Preparations are being made for the final two expeditions on the Super7 project. Since 2005 we’ve been attempting to pioneer a new route on every one of the 7 continents. So far, routes up to ED2 and Scottish VIII have been climbed in North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia.

In November, we’ll be attempting to climb a number of objectives on the Antarctic Peninsular. This expedition; The 2010 Alpine Club Antarctica Expedition; will involve crossing The Southern Ocean on The 60 ft 9 berth aluminium hulled ex-racing yacht ‘The Spirit of Sydney‘. Once we get there, we’ve got a number of objectives planned – mostly ski mountaineering, but also, potentially, some more technical climbs as well. Thanks to The Mountaineering Council of Scotland, The Gino Watkins Memorial Fund, The Alpine Club and Lyon Equipment for their generous support of this expedition.

In Febuary I’ll be teaming up once again with James Mehigan, a legal aid barrister who was also part of the team for the exciting Alaska / North America stage of the trip.

The Feb 2011 trip will be an attempt to climb a new route in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. We’ve had considerable assistance with planning the trip from local expert Andrew Stokes-Rees, and he will join us for our two week long trip to Morocco to attempt new routes in the vicinity of Toubkal. At 4167 metres, this is the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains and in North Africa.

We welcome on board two fantastic new sponsors: Buff, who have supplied us with mulitfunctional headgear, and Creation Editor, who produce videos for corporate businesses as well as private individuals. Their services range from broadcast commercials to staff training videos and weddings to gift edits.

I would also like to thank The Business, who have helped us greatly with our fundraising so far. Right now we are targetting small to medium sized enterprises and Managed Funds. So, if you know any marketing managers, CEO’s, fund managers or corporate social responsibility officers who would like to see our proposal (or if you have any potential leads for us) then please drop me a line: oliver@super7.co.uk

We also have opportunities for volunteers to help us with the fundraising. We’ll take care of the ‘phone calls, but if you have time to look up telephone numbers for us, it would be massively appreciated. All you need is an internet connection and just 30 minutes to spare. So, if you want to be able to say: ‘I was part of that.’ then please get in touch, we would love to hear from you. oliver@super7.co.uk

Thanks also to Richard Cross for his continued awesome work on the website and our newsletter.

TOWER COULOIR

‘I don’t want to die for someone else’s summit fever’.
‘Oliver, it’s 7 O’Clock’.
‘I’m not sure I want to die for my own summit fever, have I ever even had summit fever?’
‘Oliver, YOU said we should turn around at 6.30. It’s SEVEN OOOO’CLOOOOOCCCCK’.

‘What’s the point, he can’t hear me. Or he’s pretending not to. He knows it’s time to turn around.’ At this stage he was 40 metres up, swimming in squashy unconsolidated powder. I knew it was unconsolidated powder because most of the final snow slope to the col has sloshed over me in the last hour as I shuffled from foot to foot waiting for Oliver to finish this pitch.

Well, it wasn’t that bad. I guess I was just being a princess. But it was late. Even in Alaska, with its longer days, in March 8pm is late and late is cold and cold is bad. We’d taken a long time to climb the last 180m of difficulties. But the advantage of slow progress and long approach slopes is that there wasn’t going to be so much abseiling to do in the dark.

Oliver reached the col at the top of Tower Couloir in the end. It was a feat of personal dedication and drive. Whether axes were of any advantage is hard to tell. It really looked like swimming more than climbing. More the grovelling end of the climbing spectrum. Once he’d summited (or perhaps Col-ed?) he rapped back down to me. The col meant a lot more to him than to me and I was keen to start the descent. Oliver had done all the hard climbing on the route, his jacket was soaked through, he was literally freezing and he was knackered. I was now in charge of getting us down. Which was fine with me. I’d just spent an hour on the belay doing three things (in no particular order); keeping my feet warm, thinking about the best way to set the anchors for the descent and belaying. So I was good to go. One last thing to confirm though;

‘Listen Oliver, this is a blank cheque descent. I don’t care how much gear we use, solid belays are it’. So once we had that agreed, it was off down.

