Ascending Mount Shyok

One of the reasons I went to India was to stand on top of a mountain and see the view you think of when you hear the word 'Himalayas' - snow capped, triangular peaks, as far as the eye can see, some of them disappearing into the clouds, all of them majestic and breathtaking. Well now I've done it, and I want to do it again, and again, and again, because it was everything I expected it to be and more.

Team Shyok at the summit - Photo by Cameron Montgomery

The expedition was divided up into phases one to four, with each fire doing something different for each one, and phase three being for 'special tours', where everyone could choose between peak ascents, ice field tours, climbing camps, etc. For tour three, most of the TLs decided that they'd like to do something together; we settled on an ascent of a 5,797m peak down the valley from base camp, that we named Mount Shyok.

Our ascent was to be over three days, with a day to reach our high bivvy spot, a day to summit the peak and return to the same bivvy spot, and a day to return to base camp, feeling elated having summited the awesome mountain. The team was to consist of me, Becky, Steph, Rob, Karl, Calum, Monty, Mark, Imi, Cameron and Matt, with Jenny in charge.

We left base camp on the morning of the 10th of August, walking down the Pensi La past a stupa we'd become quite familiar with after trekking past so much, before turning off to the left and starting our ascent. It really was uphill, and felt almost vertical at times, zigzagging past groups of yaks and avoiding slippery parts of scree, struggling to breathe most of the time. The terrain morphed from rolling grassy slopes to broken scree, then into giant unstable slabs and boulders, changing every time we'd got used to walking, climbing and clambering over it. By 6pm we'd made it to our bivvy spot - a flattish area about 4,900m high, sheltered by a large crag, which when climbed over gave way to the most incredible view over base camp and up along the Drang Drung glacier. As it grew dark we cooked our dinner on our temperamental stoves and bedded down in preparation for our ascent the next morning.

Hugging rocks just above our bivvy spot
Photo by Calum Matthews

Throughout the night I woke to a new view of the stars and moon overhead as they moved across the sky, always feeling warm and cosy snuggled up to the others in my crazily warm sleeping bag. I couldn't stop thinking about what awaited us in the morning, and was both stupidly excited and nervous about what it would be like. I hadn't been above 4,700m before that, and knew that I'd feel the altitude as we climbed higher, but I was ready to push myself hard to get there.

We awoke at 5:30am to find our sleeping bags frozen to our bivvy bags and the sun rising over the mountains ahead of us to the east. After a quick flapjack breakfast we packed our bags as light as possible, leaving our bivvy bags weighted with rocks to dry in the sun, and set off towards the ridge we were to follow to the summit.

On the ascent, hating the scree
Photo by Calum Matthews

I could feel the air getting thinner, making it harder to breathe and causing my muscles to burn like fire as we pushed ourselves on. Even taking two breaths per step became difficult at points, and I found myself staring at the ground ahead and forgetting to take in the beauty of our surroundings. We could see the summit we were aiming for most of the time, and it seemed to taunt us by looking so close but making us slog for nine hours before we could stand atop its snow. 

The morning stretched on and the afternoon began before we attached our crampons, grasped our ice axes and began to follow the edge of the snowline to the summit, avoiding precipitous drops and menacing hidden cornice. We stuck together as a team and slowly plodded up the snow towards the summit, over crests and hummocks before the final lump.

Team Shyok crazily happy at the summit
Photo by Calum Matthews

As we moved up the final uphill stretch and onto the flat summit, it felt incredible. We were jumping for joy, congratulating each other on our massive achievement and taking photo after photo and holding pose after pose. The whole team was elated - we'd managed to reach the summit, and for all we knew we could have been the first people ever to get up there. We hadn't seen a single cairn or path on the way up, and we certainly hadn't seen footprints at the top, so maybe we were!

Our descent flew by, and was much faster than our ascent. The snow fields could be pretty much slid down (apart from the deep patches where we fell in up to our knees and couldn't get out from laughing so much), and our route back avoided scrambling over a lot of scree, instead sticking to the snow. We reached our bivvy spot - having been able to see our brightly coloured bags for most of the day - just as the sun was setting, and enjoyed the dramatically changing colours of the sky dancing behind the mountains as we walked into the camp. We ate dinner in the dark before bedding down again, feeling completely knackered but very pleased with ourselves.

