Things of interest

Here's a few things that popped up last week on the web that I thought were interesting. Will Gadd - Candian Winter maestro has blogged about some great time saving tricks for multi-pitch ice climbs, many of which could be of equal use for alpine routes.

http://gravsports.blogspot.com/2010/02/simple-tricks-for-speed-on-multi-pitch.html

In case you've been on holiday or had a power cut, big news of the week, month erm...year is that Dave Macleod has completed his winter project on Ben Nevis - E8 with axes no less

http://davemacleod.blogspot.com/2010/02/anubis-fwa.html

Finally Porters Progress, a charity that does great work providing support for porters in the Himalaya have a fund raising film night on the 16th of March at the RGS. So anyone in London this should be an entertaining night

Hope Valley College Film Festival

I'm doing a show tomorrow 7.30 Saturday as part of the Hope Valley Film Festival. John Beatty is introducing me which is something of a privilege as he's a photographer I admire a lot see his work here http://www.wild-vision.com/

Here's a couple more pics from last week to give an idea of what's in store.
Sunrise on the summit plateau of Beinn Eighe

The Northern Corries at Dusk

Chesterfield Lecture Wednesday 24th Feb

Just a quick reminder that I'm lecturing at the Winding Wheel Theatre tomorrow night at 7.30. It's only just over a fiver more info here http://www.speakersfromtheedge.com/events/ian-parnell-chesterfield-24th-february-2010

A couple of pics to wet the appetite.

The Fitzroy Peaks, PatagoniaOur Lifesaver bivi Cave day 7 on Annapurna III, Nepal

Further team hotshot pics and new Eighe route info

Team hotshot should be queuing for flights about now. They finished off their trip with a classic on the Ben, Ines and Hans on North East Buttress and Audrey and Matt on Minus Three Gully. On Friday, our second day at Beinn Eighe, Audrey, Matt and Simon did Poachers Fall on Liathach. Ines was desperate to do a new route so we set the alarm for 3.20am and dragged ourselves back up and over Beinn Eighe's summit. After how wintery it had been on the West Central Wall I thought the Eastern walls would be more wintery than they were. Checking out three or four of my new route possibilities only yielded bare rock. Then Ines spotted a neat looking line just left of Far East Gully, which had a well "whited" lower section although a little leaner up high. Never the less it proved a fun 2 pitch route perhaps useful for parties who fail early on the Far East wall mega-projects. We called it Little Nipper unless Ines comes up with a better name.

All in all a great week. Ines was talking about how she thinks trad protected mixed climbing could be the future for her winters, while Matt was recognising the possibilities for Scottish style stuff at previously untouched cliffs back in Quebec. I'll probably pull together a full report for Climb Mag and put more photos on Simon's site www.bigtreecampervans.com

In the mean time here's a few more pics and a description of little Nipper
Sunrise on Thursday
Me on pitch 1 of Little Nipper (It starts up the diagonal groove - poor but essential ice)

Ines starting up pitch 2 of little Nipper

Ines on pitch 3 of Blood Sweat and Frozen Tears

Post route celebration for Ines and Audrey
Brocken Spectre on Eighe's summit

Beinn Eighe Far East Wall

Little Nipper 60m VI,8

1. 30m Boldly climb the shallow right facing groove 5m left of Far East Gully to ledges and then the steep crack to belay below a prominent corner with a crack in its left wall.

2. 30m Climb the corner and then cracks trending slightly left to easier ground.

F.a Ian Parnell, Ines Papert 19th February 2010

Scottish Pride

Ahhh, Yes! At the moment I just have an overwhelming feeling of pride. Proud that team Arc'teryx had such a great trip, proud that out of their comfort zone they climbed so well and most of all proud that Scotland really pulled out all the stops over the last couple of days. The kind of days that keep you going the rest of the year. Heres a few pics more to follow.

The early start pays off on the summit plateau of EigheThursday's route with Ines - Blood, Sweat and Frozen Tears a 4 star VIII
Ines picking up the Scottish game very quickly on pitch 1 of Blood Sweat...Audrey, Matt and Simon on Central Buttress

Our home for the night courtesy of Simon at www.bigtreecampervans.com

Happy campers Hans, Ines, Audrey and Matt

The Exstatic Fly

Team hotshot visited Glen Coe today. Audrey and Matt climbed Central Buttress with Blair, whilst Ines and Iain climbed Unicorn. I suspect Ines's lead is the hardest by a woman in Scotland. She was raving on the phone about how beautiful it all was. So thumbs up from Germany. This is a shot of Guy's from Saturday of me getting very scared trying to climb the crux section of Extasy sans ice. Just one dodgy pecker for pro at this point. Sanity intervened and I lowered off shortly after.

Off up North again tomorrow to pick up two campervans including one from Simon at http://www.bigtreecampervans.com/ for a hopefully fittoing finale to the hotshot tour in the North West.

Welcome to our world

So the Arc'teryx hot shots tour of Scotland continued with a visit to Meagie on Saturday, with Audrey and Matt nipping up the super classic Smiths Gully, whilst I met up with Guy Robertson for an attempt on Extasy. Unfortunately this was devoid of what turned out to be crucial ice on pitches 3 and 4. Eventually we ended up climbing the middle section of the Fly before returning to the final pitch of Extasy. The Extastic Fly is probably VII,7 but with quite a lot of pitches worth VII in their own right. Guy on the crux? of The Fly on horrifying junk ice.The steep final pitch of Extasy, which Guy managed a more direct finish. Guy has just reached the first bit of properly decent turf in the pic.
Ines and Hans finally arrived after 2 days of flight delays (Thankyou Easyjet!), so were desperate for some Scotch and made sure their guide didn't have a rest day. We headed up to Aonach Mor for a couple of laps of Stirling Bridge. This gave a nice introduction for Ines with some helpful neve and some good footage for Hans' film.Ines happy to be finally climbingA rather large cornice at the top of Easy Gully
Ines getting hooked on Stirling Bridge.