Wet & Wild High & Light Ready to Escape? Breaking Barriers
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40445_Cover 6/9/02 12:04 pm Page 1 ISSUEISSUE 2727 -- AUTUMNAUTUMN 20022002 £2.50 £2.50 Wet & Wild River Crossings High & Light Himalaya Lightweight Ready To Escape? Adventure Yearbook 2003 Breaking Barriers The International Meet PORTLAND UPDATE MOUNTAIN ECOLOGY EXCLUSIVE ACTIVPURSUITS CD OFFER STANAGE • LIFE ASSURANCE • MOUNTAIN BOOTS • ACCESS UPDATES CONTENTS FEATURES 14 Feet First Stuart Ingram and Berghaus give an introduction to hiking boots. 20 Breaking Barriers Jamie Andrews reports on the hectic and diverse world of the BMC International Meet. 26 Wild and Wet River crossings - how to reach the other bank, with Plas y Brenin. 30 Jurassic Park Portland is now a World Heritage site. Our 14 20 agent Bond, Clare Bond takes a look at what that means for climbers. 34 Escape to Adventure The stunning Adventure Yearbook 2003. 38 The Right Stuff As the infamous Stanage guide nears completion, resident wordsmith Niall Grimes reflects on this favourite gritstone playground. 40 Over the Odds? Are you paying to much for life insurance as an outdoor enthusiast? Let us help. 26 42 Flower Power Barbara Jones examines how Alpine flowers are staging a comeback in Cwm Idwal. 44 High and Light Stephen Venables and Ken Wilson look at the history of lightweight Himalayan expeditions, from early skirmishes to super-alpine traverses. 48 The Famous Five How the Helly Hansen National Mountaineer- ing Exhibition team picked classic peaks for John Peel. 44 READERS' OFFERS REGULARS 32 Win Anquet Maps 5 Letters Win some great interactive OS maps on CD - 6 News you'll never have to fold a map again! 10 Access News 32 Discount to Activpursuits 24 ACT update The new online magazine. 51 MLTB 52 Agenda 36 The Adventure Package 53 Events Get 3 great adventure books for the price of 2. ON THE COVER 60 Last thoughts Debbie Birch on the classic 36 Himalayan Lightweight Western Front, E3 5c, Almscliff. A rare chance to update your mountain library. Credit: Alex Messenger BMC SUMMIT - ISSUE 27 3 40445_SUMMIT_27.pmd 3 12/09/2002, 11:57 AM FOREWORD Welcome to issue 27 Summit is the membership magazine of the British Mountaineering Council. The BMC promotes the interests of climbers, hill walkers and mountaineers and the freedom to enjoy their activities. The primary work of the BMC is to: Negotiate access improvements and promote cliff and mountain 40 Culture Shock conservation. Promote and advise on good practice, facilities, training and equipment. Support events and specialist programmes including youth and excellence. Provide services and information 34 The new yearbook for members. BMC, 177 - 179 Burton Road, Manchester M20 2BB Tel: 0870 010 4878 Fax: 0161 445 4500 e-mail: [email protected] A MESSAGE FROM THE BMC PRESIDENT www.thebmc.co.uk ’ve just returned from three weeks of glorious sunshine in Tuolumne Meadows. Camping at 8,500ft, swimming in crystal clear lakes and climb EDITORIAL Iing on perfect granite with a choice of single pitch sport climbs or multi Contributions for Summit should be sent to pitch trad climbs. There’s a mix of well protected cracks and bold exciting the Editor Alex Messenger at the above address slabs, and hundreds of square miles of some of the best Alpine mountain or [email protected]. Every care is taken walking and backpacking country I’ve ever experienced. A true lift for the of materials sent for publication, however spirit and even more welcome because it meant a complete break from these are submitted at the sender's risk. meetings and never-ending BMC politics. PUBLISHING I must admit I didn’t think much about32 the ACT BMC Photo whilst comp I was away but the Gill Wootton holiday did bring me right back in touch with what I believe to be the true and Display Advertising basic values of our sport and some of the issues the BMC works towards in this Jane Harris country. First and foremost the freedom to choose to climb where I wanted in the Classified style I wanted. Without the vision of that great Victorian Scottish naturalist John Muir, Yosemite’s beauty would have been irrevocably destroyed and what did Paula Taylor become the world’s first true National Park would have become a vast timber Tel: 01536 382500 yard littered with mines and quarries. Fax: 01536 382501 To decide upon and get to the climbs I used the local guidebook, not as slick and professional as those we are used to in Britain but cheap and quite ad- PUBLISHED & PRINTED BY equate for a visiting Brit. And I felt reasonably safe being protected by our excel- Greenshires Publishing lent BMC insurance scheme. Telford Way, Kettering And so, to me, these are three of the core aspects of the BMC's work that I, Northants, NN16 8UN personally, value most; Access, Information and Insurance. Of course there are Tel: 01536 382500 many other facets of our work that we generally take for