Scarpa Charmoz- 3rd time lucky?

A few weeks ago I mentioned that my second pair of Scarpa Charmoz boots had failed in their waterproofing. To be honest, I was never really certain that they actually *were* waterproof in the first place, I just didn't wear them much, and when I did wear them, my feet got damp - for the whole story, read the other blog. 

They got sent back to Mountain Boot Company, Scarpa's agents in the UK. I emailed them detailing their use, and the guys at MBC said that didn't sound right, and to send them in for testing.

Brand new. Ready to be tested. 

They got sent about a month ago and I didn't hear anything from them for 4 weeks. A little concerned, I emailed again to ask if they had arrived safely and got a very prompt call back apologising for the lack of response.

The boots had indeed been tested, and there was a defect in the Goretex membrane in BOTH boots. As such, they were replaced, and a new pair arrived on the doorstep the next day.

I am in 2 minds about this.
Fantastic that they have decided to exchange my rubbish leaky pair for a brand new (original style), apparently non-leaky ones.
However, having already had 2 pairs which have been leaky through no fault of my own, I am now faced with another pair of exactly the same boots, which I kind of view with a bit of suspicion. Which is a shame, as I really want to trust them.

The best thing to do is to get them on and get out and stand in a stream, I suppose.
Not that I'm going to do that this evening. But I will have to do so in the next few days. Soaking feet on a test near the house is a much better option than leaky boots while hacking up a hill with a stretcher on your back.

Still. I should reserve judgement on them. I note from a good number of users on UKC that they have had nothing by joy from their boots. Not a leak in sight. So I hope that the membrane will hold out, and, third time lucky - will keep my feet dry and warm.
Thanks to MBC for the new pair. Now lets see what happens.

Ueli Steck- Driven

Lynne and I visited the Big Smoke on Thursday to see Ueli Steck give a lecture at the Royal Geographic Society.
If you haven't heard of him, he is the bloke that climbed the Eiger in 2 hours 38 mins, enchained the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau in a day (with the help of a paraglider), soloed Shishapangma in 10.5 hours, and recently successfully soloed the South Face of Annupurna in 28 hours.

So a fairly accomplished climber, and one whom I was eager to hear speak about his experiences.

I won't go through the whole thing here, for obvious reasons, but I will say that he is a very inspiring speaker, and a really humble guy. There are a couple of things that will stick in my mind about the talk and slideshow.

The first is his readiness to recognise when he is not up to a task. He turned back from the summit of Everest, not all that far from the top. Why? Because no mountain is worth losing your toes for. He knew he was dangerously close to frostbite, and turned back. No big deal.
He turned back on Annupurna a few times because conditions weren't right for his style of climbing. Others may have gone on- potentially to their detriment. He took intelligent, calculated decisions, and they were the right ones, as he was able to go back at another time and realise his ambitions.

The second was his concentration on weight training, rather than necessarily just going out and running and climbing all the time - which is what most people imagine him doing. The reason for it is to be as strong as possible when the going gets tough. He put the demise of a fellow mountaineer down to not being strong enough, and attempting to keep up with another party that was stronger. The unfortunate bloke basically got wasted and was not able to continue climbing, got altitude sickness and passed away. Had he been stronger, it might not have gone that way.

The last thing (yes, there are loads more, but I'm not going to go on and on), was his feeling of embarassment
when others refer to him as "the swiss machine", and put him on a pedestal of greatness. In his words, he is "just an ordinary guy". Which is great. But if he is ordinary, I'd quite like to be that ordinary as well.
He is driven, able to hone his concentration to a sharp point, and has the ability to focus on his objective to the exclusion of virtually everything else. All while being a thoroughly nice guy.

If you get a chance to see Ueli speak, I'd highly recommend it. He is inspiring, amusing, and seems to have this constant astonishment that people find his exploits and stories interesting enough to listen to him.
Thanks to Mountain Hardwear for organising the evening, and thanks to Ueli for sharing his story with us.

Kinder Trial 2014

So after half a week of hacking about on Bleaklow putting out checkpoints for the Marmot Dark Mountains event, came Kinder Trial. A Navigation event around Kinder, put on by the indomitable Luvshack and the

The queue for registration

Rucksac club.
I was quietly hopeful of a pretty good place in this one, having come 3rd in the Festive Disorientation at the end of last year, however, this was not to be the case. Tiredness and a few nav errors ensured that I started dropping down the scoreboard pretty fast.
The first was (apparently) going the slow way around - anticlockwise. It has to be said that the vast majority of runners went clockwise, certainly all the guys at the sharp end of the scoreboard went clockwise. So maybe that's something to think about next time.

As I went up for the first checkpoint, storming up Elle bank and across the top, I managed to wander past it in full on daydream mode, and by the time I had been back to pick it up, I was already being passed by 2 Daves and Alan from Pennine. Not the greatest of starts.

I determined not to make any more silly errors, but was confounded almost immediately as I started out toward the next checkpoint, but looked up at Dimpus Clough, a different direction, where an awful lot of other people were heading... Check the map again, and there were 2 more controls that I hadn't even seen which now needed to be taken into consideration.
To be fair, I was swearing at the map for the entire way around. I don't know why, but I found it very difficult to take in exactly where each of the checkpoints was. I just couldn't get my head around it, and for some reason the map just felt a bit wrong. (we worked out later that although it was 1:25k, it had been blown up a bit, so the distances weren't quite what you expected, also, the checks were denoted by small dots, not circles, which makes them very hard to see when running, and getting blown about by the wind - still, its all excuses really).

The map. Hopefully zoomable....

I spent the next few checkpoints trading places with Dave Ward and Alan Kirk, me gaining time and positions, and then getting confused, and losing time and positions. It wasn't until we came off the back of Kinderlow Caverns that I decided to take a different line and go for a different checkpoint that I really found myself alone and enjoying it. No longer that feeling of following, or being followed.
However, the route I decided on was good in terms of directness, but not so on underfoot conditions. I crossed the 3 knolls to a checkpoint, and then had to bash across heather and energy sapping undergrowth to get to another one. Looking at the map, post race, there were better alternatives which would have made the running a lot faster, and the navigation a bit easier.
Still swearing generously at the map though.

Arriving at the end - pretty tired out. 

The navigational amusement aside, I carried on around to the final few checkpoints with not too much trouble, hitting them pretty much bang on, and not missing any out, as I had been in danger of doing earlier in the race.
Coming back off Kinder, the darkness of the clouds was looming in, which spurred me on my way
homeward. I knew I hadn't made excellent progress across the hill, and was pleasantly surprised with 16th place. Tom Brunt came in 1st, some 40 mins ahead of me, which is quite incredible. Had everything gone right, I'd have maybe been 5 or 6 mins faster, but 40? Not a chance.

Post race tactics conflab.
Always nice to know what others did.

Still a good day out on the hill, and I was very glad that I managed to get back before the rain. A number of the runners did indeed get caught, and ended up looking like drowned rats as they came in.

Thanks muchly to Luvshack for his continued efforts to make this fabulous race interesting and competitive. There is only so much you can do to keep the interest of runners when you run a nav race in the same place every year, but he still manages to pull some interesting things out of the bag.
Thanks also to the wonderful people that made soup and provided refreshments at the end. It was most appreciated.