Peak Mountaineering
The climbing blog of Paul Lewis
Archive for July, 2010
July 25, 2010 at 10:03 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
Arrived safely in Ecuador after a very long journey……..A dash from the days instructing to Manchester Airport for the flight to Heathrow, a few hours sleep before meeting the team at the airport, a fight to Madrid, 5 hours in the airport then 12 hours on the flight to Quito! Fortunately we were just delayed by a few hours in Madrid. Landing in Quito is very exciting as the airport is located right in the centre of the city - and I do mean right in the centre!
The team are currently based in Quito making final arrangements for the mountain phase of the expedition as well as checking out the sights of the city. Initial impressions of the country are great. This is also an important aid to acclimatisation as the city is located at 2850 metres. Tomorrow we are walking up a local volcano to a height of 4200 metres then gradually increasing the height gains until our ascent of Cotopaxi in about 8 days time. Several teams have been unsuccessful in the last week due to poor weather but hopefully we will get a long enough weather window for our ascent.
I´ll try to update the blog as often as possible.
July 20, 2010 at 10:10 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
As always this is a crazy time to be leaving the hectic summer season to run an overseas expedition - but as usual that is what I´m doing!
The last few weeks have been really busy with climbing courses, a large scale activity week for a local school, private guiding work and a variety of mountain biking courses. I´ve been assisted by Dan, Craig, Cal and Simon who have all been helping to keep the wheels turning. Thanks to you all.
Then of course it´s not ideal to finish the days instructing to finalise packing for a month overseas - but I´ve had to do that too! This years expedition is to climb Cotopaxi in Ecuador. This is a first visit to the country for me and I can´t wait as I´ve heard so many great things about it.
While I´m away Cal will be manning (or womaning!) the phones and we can still help you realise that great adventure - so please get in touch and we´ll do all we can to help.
July 14, 2010 at 12:23 pm · Filed under peak mountaineering
I always know if it’s been too long since my last blog entry when I log into Word Press and find there are 480 meaningless spam messages writing for approval – or, as is usually the case, immediate deletion!
But I’ve got excuses! We don’t like to do things by halves at Peak Mountaineering so while the usual flurry of summer activities goes on around us, we’ve moved house and office! Long term this will be great as we will have a brilliant purpose built office and storeroom. Unfortunately this won’t be for about 6 to 8 weeks so we are currently living the caravan dream instead! Logistically this is quite a challenge as we’ve lost our landline number and don’t have our usual super speedy broadband but we do have a great view - and ducks quacking at the door. Please bear with us if it takes a bit longer to get back to you than normal………..but please keep getting in touch!
Of course a mere house and office move doesn’t stop the outdoor activities and, as always at this time of year, it’s uber hectic. I’ve been running a learn to lead course with Mel and Mel (yes, that really is 2 Mels!), mountain biking with Charlie and Dan, kayaking with a school group from Cheshire and running a 5 day multi-pitch climbing course in Snowdonia. Meanwhile Craig has been running an ML refresher with Jeremy and there’s been technical advisory monitoring sessions bubbling away in the background too. Oh yes, and Sally took Ali and Mike on a mountain biking skills day in the Derwent Valley. Tonight I’m blasting down to Cannock to run a 2 day outdoor first aid course immediately followed by a 5 day activity week for a local primary school and Craig is running an introductory climbing course in the Peak District. Phew!
Of course we’ve been loving the other summer sport action too. The Tour De France is compulsory evening viewing (good effort Lance) and the World Cup was great (particularly after the stress of England keeping us hoping was finally put behind us!). The Grand Prix has also been gripping too. Oh yes…….and the weather has been great too.
There really is never a dull moment…………………I really hope you are having a great summer too.