granted. The work of our Technical Committee for instance, tirelessly working behind the scenes to test Neither the BMC nor Greenshires Publishing accept responsibility for information supplied in adverts. Readers ropes, helmets and all the other equipment upon which we constantly rely. Our are advised to take reasonable care when responding to Training Advisory Group, striving to ensure that effective advice and guidance is adverts. available to beginners and clubs (student clubs in particular at the moment are struggling because of the litigious fears of the Universities). RISK & RESPONSIBILITY The BMC has become an even broader church over the last decade with many Readers of Summit are reminded that new members entering the sport via indoor walls and competitions giving oppor- climbing, hill walking and tunities for much younger people to participate, hence the need for our Youth mountaineering are activities with a Committee. Similarly climbing walls and the relative safety and convenience of danger of personal injury or death. newly developed sport climbing venues probably contributes to older climbers Participants in these activities should be staying active longer. Fairer Equity policies have given greater opportunities for aware of and accept these risks and be disabled participation and this year's International meet at Plas y Brenin was a responsible for their own actions and huge success with some awe inspiring performances. Read on to find out more, involvement. The BMC publishes a wide and as they say in Tuolumne – enjoy. range of safety and good practice advice and provides training opportunities for members. Dave Musgrove, President. 1 (ABOVE) What's got 3 legs, 3 /2 hands and can climb VS? Well Jamie Andrew, Dave Musgrove and Ivan German - seen here at the foot of Bloody Chimney, VS, during the International Meet. See page 20 for more! Credit: D.Musgrove Jnr. 40445_SUMMIT_27.pmd 4 11/09/2002, 1:08 PM LETTERS to me to be unanswerable. But it also seems to me to apply equally well to PRIZE LETTER WINNER nylon brushing and chalk. Granted, these activities cause no physical damage to the rock, but they never- KILIMANJARO - SLOW DOWN! theless diminish the challenge - and As an expedition doctor who has been involved in organised treks to moun- chalk makes a rock face look even tains in East Africa I would like to add my support to the BMC’ s comments worse than wire brushing does. I ap- that, Kili too quickly is potentially life threatening and definitely no fun. preciate that, taken to its logical con- According to the most recent figures, Mt Kilimanjaro attracts over 4000 clusion, this line of reasoning would trekkers each year, but while 90% attempt the standard Marangu route, less lead to the abolition of boots and ropes, than half are estimated to reach the summit, despite the presence of com- but the fact is that the pioneers did fortable huts, clear paths, short walking days, energetic porters and dry wear boots, whereas they didn’t use weather. From my experience the answer to this high failure rate lies in the chalk. enormous number of trekkers who attempt the route in only five days and subsequently suffer from Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) along the way. Tony Ayres Between 1 and 5% of AMS sufferers go on to develop High Altitude Pulmo- Winchester nary (HAPE). This condition has been shown to be fatal in up to 50% of trekkers if left untreated and is the commonest cause of death at high HIGH HYPNOTHERAPHY altitude. I was unfortunately involved in the treatment of a woman who died I am a clinical hypnotherapist, and from HAPE on Kilimanjaro, and around the world events like this keep hap- leave soon for Ecuador to check pening. Last spring, Dr Alan Gianotti evacuated 22 people with HAPE from whether self-hypnosis can alleviate the the Pheriche Rescue Post on the Everest Camp Trek, whilst 14 climbers were debilitating symptoms of altitude sick- evacuated from Plaza Argentina on Cerro Aconcagua during the 2001 sum- ness. Four climbers, including a doc- mer season. As the most popular route on any of the “seven summits”, the tor, will ascend four volcanoes ranging Marangu Route is the first experience of altitude for many trekkers. By join- from 13,500 feet to almost 19,500 ing organised treks that acclimatise slowly and reading something from the feet. I believe that as the subconscious wide range of websites and books dedicated to AMS this trek can be the first mind controls the body’s breathing, of many adventures, not the last. using self-hypnosis techniques to “pro- gramme” the subconscious one can Jeremy Windsor, London increase its oxygen intake. This can be achieved by improving the volume of ADRENALINE TURN-OFF have towards the people they take air intake whilst at the same time in- Saturday 13th April, a gloriously sunny outdoors, and trust that the current creasing mental calmness and physi- day in Glen Nevis.