First we rapped back over the Scottish 7 crux of the route into this immense (well 4 foot wide, 8 foot deep and 8 foot high) cave that we had belayed in on the way up. We needed to rehydrate and Oliver needed to put on some new layers. He was borderline hypothermic from all the unconsolidated snow and wet almost entirely through. So we sat down in the cave and brewed up. Watching the alpenglow disappear from the mountains on the other side of the Ruth Gorge was the first time during the day we could actually relax. All we had to do was abseil home in the dark, not the original game plan, but we knew we could do it. We weren’t stuck for gear and we’d just been up the route.

It’s hard to describe the ascent itself without venerating Oliver’s climbing skills and determination. His performance on the day was immense. The whole climb looked from the valley like a straightforward drainage line, like climbing in the winter in the Alps but placing our own gear. But when it came to the crunch, the route was actually a mess. You couldn’t call it ice or snow sometimes. It could be identified as a form of frozen water, but after that, words failed us. I’m sure there is a word for it in a language somewhere, for us however, we just referred to it in what law textbooks call ‘sailor’s language’ or ‘unparliamentary discourse’.

Oliver climbed three epic pitches of this stuff. Sometimes bravely running it out. Sometimes spending hours prepping a move. Seriously, on the first pitch, three hours or so trying to get over the first overhang. It wasn’t an overhang when we arrived, but it had to be dug out into a cave, then headbutted out into a stance. At one stage he was standing up on this ‘stuff’ feeling his boots moving gently through it as it all collapsed slowly under his weight. Like he was trying to stand up on a three inch thick wall of rice-crispie buns. I know this because I had to second it and that was unpleasant enough. Nobody was upset to get to that belay.

The crux, two pitches later, was an A1 haul out of the belay cave below the last pitch. I think it might have been impossible if there hadn’t been some ‘Thank-God’ polystyrene ice directly above the cave. This pitch, like every pitch on the route, looked so straightforward. From the valley, up the approach coulouir (like a big alpine Difficile gully), the technical ground looked okay. From the top of each pitch, the next pitch looked good to go. Finally, we thought, we would make some progress. But ice is a fickle friend and once established, each pitch presented its own set of problems. Progress was slow. Even the last pitch to the col. It looked so straightforward, just a 55 degree snow slope running up to the col. Easy ground they call it, don’t they? Not today. This was like swimming, only uphill.

Despite all that we climbed it. A new route in Alaska. Can’t complain. That’s what we set out to do, so we called our shots and the balls went in the pocket, and given the shakey weather we’d been having, that was a very pleasing experience. Will it be a classic? Not unless conditions change substantially. Would I do it again? Not in a blind fit. Was it worth it? Yes, what a great day. 22 hours after leaving the tent, we finally unzipped it again. We had pushed ourselves a great deal, climbed well together and had some amazing views, belays and climbing, even if it was a little sketchy at times.

The greatest beauty of the Ruth Gorge being perhaps the ease of access from base camp to so many great climbs. Access is so straightforward, that a japanese underwear company flew in 15 locals to do a commercial on the glacier. Our taxi man was one of them, apparently things got a bit stressful when the weather started coming in. Only a few planes would fly, and the thought of spending a night in an Alaskan storm wearing only lycra and the best Japanese underwear scared even the hardiest Alaskan.

We had spent over a week checking out potential routes, and we had been almost to the base of Tower Couloir to mark the crevasses with bamboo poles before we climbed it. The approach then on the morning of the climb was less than 2 hours on skis, almost all flat. If it wasn’t for the climbing, you might even consider it civilized. With the airplane access, you don’t need any porters and you won’t break a sweat before you’ve set up base camp. Well, unless you’re a squeamish flier. The descent onto the landing strip in the gorge was cloudy the day we did it and each rotation down meant flying directly at large alpine faces, before turning at the last minute only to fly directly at another. If you ever want to know what a plane crash looks like in the seconds before it happens, fly into the Ruth Gorge.

