Weather in the mountains

What can we expect in the Alps?

http://www.chamonet.com/the-mountains/the-alpine-climate.htm

Silver practise exped!

Last Thursday saw Jack and Adam pack their rucksacks and head off on their practise expedition. An excellent opportunity to get a bit of practise in! It also gave Dave, Ash and I a chance to be out for 3 days in the sunshine too. The boys had to cover about 50 km over the three days they were out and cope with the hot weather! It is only going to be hotter in the Alps! Lots of new kit between the 5 of us too!!

The best bit of the trip.... possibly when Jack asked for water when stood next to the water container. I kindly helped him out by suggesting that the hot water tap was down the other end of the field by the third tallest tree.... 15 minutes later he returned after not having found it. One of the other kids kindly told him it was there and so he headed off again to look further down the field. After over 20 minutes he finally had to admit defeat and tell me he couldn't find it!!!!

We'll need to make sure we camp lots closer to all those running hot water taps in the Alps!!!!

Report from Jack or Adam coming soon...

Sneaky trip to Brecon...

Really want to take my small bag to the Alps so figured I needed to try it out somewhere! Wooh to the Beacons!






So kit essentials for the Alps...  

Light my fire spork vs titanium spork?!

Jet boil and jet boil group systems.

Note to self... you have to take the bottom flux ring protector off before putting it on the gas stove!!!! doh!

Yup... These are the instructions you need to read if you are a moron like me!!

X mug?! Good for packing, not going to smash...






Dolmio bolognase...  Buy 2 and get 1 free in Asda's at the moment.

Definately recommend people get some of these to sneak in your bag and take with us. Meat is not great after being carried around the mountains for a day or two in hot sun!!

Down jacket!

Warm hat...

And then we need to order beautiful weather please!

And then fit it all in a small bag... and we'll walk happily ever after!

Shopping! Wooh!

A sneaky shopping plan for the holidays! Ash, Jess and I decided to hit the shops to get kitted up for the Alps! Although my sneaky aim was to spend all of Ash and Jess' money hopefully!!

Cotswold's first when Ash tried on about 50 pairs of walking boots! They were really good though at fitting them and getting them perfect. We raided the x bowls but decided to shop further for boots... Mountain warehouse next for the group T-shirts, I've got some 10% off vouchers if you take a kit list so someone remind me to dish these out. We got wicking tops to print and then we got some 'Take a hike' tops we intend to get printed with facts and distances on the back for when we get back.

And then the finale! Go Outdoors in Southampton! Hours later we emerged with 12 rucksacks, 2 paris of identical solomon boots for Jess and Ash (but it's fine! They reckon they'll be able to tell the difference with the fact they are half a size apart!!!), 2 penknives, 2 therma rests.... wooh!! We spent a lot of money!!! oops!

The biggest thing we would recommend though is to talk to people in the shops. They were really good at helping , fitting and advising.... and compare prices! Ash and Jess saved about £46 on their boots by price matching at go outdoors and got neo airs for 56 instead of their £90 retail...

Last hint of the day.... make sure the security tag is removed before you leave the shop and get all the way back to Ringwood... hee hee hee!!! 

First aid course

The sun was shining, we’d just broken up for Easter and I’d had only two hours sleep before a busy day Thursday so i should be / was ready to crash!  Off home for relaxing evening followed by a relaxing weekend! Or not!!!!

Jess and I headed off to Tesco’s to pick up stuff for a BBQ before picking up Ash and Callum for a weekend of hard focus and long lectures to get first aid qualified! I first did my first aid qualification when I was in year 11 like Callum and renew it religiously every 3 years, luckily my renewal year coincides with our Alps trip so I had company with our crew making up 6 of the 19 people there for the weekend. First aid is a vital skill and something I think everyone should do at one stage or the other but did it really have to be such a sunny weekend!!  Friday night we had a BBQ chez Mummy Power before watching the Hangover, this obviously gave Ash inspiration for her fall the next day....

8.45am we arrived at the Victory Hall! Boo! We started with the joyful legalities and found out just how many ways we can be sued for anything we do, a brilliantly cheerful start! In the first day we looked at CPR, the safe airway position, full body checks and major medical problems like heart attacks and diabetes. We also got tested with lots of practical activities including pulse counting. Unfortunately i was lumbered with sitting next to Ash so immediately looked like a complete freak with a dodgy pulse rate of over 20 beats more than anyone else in the room! Thank god she’s not in charge of calculating our budgets! We were very lucky at break time with the arrival of an extremely large box of sticky buns from Sergeant Bun’s bakery! Mmm!

After a full day we finally escaped just after five to hit Portland for fish and chips and some caching! The sun was surprisingly deceptive today though and we had to swiftly find shelter behind the light house before we froze to death! Fab light for photos though! We brushed up on our climbing skills by scaling Pulpit rock as the sun set before refining our navigation with a few sneaky caches! On the drive home we passed Church Ope cove which Callum remembered from childhood trips so we headed down to the beach. With both Ash and Jess armed with IPhones we swiftly located a third cache and wound our way into a creepy pirates’ grave yard to search for a skull and cross bones.

We found the skull and cross bones eventually on a tomb under a tree. Ash at this point spotted something high up in the tree and feeling the need to put our first aid in to practise tried unsuccessfully to scale it! She eventually got up there after climbing on to my shoulders to find that it was a shrine to someone’s child who had died so tried to make a swift exit.... Surprise surprise she was stuck! Callum tried to rescue her but it needed more than one person so she called me in for the rescue attempt. What a mistake! Caring as ever, i tried to help, how was i rewarded....? Ash decided to ignore all of my sensible instructions and instead of standing on my shoulders decided to re enact the Hangover and the crazy Chinese man by falling out the tree to sit on my head with absolutely no inclination of going any where or trying to remove herself!!!  Good job there were 4 nearly qualified first aiders on hand!!!!

Day two gave us lots and lots more to think about. We looked at common problems when out on the mountain like hypothermia and did lots of splinting and bandaging of breaks and head injuries. Very amusing! We took it incredibly seriously! It was really important though to think about the implication of us being in the middle of no where in the alps though. At school or at work and first aid consists mainly of phoning for an ambulance. We won’t have the novelty so easily over in the Alps and help will be a lot further away. It changes how you treat things and increases the seriousness of things...

In the afternoon we were tested through a range of scenarios which were really fun and definitely got us thinking about prioritising treatment and spotting injuries. We had people that had fallen off roofs, were diabetic, had heart attacks, things sticking out their eyes, broken limbs under inconvenient benches and the a huge and mighty big bang scenario with over 15 casualties! We also managed to sneak Ash into the Resci Annie track suit!

It was lots to learn and an intensive weekend but an incredibly valuable experience. Congratulations to Hannah, Ash, Callum, Jess and Me for being our qualified first aiders!

First aid course... Portland caching

Ash is officially a pain in the arse!

Today, Ash has managed to sit on my head while falling out a tree, failed to use the word pineapple and is now hogging the hair dryer!! It officially takse her 119.4 minutes to shower and get ready. FACT. She needs to speed this up before the summer or will officially be classed as slower than Jack. And that is an achievement! LOSER!