Irish News

The Irish News published ana rticle about us the other day! See it here

Gola

Rónán, Conor and Alek spent the week climbing and sitting out rain on Gola, an uninhabited island off the coast of Donegal. As well as allowing us to do some new routes and get in the right frame of mind, this and a weekend at Fair Head beforehand proved a great opportunity to test out the gear,  solar panels, radios and camera charging facilities. All are working well.
Rónán and Conor also spent a day with MIA Jonny Parr in the Mournes a couple of weeks ago covering advanced self-rescue techniques (here's hoping we don't need to use them).
With less than two monts to go, there's still a lot to do.
Conor, Vladimir, Alek and Bradley are off to the Alps later this week for a 'warm up'.
T minus 2 months...

The grand gas experiment...

So we have funding (yay)! Now for something far more trivial. This one concerns the grand stove experiment (which wasn’t really that grand). The whole thing is rather flawed and incomplete as an experiment and the data collection was shoddy (I am a bad scientist), but otherwise confirms a couple of things and gives us something to think about gear-wise.

                Firstly, the heat of combustion of butane and propane, if the units are converted to Kcal/g (which is much more convenient for our purposes) is about the same- 12Kcal/g. As such if a perfectly efficient system is used, it should take around 6.7g of gas to bring room temperature water to a boil (from 20˚C to 100˚C). Now keeping this in mind, the experiment:

                Four stoves, the Hi-Gear Blaze (50g), Primus Gravity (269g), Primus ETALite (242g) and an Old Primus (398g) of mine were tested with a half full cylinder of butane (75%/propane 25%- thus only butane left). The test was the amount of time- and gas- needed to boil a litre of water under room temperature and pressure. The old primus was tested with a normal stainless steel pot (1.5L) and a 1.2L titanium heat exchanger pot (see- an unfair comparison already as the dimensions aren’t the same). Now the results: The old primus took 5min and 14g (~50% efficiency) with the normal pot and 3.45min and 10g (~67% efficiency) with the heat exchanger. The Gravity took 4.50min and 10.5g (~64%) with the heat exchanger. The ETAlite took 5 minutes and 9.5g (~71%) with the heat exchanger and the Blaze took 4.30min and 10g with the heat exchanger, although the pot did not sit well at all. In any case, this basically means that with a heat exchanger roughly 30% less fuel and took 25% less time. My tentative conclusion for this shoddy experiment is that it may be worth investing in heat exchanger pots (of a diameter that will fit on your stove) or using using Jetboils (which are theoretically even more efficient with smaller quantities of water). If we use only jetboils/heat exchanger pots, we can take 30% less gas (1.8kg in real terms) and not have to wait for quite so long for tea after/before a long route. All this taken into consideration, it should still be theoretically possible to save another 3g of gas per litre of water boiled, possibly by boiling smaller quantities of water at a time. When it comes to picking a stove, If I was thinking of a rational compromise on weight (Oldy>Gravity>ETA>Blaze), efficiency (all about the same) and power (Oldy>Blaze>Gravity>ETA) I’d go with the Blaze. Sadly I’m rather attached to the old primus, so we’ll see.

The other thing we tried was squeezing all of Vlad’s personal Kit, plus half of a team rack, plus the 4 Man Base camp tent (7kg) into his 50L rucksack and 30L daysack (this assumes that I, or someone else, take the light tent the rope and the other half of the rack). Apparently it is. The weight was 22kg. So it’s nice to know that our gear list gives a similar weight on paper (between 18-25kg) and on actual scales. That gives 14kg of luggage allowance (9kg for most of the rest of everyone) for unaccounted “stuff”, a fairly safe margin of error I think.

-Alek out

Grants and Snow

More news... Conor's trip to London was successful, and I am happy to say that we are now being supported by the Mount Everest Foundation.

This organisation was set up in the wake of the 1953 Everest Expedition to support expeditions in the greater ranges and has been behind most of the great expeditions of the past 50 years. It's a privilege to be supported by them!

Rónán, Conor, Alek and Vladimir met again last week in Llanberis, North Wales on what was intended as a QUBMC trad climbing trip. The previous week of glorious weather and tops off climbing at Fairhead gave way when this happened:

heavy snows destroyed one tent and collapsed another. Midnight damage control ensued, with many retreating to a barn. Unusual for April, but perfect training - with the expedition tents surviving and those in them remaining nice and toasty. Yaaaay.

Perfect conditions followed, allowing for some excellent alpine-style days int he hills, moving together and linking up classic ridges such as Sub-Cneifion and Cnefion Arete and scrambling on Tryfan and the Glyders. Perfect!

We also got to test stoves, and discuss gear. Getting there, slowly but surely!

Annual Fund

I'm excited to say that we have been given a grant of £2000 by the Queen's University Belfast Annual Fund.
The Annual Fund raises money for projects that have a positive impact on the student experience, and we are privileged to receive this support.