Thanks to The Business, Crux, Montane, thehighlands.com, Big Agnes, Trekking Encounters
Montane, Chromefire, Bristo Yoga School, Lyon Equipment, Pocket Mountains and The Mountaineering Council of Scotland for supporting this expedition.

Tower Couloir (5,800ft), Hut Tower, Ruth Gorge, Alaska, Oliver Metherell, James Mehigan, ED2, Scottish VII, A1, 600m

Details

The Great Gorge of the Ruth Glacier runs almost perfectly north-south and lies south east of Denali in the Denali National Park in Alaska. It is an alpinist’s paradise being a parallel sided glacier from whose sides rise massive steep peaks of the quality of great alpine north faces. Approaches are not long (though they can be heavily crevassed) and altitude is not really a problem (the highest peaks are c.3000m) The best guidebook to the area is Joe Puryear’s ‘Alaska’ published by supertopo. There is also a fantastic set of pictures with route markings of all the major peaks in the Gorge in the 2006 American Alpine Club Journal.

Access is by ski plane from Talkeetna (3 hours drive north of Anchorage where we flew into). We used Talkeetna Air Taxi www.talkeetnaair.com who have the best reputation for looking after climbers in the range. We found them excellent.

It’s hard to be certain when the best time to go is. We were pretty early hoping the ice would be well frozen and consolidated (it wasn’t) but people climb there much later and it only seemed to be kicking off as we left (mid April). They climb rock in the gorge in the summer, as early as June which is hard to believe.

We have a full report, with a lot more detail on the logistical information. If anyone is interested, contact us through the website.

The Antarctica trip has been the recipient of The Lyon Equipment Award and a Mountaineering Council of Scotland Grant. As I’m sure you know; Lyon Equipment are the distributor of high end mountaineering kit; including Beal ropes and Petzl. They’ve been generous supporters of our trips in the past; and they have also sponsored our events…. The MC of S has also consistently supported this adventure and it would be not have been possible without them backing us financially.

I spent most of the past month attempting to organise sponsorship. The fish aren’t biting – YET! But we’re already about two thirds of the way there; thanks to some generous supporters from behind the scenes!

I’ve been getting back into training (three sessions of climbing per week!) and there was light in the sky at 8pm last week. This summer is gonna be a scorcher!

Fear of Flying
By Heather Owen

Cheap flights galore mean flying is easy and convenient for many of us. I used to fly numerous times a year to visit friends and family and to play in the big beautiful world. However, recently I have made a pact with myself to try not to fly. Even though my heart used to race in fear when the plane lifted off, I haven’t stopped flying for fear for my life, rather for fear for planet Earth!

The intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) report in 2007 estimated that there will be an average temperature rise of 0.2 degrees every decade. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change written for the UK governement in 2006 indicated that immediate action is required to minimise not only the disasterous ecological but also the economical consequences of global temperature changes.

It is now widely accepted that the cause of this global temperature rise is due to the increase in emissions of gases (such as carbondioxide) since the industrial revolution and our reliance on the burning of fossil fuels for energy and transportation. A quick look at my own carbon emissions (http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx) indicates to me that the major way I can limit my personal emissions immediately is to stop flying.

To travel within the UK without flying is fairly easy. www.traveline.org.uk is a door to door journey planner by any means of transport within the UK. To travel between the UK and the rest of Europe without flying is trickier. The two options are by train via the Eurostar (www.raileurope.co.uk) or a bus/ferry combo. European trains are relatively reliable and fast (London to Geneva takes 7 hours) but it is cheaper to travel by coach. There are many different coach companies but a good start is www.eurolines.com

I’m not saying that I will never fly again, but the main thing that has changed for me is that I now think more carefully about any trips I take and as a result I stay in Scotland for alot of my holidays. The coastline is something Scotland definitely has over the Alps so I have learnt to surf. And there’s all sorts of outdoor adventures to be had here in Scotland without the need to travel to distant places. The high mountains still call me occasionally, so I hop on the train, read a book, sleep, eat, sleep some more and eventually arrive in the Alps for a big treat of a trip.

