Failing on the Frendo 2014

The Frendo Spur. An iconic summer route that is well known as a summer test piece of the average alpinist. In winter conditions? Its a test piece for the advanced alpinist. 

August 2014 snow was being dumped on a regular basis with a decent freeze thaw low down and low temperatures all over. Basically, it was in winter condition! For some reason, we decided to have a go. 

We made the approach after catching the first lift with lots of snow around, we started to get worried when we noticed this rock, almost 10m high last time we were here IN WINTER, was now almost completely covered with snow!

So we started to head up what is normally a snow-free rock slab in summer conditions. But as I said, this is winter conditions. We moved together up the slab thinly plastered with snow and inch thick ice at about scottish grade 6. 

 We carried on up the climb, finding respite in what are normally the hardest section of the route in summer!

 We carried on up the route in incredible scenery but the hardest parts of the route were thin ice, and mixed climbing covered in snow where you could see no holds or gear placements. It was easily scottish grade VII at times.

We climbed well into the night, before bivving near the top of the rock section. It was a reasonably comfortable bivi when we went to sleep.

It wasn't so pleasant when we woke up.

We climbed another pitch before Dan decided he could take no more. We set off down. Below I've copied and pasted an excerpt from an email I sent my dad at the time:

"The system for abseiling is quite simple, you tie some cord around a boulder and back it up with a piece of proper rock/ice gear. Feed the rope through the cord to the middle point and then the first person descends on both strands of rope. If the cord/boulder doesn't fail the second person removes the rock gear, descends to join the first. You pull one side of the rope to get it back and repeat the whole process. Sounds easy but when you're trying to descend almost 3000 feet and can only move 90 feet at the time, its rather time consuming. 

The other problem with abseiling is finding suitable boulders to tie the cord around. So sometimes you can't descend the full 90 feet offered by the rope due to there not being suitable anchors, so sometimes we only moved maybe 30 feet! As well as other times we had to descend diagonally, almost horizontally, to get onto the route we thought an abseil descent would be easier on. 

Whilst abseiling you tie knots above 3 feet from the end of the rope on both strands to stop you going straight off the ends of them. One particular abseil I was descending first and going, looking for anchors but none appearing. I can see the the knots getting closer and closer and closer. Eventually I'm about one foot above the knots and can see the perfect anchor about a foot below the end of the rope, so four feet below me. I decided my plan of action would be to dangle upside down, make the anchor, return the right way up, untie the knots, slowly abseil down until I could clip into the anchor with a lanyard and then abseil off the end of the rope. 

This goes well, right until the point I untie the knots. Suddenly I start noticing large chunks of ice falling around me, a few hitting me. My brain instantly thinks "What the hell is Dan doing?" so I look up to shout some abuse at him and just see a large wall of snow heading towards me at a great rate of knots. I cling tightly onto the rope, put my head down to place my helmet uppermost and try and hide as much of my body under the helmet as possible, a rather fruitless effort. 

The avalanche lasted maybe a minute at most, but it felt like an absolute lifetime. During it my tatty gloves completely disintegrated! Before the avalanche I had gloves that looked like the mice had been at them, when the snow cleared I literally just had a velcro strap going around each wrist. 

Apart from this the descent was relevantly uneventful and we reached the glacier about midnight, but not before the mountain had one last trick for us. At the bottom of most mountain routes is something called a bergshrund. Its where the glacier (a huge huge huge chunk of ice) meets the rock. The problem with glaciers is they constantly move downhill, away from the rock. So to finish off the abseil I had to get an ice axe in hand, jump outwards from about 10 feet up, push outwards about 20 feet, quickly descend the rope and hook an ice axe over the edge of the bergshrund and pull up.

We crossed the glacier by half past midnight and for the first time since about 7am the day before got to remove our harnesses, crampons and pack the rope away. It was bliss. We sat there in the dark and mist (visibility had been little over 20 feet most of the day) just enjoying it for a few moments. Then we had to cross the moraines which are like large boulder fields. We were going to walk across to the lift station at 7500 feet and wait around until the first lift at 6am and catch it down to the valley. I wanted to walk down to the valley anyway but Dan really didn't have the energy required, he'd been struggling since day one. 

Around 2am and a few hundred yards from the lift (we could see the lights) Dan suddenly announces that he's stopping there and promptly lays down and falls asleep! Right in the open, no sleeping bag, no warm jacket, nothing. So I decide to press on and walk back down to town. 