Elsewhere, Conor had an interview last week with the Mount Everest Foundation for a grant, and an equipment list is nearly ready.
Vladimir has also prepared a draft diet for the trip - something we should probably test out beforehand!
It's available here, for anyone who is interested.

Finally, for some inspiration, below are some photos (courtesy of the 2010 Polish Expedition) of some of the  peaks in the Dzhirnagaktu valley. The unclimbed face in the first picture particularly stands out to me...

Rónán

Training

5 of the 6 of us (Bradley's currently in the Alps) have just returned from a very productive week of Winter climbing with QUBMC in Scotland.
Conditions were amazing, with good weather every day, and 'full' Scottish conditions on more than one occasion. Last time we were out, there were whisperings of a rescue on the Ben... but not this time!
It was a perfect chance to test out gear and systems, and a couple of lessons were learned.
The primacy of the tricam as the king of gear was re-established, and a few of us got to use pegs for the first time (very handy for when you're bricking it).
Cornices are evil and can only be negotiated with a combination of tunneling and swimming.
Dubious gear is still gear, although the only thing it protects may be your state of mind (briefly). And ski-goggles and face protection are a must to prevent hot aches in the face.
Old school woolly mitts and jumpers as well as pile jackets work whatever the winter weather, and hand hot aches are something that has to be tolerated!
And of course, sometimes the right thing to do is turn back and admit defeat rather than push on in unideal conditions, time and confidence.

We discussed a menu for the expedition and some basic inventory, something we're going to look into more in the next while.
We also learned that Vladimir once got lost in the Caucasus for three days with nowt but a tin of dried milk and a jerrycan of petrol, and was rescued by a beekeeper...

                                                                                 Hot aches...

Anyways, some of the routes that got done included Twisting Gully (III 4) and Raeburn's Route (IV 4) on Stob Coire Nan Lochan, Left Twin (III 3), Aquafresh (IV 4), White Shark (IV 4) at Aonach Mór, North Buttress (IV 4) and Curved Ridge (II) on Buachaille Etive Mór and Castle Ridge (III 3) and an abortive attempt on Northeast Buttress (IV 4) on Ben Nevis that had to be bandoned because the entrance chimney was in horrible mixed condition.

All in all a great week, and great practice. There's a chance of some snow in Ireland now as well. Here's hoping!


Rónán

Logistics

Going out to the middle of nowhere self-supported for a month means a lot of organisation - especially the little things. We've been working away the past few weeks at grant applications and researching. We found out that QUB will cover insurance for student members, which is excellent.
We're also working on a thorough gear list - which may take some time. It turns out that there are a lot of things you need to be self-sufficient whilst mountaineering for a month.

 Today I even bought these:









Snowshoes! Only £31 in Decathlon - I'll try them out this winter in Scotland. They could be very useful.

We've been in contact with the logistics company, ITMC. In Alek's words:

Today Vladimir phones the ITMC! Since he's marking the work of unfortunate undergraduates and I'm not, I'm writing what he found out (and he isn't!). Apparently the ITMC people made a very positive general impression.

-So, how stable is the country? Stable. The parts which we're visiting are the stix so are generally quiet.

-Overland transport? 350km to Naryn (7 hours). 200km off-road to Kokshaal-Too (6 hours in good condition- conditions are unpredictable).

-Can it be sped up? Question not asked, but if conditions are good, it looks like a yes from the numbers above.

-Availability of supplies? Gas, mainly of Korean or Chinese manufacture, 250g and 10kg canisters. As far as food goes, it appears that most of everything can be bought. French, German, Russian, Kazak and local brands are most common. [Vladimir's commentary: Western brands may be more expensive while local equivalents would be cheaper]. They are happy to lend a "warehouse shop" card (think macro or metro) and intern to help with the shopping.

-Hostels, camp sites etc for Bishkek: The ITMC appears to be affiliated with "the Alpinist" which is $35 per person per night. [Alek's commentary: there are cheaper ones about]. If staying for 3 nights or more a flat can be hired, but apparently it is often easier to avoid the faff.

-Gear Storage: The ITMC will store gear free of charge.

-What day to leave Kokshaal-Too if flying out on the 9th of September: It is sensible to start out on the 6th. This gives the 6th, 7th and 8th (spare day) for getting out. The driver should arrive at the drop of point a day before the departure day.

-Expected response time to Rescue: The Kyrgyzstan mountain rescue is proud to announce that it has three helicopters [Alek's commentary: Which is more than Northen Ireland]. Rescue teams can be despatched immediately [Alek Addendum: I presume that means on the same day].

-Snowshoes: One of the local guides says that he has never needed them in the area in August. [Alek Addendum: I'll see how the weight (and Ronan's snowshoes) pan out before going yay or nay].

Additional Non Question Answers:
-Base camp tent can be hired [but it's probably cheaper and lighter to buy one].
-ITMC would like a copy of expedition report as it would be good both for them and the Kyrgyz Alpine Club.

-What ascents have actually been made and routes have been done is always a little unclear because not every group makes reports.

Rónán