The downside is that trips to the rest europe cost more and trips further afield are not possible without flying. When I go to Europe I take the train, and since travel by train takes longer there are no long weekend breaks abroad anymore. However, I feel that I have learnt to appreciate what there is to do close to home. I’m getting to know and appreciate really special places, and still feel that my drive for adventure is satisfied!

Drove up to The Climbers Club hut at Roybridge on Friday and went climbing for the first time, with Phil Wickens, the leader of The Alpine Club 2010 Antarctica Expedition.

We got spanked on a big route on Ben Nevis; hiked down to the car park; and then partied hard all night with his friends (one of whom was having her wedding reception at The Ben Nevis Hotel!). A magic day.

For the past six weeks I’ve been organising sponsorship for the final stages of this. We’re targeting 80 pre-selected companies. I would like to thank everyone that has helped with this, including Sir Chris Bonington, Terence Osborne from Chromefire, Carol Anderson and Robynne Eller. I would also like to thank Richard Cross from richardx.co.uk for his amazing work on the website and every other person who continues to support this adventure. If you have any leads for us on for this for sponsors who would like to hear about what we have to offer then it would be greatly appreciated if you could send them through.

I feel that although there is a lot of hard work still to be done with this project, we are through the really tough times. Everything is getting into place for Antarctica. We have a great team, an experienced expedition leader and a great skipper / boat. I will follow the Antarctica trip with an Africa attempt soon after, and I will be getting things into place over the summer for that.

On 11th February at Boyd Orr theatre in Glasgow, Polly Murray presented the story of her extraordinary life. In 2000, Polly became the first Scottish woman and youngest British woman to summit Mt. Everest.

Along with her best buddy Tash Wright, they have chatted up fellow male mountaineers on Mt. McKinley in Alaska, braved the icy seas of Baffin Bay in a 33ft fibre glass boat and sought and conquered a new ski traverse on Bylot Island in Greenland; an island which has not been crossed since 1963.

There are plenty of similarities between Polly and the Super7 team. She has always been drawn to more the remote locations in the world; the more bizarre the better. Since becoming the first person ever to telemark ski down Mt. Mckinley, Polly has found it her path in life to be the first to experience real adventure.

In 2003 she embarked on an Antarctic enterprise, sailing her way through rough Antarctic waters, discovering the overwhelming wildlife and interestingly-shaped icebergs. The photography that accompanies her talk are jaw dropping.

Although she made it to Everest’s summit in 2000, which in recent years has become buzzing with adventure tourists, who would turn down the chance of such a great offer? It was the first ascent of the Millennium. She was the first Scottish woman to dig her crampons into its icy cwms. And she was blonde.

What draws most people in to listening to Polly’s tales is that she speaks with such strength and gusto; she simply doesn’t possess an off button. In a short time she has squeezed in so much and doesn’t intend to stop any time soon.

In the winter months she works as a ski instructor dotting about the runs of the French Alps or the Pyrenees; where ever the white stuff takes her. During the summer months she works as a rope access builder, restoring and maintaining some of Scotland’s oldest buildings. Polly has also landed herself a sweet little number working with the BBC, as a presenter for CBBC’s ‘Serious’ series which has earned a well deserved BAFTA award. And finally, to top the cake with a cherry; she is one of the faces of outdoor brands Mountain Equipment and outdoor specialist store Tiso Ltd, which have both sponsored her on many trips.