Team Shyok on the descent down the ridgeline
Photo by Calum Matthews

The morning after the ascent we woke to find everything frozen again, and had a relaxed morning enjoying the sunrise and the gorgeous view. We even fitted in a spot of yoga in the four hours we were up there, doing sun salutations and poses, before Calum's glute workout, which in hindsight really wasn't necessary but was fun all the same.

One of the main aims of the BES expedition was to conduct science in a remote environment, collecting data for various scientific projects. One project was looking at the effects of pre-conditioning on altitude acclimatisation. A few of us on the expedition had volunteered for the study, which involved being 'cuffed' (a blood pressure cuff was put around our arm and inflated to a certain pressure for a certain amount of time, to build up toxins in our arm and trick our bodies into acclimatising quicker) before each ascent in altitude, and then tested to see how our bodies had reacted. This resulted in us having to do press-ups as fast as possible for 30 seconds, as well as doing multiple spirometry tests, all at high altitude and whilst knackered. Hopefully some interesting results will come out of this study, which should help with our understanding of altitude medicine.

We descended from our bivvy spot to base camp feeling completely parched, as our water source had been the snow but we hadn't managed to melt very much. Reaching the stream by the Pensi La was a happy moment for all of us, and the 30 minute wait for our puritabs to work felt like hours. We got back to base camp in time for lunch, so we made chapattis on the Shyok stove (which we'd named Tanzin), and then deep fried nuggets of dough, when the mix didn't go so well..

Ascending Mount Shyok was definitely one of the highlights of the expedition for me - what an awesome feeling of camaraderie and achievement. Everest next?

Canoeing across Scotland

As an après-exam 'break', I decided to sign up to a five day Canoe Across Scotland challenge with my friend Ed, in aid of the Teesdale and Weardale Search and Mountain Rescue Team (TWSMRT). A team of 14 of us crossed the country via the lochs, travelling a total of 95km, wild camping each night. I'd also just run the Edinburgh Half Marathon the day before we started (in 1hr 57!), which made things a bit more interesting!

The 95km route across the lochs from Fort William to Inverness

The TWSMRT consists of 50 highly trained volunteers, who all have full time jobs, covering distress calls from the entirety of County Durham. Not only do these volunteers rescue lost and/or injured people from the hills but they also search for missing people within urban settings. They've done a lot for the students of Durham, searching for missing people along the river. The team is funded purely by charitable donations, grants, trusts and sponsorship.

For the last two summers I've participated in the Three Peaks 24 Hour Challenge for this charity, but this year I wanted to try something new and challenge myself in a different way. I also wanted some time to completely relax and de-stress after my final university exams - it worked a treat!

Ed and I ran a pancake and waffle fundraising afternoon at his house, asking for donations in return for yummy food. We managed to raise a very respectable £101.10 on the day from our donation jug, so we were pretty pleased with ourselves!

The Great Glen Canoe Trail runs along the Caledonian Canal, which runs 97km from the west coast at Corpach near Fort William, across to the east coast at Inverness. Only 1/3 of its length is man-made - the rest is made up of Loch Dochfour, Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy. They (rather conveniently) run in a straight line along the Great Glen, a massive geological fault. (Having studied Geology for three years I found that part pretty cool!). We were to be portaging the canoes (half carrying, half wheeling the canoes along the ground - definitely not as fun as being on the water!) around the 29 locks, but the rest of the time would be spent paddling on the water, cooking on a fire or sleeping in our tents. Don't you just love it when life is that simple?



Day 1

We started in Corpach at 7pm on Monday 1st June. It was pouring with rain and freezing cold - the sort of weather that makes being inside by a log fire feel like heaven on Earth. Sadly though we were outside, about to start canoeing for five days, and for most of us it was our first time ever being in a canoe..

We followed the Caledonian Canal about 10km across to Gairlochy, through the pouring rain, slowly realising that 'waterproof' doesn't mean 'able to cope with Scottish rain' and getting more and more damp. However, it was actually still really enjoyable and great fun learning how to steer and use the paddles properly. We then reached our first portage - where you have to lift every boat out of the water, put them on wheels, then roll them around the long wiggly path by the lock. After breaking one set of wheels and moving every single canoe to our camping spot, we'd cracked the technique and it was plain sailing from then on!



Day 2

The next day involved crossing Loch Lochy (what an inventive name) and most of Loch Oich. The larger lochs are quite demoralising, as the other side looks really close but then doesn't seem to get any closer, even after hours of paddling. It was absolutely beautiful though, so it completely made up for the slow pace.

