Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Expedition Training

Craig was out on April 14 & 15 with Allander OA in the Ardgarten hills doing DoE Bronze exped' training and what a great time we had.

The sun was out, the midges were absent and the company was great fun.

The group were super enthusiastic and really up for it, despite their overloaded rucksacks...10 apples is just too much for one person.

Cold at night but the group kept warm and breakfast tasted nice.

Back in double time and after counting them all back, we headed home to relax.

All in, a great weekend and the girls are now set for the Award Expedition in June after some great work on navigation and camp craft.

Good luck team!

CPD for Simply Epic

The team was out for some nav and rope work practice in the Ardlui hills, which has some really complex ground.   We headed up doing timings, pacing and bearings, finding features on the ground and having a good day in the rain.

Always good to find the flowers out early and even some evidence of stags scratching their antlers on the saplings.

Once near the top, we had a bite of lunch and the rope was out for practice in anchors, knots and lowering; all good skills to keep fresh and slick.  After an hours work in the rain, we'd had enough of the wind and rain and headed down.

Back to the car in good time with more nav work.  All in, a great day out for the team; these days are never wasted when it comes to keeping our skills sharp.

Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Group - Dumgoyne Hill

Wednesday night saw Bill and Craig out with the girls from Milngavie Youth Cafe teaching navigation in preparation for their Duke of Edinburgh expedition.

We walked up the well known landmark around Glasgow of Dumgoyne Hill, nr Strathblane, and found ourselves on the summit after some map and compass work to get the girls thinking.

Cold and blustery on the top but great effort from the girls to get there.

A pleasant wander down out the wind had us enjoying a lovely sunset over Loch Lomond and some more work on bearings to keep things focused.

All in, a good nights work and the girls can give themselves a deserved pat on the back for a super effort.

SXC 2012 Series - Round 1 at Kirroughtree

The other 2/3s of Simply Epic were off fine tuning their events management skills running the first round of the SXC at Kirroughtree on Sunday.   K'tree is always a great Series opener and this year delivered yet again...a great course and the sun shone for most of the day.

0730 hrs saw us on site setting up for the day - most riders still in their scratcher - but Bill, Craig, Fish and Jas were on hand to get the ball rolling and the race village established.   The first race of the season always throws a spanner in the works and this was no different with one or two niggles but all in, it went fine and no-one noticed our 'faux bar linkages'.

The big gun from British Cycling was up running the rule over us, as we are running the NPS champs in June at this location, but he went away content and satisfied.   There was a good turn out on the day and all had a great time, enjoying the challenging but fair course of fast single track, long-ish firetrack climb and one or two short testing single track climbing.

Folks never quite realise the efforts that go into these events but we've been doing it for about 7 years now, if not more, and we eventually packed up and left the site about 520pm.

Big thanks to Bikin' Baz, roadie extraordinaire, for commentating at the event and Thomson's Cycles, Birzman tools, Clif Bar, Pedros and Ay Up Lights for sponsoring us for the year.

Here's a quick video of the day, hopefully capturing just a little of how good the Series and courses are - Kirroughtree is one of the best - super single track and punishing climbs...what more can a body ask for?

Rest???

SXC Race @ Kirroughtree 1 April 2012 from C Coid on Vimeo.

SXC mountain bike racing

PS Craig came a respectable 5th in the Grand Vets :)...he just needs to train now!

Next race is at Glennifer Braes on Sunday 29 April 2012

Mind the Gap ...

31 March 2012  

Two of the Simply Epic team, Craig and Bill headed for Kirroughtree for round 1 of the SXC race calender (www.sxc.org.uk) and I headed to Ben Nevis for a lap of Tower Ridge. This gives 1000m of climbing (Mod summer grade and IV,3*** Winter grade) over 500m ascent and is the most famous of all the Nevis ridges. With the new path I was at the top car park in 28mins and the SMC hut in 1hr 22 mins. The rain turned to light snow as I climbed the first 20m groove/chimney out of Douglas Gully to the ridge proper. In the mist I heard two teams above and knew that as I was soloing I would quickly catch them. Rope one was two lads from Fife and rope 2 was two RAF lads from Leuchars. Crampons and an axe was need for the Eastern Traverse as the neve was bomber hard. Being on my own I clipped the 'controversial tat' at Tower Gap as the snow was lying, the rocks slippy and my hands cold. I bridged the gap, un-clipped and made the committing pull across with the drop of Glover's chimney puling at my heals. Crampons and axe again needed for the exit to the plateau in 3hrs 45mins.