I have come across plenty of accounts through time of women breaking records, making it big and writing a book or talking about it in front of a crowd just because they were a woman. Really, you can’t sniff at anyone who makes an honest buck from doing something that is out of the ordinary which they are passionate about, but Polly forever maintains her modesty without one sliver of arrogance in her tales. With her Mum perched so proudly in the audience, it was such an endearing, beautiful string of stories; the hour had flown by far too quickly.

So next time you see a silhouette of a figure dangling down from an old church in her home town of Blairgowrie, be sure to wave. It’ll make her day.

I’ve been accepted for a place on the 2010 Alpine Club Antarctica Expedition. The trip is being led by Phil Wickens and we are sailing on ‘Spirit of Sydney’ in November.

‘Spirit of Sydney’ is a 9 berth 60 ft aluminium hulled yacht with a forward looking sonar that was built for the 1986 BOC Challenge Race. She has been used for Antarctic sailing for 16 years and is skippered by Darrel Day and Cath Hew. It usually takeds 3-4 days to cross the Drake Passage.

Further information about the yacht: www.spiritofsydney.net

Phil Wickens has a couple of trips planned to the area in 2011:

Ski Mountaineering in South Georgia (October 2011). Using the yacht ‘Spirit of Sydney’ this expedition will sail to the remarkable sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. Famous for its association with Sir Ernest Shackleton, and being the location of Britain’s highest mountain (Mt Paget), South Georgia offers an amazing range of ski mountaineering possibilities of all levels. Objectives will depend on the group’s experience, but will consist of multi-day tours and ski ascents of a very exploratory and expedition nature. Exact dates and prices to be announced, but further information can be requested from Phil Wickens (mail@philwickens.co.uk).

Ski Mountaineering in Antarctica (January/February 2012). We shall again be sailing aboard ‘Spirit of Sydney’ to access the mountains of Marguerite Bay. Located south of the Antarctic Circle, this spectacular area is rarely visited by yachts but, unlike much of Antarctica, has easy access to many of the glaciers. Marguerite Bay offers endless ski mountaineering objectives of all grades and lengths, from easy day tours from the yacht, to multi-day ascents of the higher peaks. Exact dates and prices to be announced, but further information can be requested from Phil Wickens (mail@philwickens.co.uk).

We are very fortunate to have such a distinguished and effective patron helping us out. He is making a generous contribution to our cause and is also helping us in the hunt for a lead sponsor… Massive thanks to Sir Chris Bonington.

Here is what our new patron has to say about the project:

“This is a brilliant project – so much more exciting, innovative and adventurous than the ‘Seven Summits’. It’s true exploratory adventure by a group of young and talented climbers who are real exemplars for the younger generation or for anyone who says ‘There is nothing new left to do.”

– Sir Chris Bonington, February 2010

On 15th October, Oliver Metherell of Super 7 introduced Doug Scott to the audience at The Boyd Orr lecture theatre in Glasgow.

Surviving at altitude on Himalayan Summits most certainly requires an ample dose of humor, even if surviving the worlds highest biviouac means having an in-depth conversation with your feet. Doug Scott is one of the few people who can say he has been there, and more than just a few times. With a stellar alpine career that spans over forty years, he is one of the national treasures of the British climbing scene.

His latest lecture, ‘The Big Three” takes us back to the of Autumn of 1972. Doug and his team make their first attempt at climbing the un-forgiving and un-climbed South
West face of Mt. Everest. After two attempts, various route changes and extreme weather conditions, it all proves too much for the team. They turn back after reaching 8230m and with the loss of one member; Tony Tighe’s body was never recovered.

It is obvious that in the 27 years since the first attempt was made, Doug has told his story of ‘The Big Three’ hundreds of times. Yet, his tale does not sound over rehearsed and tired. It sounds like he is talking fondly of old friends that he knows he will never meet again. Although Doug has lost many close friends and team members during these historic adventures, he has cherished their memories by keeping his stories alive.