We set up camp at Leiterfearn, near the end of Loch Oich. We made friends with Marselle, a guy from Holland who'd just quit his job and was walking around Scotland by himself for seven weeks. He was camping nearby and wandered over to say hello after we'd set up our tents, bringing tidings of an axe and some dry firewood for us to use. He was walking the Great Glen route, so we saw him again the next day whilst portaging the canoes, in a very good mood considering the amount of Scotch Whiskey he'd drunk the night before!



Day 3

Day three was probably the hardest day, with three portages and tiredness beginning to set in. At the end of the last, 650m, portage through Fort Augustus (marking the halfway point of the challenge) we found a plaque that read 'Loch Ness, Fort Augustus' and took a cute team photo to document our achievement.

The team at Fort Augustus, about to set off across Loch Ness

We had winds up to gale force 6 on Loch Ness, which left us almost surfing on some of the waves - pretty helpful for pushing us along, but also quite tough to steer the boat on. We camped high up in a field on the northern shore of the loch, feeling happy in the glorious sunshine and stringing up our damp clothes to dry.

By now we'd all spent too long on top of the water and fancied getting into it, so we went for a dip! It was absolutely freezing and not pleasant at all.. but I'm happy to be able to say I've now been swimming with Nessie!



Day 4

We cooked dinner each night on an open fire, and had porridge every morning, but having to use damp firewood was making it quite tricky. We stopped for an early dinner at the end of Loch Ness, where we found a load of dry driftwood and made a brilliant final fire!

It was then a short, chilled, paddle along Loch Dochfour to our next camping stop at Dochgarroch. A few of us were feeling weird having tired arms but not tired legs, so we set off on a run (which then turned into a walk, when we realised how tired we were..) to make ourselves feel better and get a different view to what we'd been seeing at loch level.

Happy paddlers on Loch Ness

Day 5

The final stretch of the challenge was a fairly chilled paddle along the Caledonian Canal, with no portages and great weather. We played around tying the canoes together, which worked surprisingly well, and enjoyed the final couple of hours of relaxation. I haven't felt so calm, relaxed, happy and free for such a long time - I now love canoeing!

We finished at 11am on the 5th of June, feeling very pleased and proud of ourselves, and very ready for sleeping through the six hour journey back home to Durham.

Nearing the finish, experimenting with two boats lashed together

The challenge was also awesome fitness training for my upcoming expedition to India, so I'm feeling even more prepared now. I've also managed to raise a very respectable £205 so far for TWSMRT, with money still coming in! If you'd like to donate money to this amazing charity by sponsoring me for this challenge, please click here. Our pancake afternoon was a great success, but we'd like to raise even more if we can, and every single pound helps. Please help us to raise as much money as possible for this great charity!

P.S. check out my new map at the bottom of the page, showing where I've been in the world!

Meeting the TL Team

Last weekend the 20 Trainee Leaders for the British Exploring India and Amazon 2015 expeditions met for our first training session. Despite going on two different expeditions, the two TL groups will be doing all of our training together.

We met up at a scout camp in Lichfield on Friday evening, arriving in dribs and drabs because of major train delays and traffic - I was the first to arrive, so I made the most of the tea and coffee provided and chatted to James and Sam, the two guys taking our training.

We started off the weekend by talking lots about leadership, what it means, what makes a good leader, what our leadership style is at the moment and how we're going to develop over the course of the TL programme. It was interesting to hear about other people's experiences with leadership and their expectations for the programme. We all shared our favourite quotes -

"Leaders are not born or made - they're grown"

"Assumption is the mother of all f**k ups"

"Be the best you can be"

I'm sure lots more quotes will come out of the time we all spend together! (especially if we carry on playing Cards Against Humanity..)

We split into different 'syndicates', groups that we're going to stay in to complete our training (we're working towards a certificate in Basic Expedition Leadership, Expedition First Aid and Offsite Safety Management, as well as doing the expedition to the Himalayas), which was a great way to get to know people better (and learn names!).

We had a look at different tents and tried putting them up, then cooked our lunch on some different stove options. The dehydrated ration packs weren't actually that bad, but a 1,500kcal lunch definitely wasn't necessary!

We then learnt more about what's required to be an expedition leader - lots of risk assessments and planning, as well as the ability to be adaptable and motivational once you're out on the expedition. It's made me even more excited about developing my leadership style and putting it all into practice out in India and afterwards on other expeditions.

Our next training weekend is pretty soon - off to the Lake District in three weeks' time. A blog post will follow :)