Gear off, I head for the zig zags, the red burn and sprinted past the Halfway Lochan, picking up the path and arriving with a jog back at the car in 5hrs 41 mins. Another Simply Epic Day for me and more from the boys here soon...

SMC Hut, Douglas Boulder & Tower Ridge with The North East Buttress on the horizon

Looking back to the Douglas Boulder from the lower part of the ridge

Happy face but cold hands...

The infamous arete leading to Tower Gap

From the Gap looking down Glover's Chimney (Grade III,4**)

RAF boys bringing up the rear...

Exit moves

And the sun comes out on the TAB back to the car, typical.

ICE and nice

Simply Epic out for the first rock of the season, and it was all too early but where's the snow and ice!!

Early start, minimum sleep (clocks forward) and we were on the road at 6am.   Well ahead of the crowds, the sun was out and we sweated up to start of Curved, making our way to the start of the climb.

We wasted little time and familiarised ourselves with rock movement, rock shoes and sore feet.   Mark took first pitch, I had two and three and Mark cleared the final.

The third pitch nose was interesting and forces you stop for a 'feel' of the exposure.

We topped out in glorious sunshine and wandered down to the top of January Jigsaw where we set up the abseil on some tat....always a testing time for the Kahoona challenge.

We got down to the cross over with Agag's and went to pull the rope through but things were solidly stuck...aaargh.   A quick discussion and we tied some loops in the rope and stood on it full force til eventually the rope moved imperceptibly and pulled through...if that had failed, I'd already nominated Mark 'to go get it'!!

We got down the next ab and Eva was good enough to throw down our sling and krab...climbers are always nice helpful folk in Scotland :)


We had our eyes on January Jigsaw but as we got down, we realised a three man team had popped out Easy Gully and were kitting up.   We sat and had a bite and a chat with some young turks (one from the Ice Factor) and headed home in the sunshine.


What a great day we had...rock climbing isn't winter...but it is still fun :)


Short video of the climb...a really Simply Epic Day!

Winter Returns - without a vengeance

Early start saw us in Glen Coe early doors ahead of any crowds... Bill's sore knee had him off doing some low level micro navigation.

Mark and I made good time to the top of Am Bodach in 1hr 20m with a nice dusting of new snow overnight.  After a quick change out of waterproofs - snowing heavily at one point - we struck off across the ridge, san crampons but single axe in hand.   The chimney down off the top was tricky and slippy but careful footwork saw us down and heading for the first Munro top.

The scenery was stunning when the cloud cleared so we made the best of the opportunities.

After a quick food stop, we headed for the pinnacles and found them friendly and good sport.   We only roped for the final pinnacle on the tricky ascent on to it and the slabby descent off.   The rock was super slippy in places and the ice axe was nothing other than a hinderance.

Once we were carefully over the difficulties, we were heading onto the path to get off the ridge before the pull up to the final Munro; unfortunately, tho perhaps fortunately, this is where I went for a 'Dancing on Ice' moment and fell on my derrier with an almighty thump...thankfully, it was right beside the path.   Just shows you can never be complacent...glad it never happened earlier.   Pride and a sore hand were the only dents!

We headed on and as we were about to descend, the sun came out in all its glory and we captured some lovely pics back up the ridge...

We descended a serious of gullies and shoulders which eventually spat us out at the layby near the lochan Achtriochan where Bill was good enough to get us.

All in, a great day and Aonach Eagach never fails to deliver.  It probably had too little snow on it today to be really good for winter and too much on it to make it easy.  Read it was climbed on Saturday without axe or crampons; that wont be the case for a few days anyway and maybe longer depending on the freeze over the next few days.

Take care if doing it and have a great time.

Short video of the day - http://vimeo.com/37902665