I knew there was a path from somewhere near the lift station back down to town. Now, no matter how many times you have studied the map. No matter how many descriptions you have read. For future reference it is not advisable to try and find your way down off a mountain, in the dark, on a route you've never travelled, in fog, without a map and compass. 

This is how I found myself on a 60 degree steep loose boulder slope. Not normally a major issue except I couldn't see which boulders were loose and which were good to stand on as grass and flowers were growing a few feet high very thickly everywhere! So my method of descending this was very carefully placing a foot on a rock I couldn't see, slowly weighting it and hoping it didn't give way. Then repeating the process. They gave way and I fell, alot. 

About 3am during one of these falls I fell over the edge of a small cliff, when I started free falling I remember thinking "this is it, I'm done". After 20 feet or so my fall ended rather abruptly, what stopped my fall? The path! I'd managed to fall directly onto the path. I can't remember the last time I was that happy. 

I walked down the path through the woods, passing amazing glacial rivers and waterfalls and eventually got back to the apartment at 0419. That day I'd eaten one chocolate bar and run out of food and drunk a pint of water before running out. Combined with all the exertion and my limited intake the day before I was rather hungry and thirsty. So when I got back I sat down and ate an entire pack of chocolate bars whilst dipping them in nutella, as well as quenching my thirst with a beer or six. 

I woke up at 11am today to find Dan was back. So we decided to venture into Chamonix town proper to get some food. As we were walking there we were repeatedly accosted by people stopping us and saying "You were the British team on the Frendo yesterday, yes?" We felt like quite the celebrities. People were amazed these two young Brits had gone and had such an amazing go of it, especially as 4 other teams had been rescued in the past week."

Dip Sump with Charlotte, July 2014

So a lovely, sunny weekend found me in Wales with my girlfriend Charlotte. The Saturday night we were trying to think of something to do, as it was going to be her third caving trip, I thought it may be time for her to start carrying dive gear, so we decided upon Dip Sump. 

 

 

So we set off into the cave, Charlotte, Ted and I. Charlotte coped very well with the dive gear and even managed to take some quite impressive photos for an instant camera along the way! 

 We soon arrived at the dive base and I geared up and head off into the sump to go diving.

 Whilst I was off diving, Charlotte went off exploring and took these photos, again, I remind you this is her third trip on an instant camera!

 

 So we set off back to the surface on a nice relaxed trip. We even had a little look round some side passages. A brilliant day out. We even made a little video.

My First Time Diving P8, June 2014

So having had some instruction in the dark art of cave diving, the weekend after the training camp I decided it was time to go and dive something local. So at the Orpheus BBQ plans were hatched to go and do P8.

An amazingly strong team turned up to carry down it for me, so many I didn't have enough tacklebags to split my gear up for everyone to carry! This, however, turned out to be a blessing.

I'd only done P8 once before, about a year a go, and it was the first ever cave I got to the sump and thought "Why does it have to stop here? Why can't I carry on?"

Well now I could, so I would.

We set of down the cave and all was good, though most people had never carried dive gear before and the people with cylinders were struggling quite a bit! 

It was also decided that this was going to be one of the newer members of the club, Jack's, first attempt at rigging a cave! Here he is at the first pitch head getting supervision from Rich. He did a cracking job. 

So we carried on down the pitches and through the cave. Life was good.

I took this photo heading down the second pitch. Here life started to not be so good. As I said I'd only done P8 once before, and I took a wrong turn and started heading down a horrible system of tight, muddy tubes. 

Here's Jack in one of the larger sections.

But soon enough, we were at the sumps. After I mentioned at the CDG camp the week before that I wanted to dive P8, and at the OCC BBQ the night before, people started to tell me stories of what an appalling hard dive it was, particular thanks must go to Tony Seddon and Simon Brooks on that part, so with a lot of trepidation I geared up and set off into the sumps.   

Sump one started off as a zero vis nightmare, with line traps and silty squeezes to pass through. Thats my glove on the line, about 6 inches in front of the camera.

But soon. the vis cleared up! Almost 2 metres! It turned into quite a nice dive really. The picture directly above is a bit of floating wood that was in there and captivated me for a minute of so.

Soon enough, sump 1 was passed! All I had to do was carry on into the cave until the start of sump 4, my planned turn around point. 

I had been warned about a point in sump 3 where it often silted to the roof and it needed to be dug away to get through. In what I thought was zero vis, I arrived at the silt bank and started to dig. I soon learnt what real zero vis was, it was pitch black! I couldn't see a thing. I started to squeeze. I had a camera on my hand throughout this dive and had it running, my favourite part of the video was this squeeze.