Then Doug moves the show to Chris Bonington’s ‘Everest: The Hard Way’ expedition and Doug Scott and Dougal Haston are standing on the summit. It is Doug’s third attempt at the south-west face and after losing fellow team mates and facing gruelling conditions, they finally make it to the top. On the epic descent, the team run out of oxygen and with their sleeping bags in camp far below, they are forced to make the world’s highest bivouac, resting precariously on their rucksacks only a hundred meters below the summit. Minimalism proves to become a bit of a theme in expeditions to come…

When Doug flicks through the series of spell bounding photographs that bring his adventures to life, it feels like he is looking back through a collection of treasured holiday snaps; from the best vacation in the world. I don’t think there was one person in the auditorium that didn’t sense that Doug wished he could step through the photos on the screen and feel the crunch of virgin snow beneath his ice boots once more. When talking about these precious moments in his life, he would shortly pause and give himself a moment and he was there at the top of Everest, having his picture taken for his Mum’s family album.

Doug then transports us to 1979. He and two other team mates, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker are about to embark on the worlds third highest peak, Kanchenjunga. After the siege tactics of the 1975 trip, the team chose to climb ‘Alpine Style’. A technical route, no oxygen, and without an army of porters and supporting climbers to to haul their supplies up the mountain. After two and a half months of mind-bending challenges, the team finally summit.

When Doug visited Nepal, he was horrified by the exploitation of Sherpas who worked in the mountains. Most Sherpas were paid badly and were lifting un-godly amounts of weight. . As a result, Doug set up Community Action Nepal (Canepal), a charitable organisation which helps to ensure that Sherpas are paid fairly and can keep their families and communities thriving.

Lastly, we are taken to 1983. This is Doug and his team’s second shot at conquering K2. After losing a team mate to an avalanche five years previously, Doug is ready to try again for the world’s second highest peak. Mother nature strikes again and after ferocious snow storms and a rescue mission to save one of their team mates from cerebral edema, they are robbed once more of the summit.

It is hard to walk away from a Doug Scott lecture without feeling inspired by his tales of the three peaks. Even though his hair is now white and he seems less able to scale Everest again, I would certainly not describe Doug as a frail old man. He is still adventure hungry as ever who attracts and intrigues all types of climbers . I wish I had one of those summit pictures in my living room until I can get a little closer.

Follow Doug’s lectures at: http://www.dougscottmountaineering.co.uk
Community Action Nepal: http://www.canepal.org.uk

Journalist Robynne Eller reviews Kev’s show:

For a man from the small town of Dalry, Ayrshire, Kev Shields has achieved so much in his short climbing career so far – and all with just one hand.

Yet Kev is probably one of the most modest climbers you are ever likely to meet. He is constantly seeking better and more lairy climbs but cannot fathom why greats such as Dave Macleod want him on their side; It’s because you’re amazing Kev, that’s why!

Since childhood, Kev has cleared and smashed any hurdles that have been thrown on his tracks, even if one of them was soloing an E7. You can clearly see that Kev has embraced every aspect of his life and lives to climb. To him nothing else is more important.

Kev has quickly learnt to not let his disability and epilepsy get in his way. Where most people would think he would be ground to a halt for even thinking about climbing, he has not let anything hold him back. With help from the prosthetics department at University of Strathclyde and many, many prosthetic ice axes later, Kev is unstoppable.

I, as I’m sure many others do, have a soft spot for Kev. Having a brother who also suffers from epilepsy, I can understand how much and how hard Kev has had to push himself. It has given me even more faith in my brother that he can do anything he pours his heart into; nothing is unattainable.

Having only less than ten years of climbing experience under his belt, you forget that he is fairly fresh to the world of giving lectures. His sense of humour is very much raw, quick and witty. It feels like you’re listening to him talk about his climbs over a pint at his local pub, rather than a freshly painted lecture hall. In five years time, Kev will be one of the great adventure speakers; God only knows what he will have been up to in that time.