing. Ironically, the TGV is zooming through a blizzard as we head North and my altimeter says just 336 m, although it hasn't been recalibrated since Friday. Quite a contrast to when Imogen and I arrived in Avignon two Saturday's ago to blue skies and almost 20 C! The winter assessment has concluded a two year journey through the IML scheme, and I'll take this opportunity to take a look back at the whole process.


Since starting out on the Mountain Training schemes, I had my sights on the IML award as an objective, as I was attracted by its strong emphasis on mountain journeying on foot and environmental dissemination to groups and clients. This area of mountaineering is what I had come to enjoy most throughout the past twenty years of exploring mountain environments at home and abroad. I started the training and assessment process in April 2014, with the summer training at Plas-Y-Brenin. The first step involves lots of intro and overview of the award content and is probably about 50/50 practical to theory. There is a 'hill day' and the usual steep ground stuff common to all the ML schemes. You also start the process straight off with a bit of assessment; the speed navigation test, although this is certainly not about speed as the name suggested and more about just getting round the course in a reasonable time. Many decide to go for it however and on my speed nav, we had candidates flying up and down the grassy north slopes of Moel Siabod. I took a more gentle approach and still made it back with about 15 minutes to spare. The great thing about the IML being a 4-stage process, with a limited number of course dates available at each stage is that you tend to meet some of your fellow candidates again further down the line. It's always nice to be on assessment with people you've met before and it gives a good opportunity for shared learning when it comes to preparing for assessment. 

Pas de la Cavale, 2735 m on the GR54 Tour d’Oisans, Écrins National Park, France.
The summer after my training, I managed to get out in the Alps twice. Firstly to the Gran Paradiso national park, doing some easy Alpinism and secondly to the Écrins, where I volunteered myself to lead a group of friends around the GR54 (Tour d'Oisans). The latter was perfect summer assessment prep and gave me some excellent log book days. 

Vallon de Chambran, Écrins National Park, France.
Winter training followed next in January 2015. Currently, these courses tend to be based in Le Grand Bornand (Haute-Savoie, France). It's a nice venue, at the Auberge Nordique, tucked in a deep valley below the Chaine des Aravis. The lodge caters for Nordic skiers as well as snowshoers and there a usually a number of groups in at once. The training was good fun and we got out to a variety of venues to look at the various aspects of the winter syllabus; snowshoe journeying, environmental knowledge, use of transceivers, shovel, probe, snow pack analysis and avalanche risk assessment, the use of ski areas and uplift and security on steeper ground. The snow conditions were fairly limited for most of the week at valley level, but a passing front mid-week deposited around 30 cm of fresh above around 1200 m, meaning we were able to find better conditions for the activities requiring deeper accumulations. The winter training was my first introduction to snowshoeing and the Alpine winter environment (as I had never skied), and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Snowshoeing enables you to get away from the noise and crowds of the pistes and discover the forests and alpages in their natural winter state, peaceful and criss-crossed with animal tracks. 

Next up was the summer assessment, late August 2015. The good thing about the courses being limited in number is that it forces you to book early (as soon as dates are released), therefore giving plenty of time for preparation. I began my theoretical prep around late-May. There are lots of paperwork (although mostly computer these days) based things to tick-off in the lead up to assessment; the home paper, a leaders resource pack for the area, route ideas and on the hill talks or group activities to prepare. I found it invaluable, and also very interesting to put lots of time into this preparation. My assessment was based around Samoëns in the Giffre valley. It's a lovely part of the limestone pre-Alps, thrust upwards just to the North of the Mont-Blanc massif and Aiguilles Rouges. Thus there are great views from the various randonnées and tours in the area. I headed out a week ahead of the assessment, in order to get familiar with the area and visualise all the stuff that up until that point had all been rather theoretical. I based myself on the Camping du Giffre on the edge of Samoëns. I met up with another candidate, Ian from my winter training, who I have subsequently gone on to complete the award with this March. The prep week was incredibly useful, especially as there were two of us, and we were able to practice techniques, bounce ideas and have a go together at identifying flowers and trees. The assessment itself went well, although very quickly at just 3 and a half days with two nights up in refuges. Unfortunately we had some low cloud and drizzle on two days which was not what we had booked!