As I squeezed a little bit of silt got stuck in the exhaust of my regulator and stuck the valve open. As I breathed in water, on the video, through the water and the regulator, you can audibly hear me say "Fuck".

I quickly started to purge the regulator by pressing the side of my head into the silt bank so I could breathe and carried on through the squeeze, I couldn't swap regulators as I couldn't get my hands to my mouth.

I soon passed the squeeze, swapped regulators and shook it to remove the silt from the exhaust. All good again. I carried on up a lovely cobble bank in great vis, as you can see above, to surface at the end of sump 4 in a huge rift.

 I walked along this looking at all the years of exploratory gear left here before turning and heading for home. 

I surfaced from the water to the team waiting for me, which was really really nice. The photo above was what I saw as my head broke the surface of the sump pool.

So we headed off out the cave, using the correct route this time, relatively uneventfully, and headed to the wanted for a well deserved pint or five.

I promptly fell asleep, stood up, outside, holding a pint. 

It was a good day. 

CDG Training Camp June 2014

So after recent misadventures down Pwll Dwfn and Dan-Yr-Ogof, I let slip I used to dive alot and I was "invited" to come and try out cave diving at the Cave Diving Groups training camp.

I was told to read the CDG manual and practice in a pool/open water to get used to my gear. This I did and felt incredibly prepared for the countless dry runs and open water practice that would follow during the weekend, if I was lucky, I may even get to stick my head in a cave on Sunday!



So I turned up the Friday night in glorious weather and was soon welcomed by friends who quickly had me set about the few barrels of ale that were on offer! Once several barrels had been depleted, at about 4am, I was asked "Where do you fancy tomorrow then?"

I had no clue, I hadn't expected to go in a cave and knew nothing about cave diving in Wales. It was decided for me, Llygad Llwchwr.



The morning (too) soon came and we had a few workshops, including line laying and following during which I remember been amazed by the simple ingenuity of the cave divers reel, as opposed to the fancy things you see in dive shops!

But now it was time to go diving! I received my directions, which consisted entirely of a finger vaguely being pointed at a map and the words "turn right at the cattle grid and stop about 100 yards further on". 

Needless to say, as I'm not from Wales, the cave was over an hour from SWCC and I'm not the best with directions when I'm driving anyway, I was very late. Arriving just after everyone else had finished diving.

Most people rushed off to get back to the beer at the hut, but I must say a big thanks to those who waited around, particularly to Rich Hudson who gave me final words of advice, checked my gear over whilst I was setting up and when one of my regulators developed a fault, lent me his own.

I must also give a big thanks to Claire Cohen, who as soon as Rich lent me his regulator, quickly informed me "It's an apeks manta. One breath from death", this calmed my nerves a lot. She also gave me final words of advice and even waited around until I'd finished diving to check I was OK. 

The dive itself was incredibly fun, you start by descending, feet first, a 6m deep vertical shaft a little bigger than diver size. At the bottom it goes horizontal through a low passage and attempted to turn around from feet first to head first here was quite interesting. I carried on through another three sumps until I came across a patch of line that was nearly broken. This being my first dive I turned around rather than try to deal with it.

I'm sorry the description isn't more descriptive, but you must remember the cave had been passed, forwards and backwards, by about 10 divers before me, I could barely see the light from my own helmet mounted torch! 

 So it was back to SWCC, where Rich Hudson (again, big thanks) quickly set about servicing both my regulators for me, using his own parts and a fair amount of his time and wouldn't even take a beer in return!



Not so quickly was the BBQ set about, until a bottle of pure O2 turned up! Unreal amounts of food appeared from nowhere, unreasonable amounts of alcohol came out of cars to supplement the two remaining barrels of ale in the hut, and we whiled away the night into the early hours of the morning.

During that time, but I can't remember when exactly, plans were made with Malcolm Stewart for me and him to go and dive in Ogof Ffynnon Ddus Dip Sump.



So, with a heavy hangover, we found ourselves stumbling through OFD with a 7L cylinder on each side and a bag on our backs, fortunately, the carry is not particularly hard, but neither of us enjoyed it!

The dive, however, was incredible, with amazing visibility and such awesome passage as you can't even imagine. I turned getting cold quite a way into the system and was treated to my first view of a diver swimming in a cave as Malcolm shot past me on his way in. Turns out the trick to diving in a wetsuit, is to swim fast!