Summit of la Bourgeoise 1770 m, an accessible snowshoe peak in the Haut-Giffre valley, France with a spectacular 360 vista.
This left just one hurdle; the winter assessment. As my only experience on 'raquettes' was from the winter training week at Le Grand Bornand, I decided I needed to get out to the Alps in January 2016, to gain more familiarisation with the alpine winter environment and get in some logbook days. Luckily, I had already completed the winter ML in April 2015 and also had some overseas winter experience from New Zealand, but I was particularly keen to get more experience in the rather more unique world of snowshoeing and the rolling Nordic terrain in which it is generally practiced. For this, Imogen and I arranged a family trip back to the Haut-Giffre, this time to the little village of Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval. As it was booked for early season, we were nervous about snow conditions but luckily a big dump came in a couple of days before we arrived so conditions were perfect. On day 1 we were able to snowshoe down the valley in 40 cm of fresh powder. Later in the week, we had some wonderful outings at Morillon 1100 - Plateau d'Agy and the Joux Plane Col. We also managed to fit in a bit of first timer Nordic skiing. 



Snowshoeing in fresh powder snow in the Giffre Valley near Sixt-fer-à-Cheval, France.
And so this all leads into late February this year, when Imogen and I boarded the direct Eurostar London - Avignon, starting out on a two week venture to the Pyrénées that would include the final stage of my IML assessment. I had once again spent many evenings and weekends on the computer, sorting out all the theory/paperwork stuff. This time around, a vast amount of time had been devoted to the daily Méteo France Avalanche forecasts for the Pyrénées-Orientales, which helped tremendously in terms of building up a picture of the snowpack through the winter. After spending one night in Avignon, we continued our journey South, this time on the Spanish AVE heading for Madrid. This deposited us in Perpignan, where we headed west and uphill into the Pyrénées. At the town of Villefranche de Conflent, just where the valley of the Têt narrows and steepens, there is a change of train and gauge onto the historic 'Train Jaune'. This winds its way up over 1000 m of ascent from the Conflent to the Cerdagne plateau. For the prep week, we were staying in the village of Egat, near Font-Romeu. We had settled for a campsite as all the other accommodation in the town was fairly expensive. Luckily, the campsite had a heated toilet block, although when we arrived, air temperatures were up at about 14 C! My fellow candidate and colleague on the IML journey, Ian was also in the area early and we made the most of the prep week to cover all the various syllabus topics and also get our eye into the local environment. The Pyrénées-Orientales is a very different mountain environment to the Alps, being a high open plateau with granitic tors forming mostly rolling mountains with a high tree line. However there are a number of more spikey ridge lines and cirques that form the backdrop such as the Pic Carlit, Pic Peric and Cambre d'Aze. At the very end of the prep week, a top up in the snow arrived. Overnight Friday to Saturday and Saturday to Sunday, around 50 cm of fresh snow fell at 1500 m. This provided the ideal starting point for the assessment. I moved indoors to the base for the course, El Mouli del Riu at St Pierre dels Forcats on Sunday. The base was very comfortable and the food was great. The IML group had sole occupancy which meant the whole course was much more convivial. Three assessors from Plas-Y-Brenin oversaw us in groups of four candidates. The assessment itself progressed very much as expected but with the usual assessment nerves and the extra pressure of this being the last step made for a long and full-on week. We mostly had sunshine, but the dominant airflow was a swift Northwesterly, which made for somewhat cool conditions and even one day of almost Scottish conditions; luckily we were doing emergency shelters that day so had a good hour out of the weather inside those. There was certainly plenty of transceiver work, but leadership and environmental knowledge were vitally important, as was competence in steep ground security and reading the terrain. By the end of the week, we were all pretty drained so it was a big relief when we boarded the minibuses for the last time and headed back to the lodge for results. 

All in all, the IML scheme has been a wonderful journey and it's great to feel the jigsaw gradually coming together as you progress through the various stages. If you're thinking of going for it, or have an upcoming assessment, drop me an e-mail. Alternatively, if you're looking for a custom-made summer alpine trek or winter snowshoe adventure, please get in touch and I would be delighted to discuss your requirements.

On a typical snowshoe route in Formiguères, Pyrénées-Orientales, France.