All has come together

So, unfortunately we have been terrible at updating the blog on updates. It has been a busy summer for both of use, Bradley (myself) working in the middle of nowhere in Scotland and Alek has been all over the place as well too.

However saying that, we have been busy planning the expedition and all has come together. Training has been completed (in Alek's case with one month delay due to overdoing it). All is packed now and our flight is later today. We have managed to pack all our equipment and a tonne of food, over 20kg of it into our luggage.

We also have a new camera and an old camera with a new battery with us, to record all the pictures we will take on the expedition. The tent has been reproofed and Alek has gained a pair of super salopettes. Bradley has got himself a new down jacket and will be regretting wearing it through the airport.

Our agent, Gombu, has sorted us with internal flights, porters and, all importantly, permits. We have learned that the porters have already set off to Jumla on the bus, apparently the route they are taking will lead them onto the Jumla highway which is apparently the most dangerous road in Nepal (so good luck to these brave men!), look at the pictures and videos on youtube. The weather is changeable at the moment, the main monsoon stopped over a week ago, though there might be a large rain shower passing over next week sometime, we hope it will not effect the walk in.

We have a couple of supplies (chocolate, chocolate, chocolate...) we will get in Nepal, these are mostly things we couldn't fit into our luggage due to weight restrictions, but should be able to be picked up in the markets in Kathmandu.

We will write again when it is all over (or earlier if we are unlucky enough to have the opportunity).

That is all.

The Team

Flights booked

So, all the paperwork is starting to come together and more excitingly flights have been booked.

	Date	Airline	Flight number	Departure	Arrival
O	Sun 12/10/2014	Etihad Airways	EY 0022 Economy	21:05 Manchester EN Int. Terminal 1	07:20 Abu Dhabi, International Terminal 3
	Mon 13/10/2014	Etihad Airways	EY 0292 Economy	13:55 Abu Dhabi, International Terminal 1	20:05 Kathmandu Tribhuvan Terminal I
R	Sun 16/11/2014	Etihad Airways	EY 0293 Economy	20:30 Kathmandu Tribhuvan	00:10 Abu Dhabi, International Terminal 1
	Mon 17/11/2014	Etihad Airways	EY 0021 Economy	10:10 Abu Dhabi, International Terminal 3	14:25 Manchester EN Int. Terminal 1

After much discussion we decided to fly from Manchester Airport, due to close proximity to our places of gear storage and UK residence. 

We have 30kg of luggage in the hold which should cover most of our kit and allow us to import all essential food so we have less hassle in Kathmandu. 

In other news our incountry provider is organising internal flights so all seems to slowly be coming together. I have decided that swimming could be superb for training lungs to cope with higher altitudes and therefore am contemplating swimming in the sea on a regular basis while working up in Scotland.

We are also pleased to say that the Alpine Club has given us a grant towards our objective.

I would have liked to attached pictures of a recent wild camp of mine on top of Haystacks, however i made the mistake of not taking my camera so unfortunately cannot.

Caio

Bradley

Training

Planning an expedition like this is all very well, and takes one hell of a lot of time however the biggest time input for an expedition has to be the training taken to get ourselves into a state of physical and mental prowess to complete the objective.

When on expeditions you hear many stories of team members coming back having lost one hell of a lot of weight. Now its all very well saying that eating properly is the cure to this, however even with our specially prepared diet we are doing a lightweight expedition and therefore cannot have all the dependencies of some expeditions. The other factor that comes into play is altitude and cold. Altitude and the cold effects the body (Alek will explain how?- Alek says: "Wikipedia I chose you!") and leaves it in a state where it does not recover as quickly as you would down on a nice warm beach in America- or anywhere else (why didn't we decide to go sports climbing instead- maybe because glaciers are cooler?). So this slower state of recovery plus a limited diet could lead to muscle loss through the expedition. Now muscle loss is not what we are wanting when we are doing an activity such as this, which relies on so much muscle power so the only way to lessen the affect is to bulk up before embarking.

Both mine and Alek's training plans will be different due to situation, however we will both need to complete them to the maximum, and above, to see the greatest results.

What should an expedition training plan include?

So calling this expedition a climbing expedition is a bit perverse- though if we go there and sit at the bottom of the face it would be even more so. Why is this? Well we have 100km walking just to get in and out to base camp, followed by scouting the area, also involving walking, followed by the walk up to the face, and back once off the mountain. So technically, if we end up just completing the one route say, that's about 2km of climbing that's about 2/120km of the whole expedition, also known as less than 2%. So technically it's just a walking expedition (with a huge face in the middle). Ok, so I might have gone off on a bit of a tangent there, but basically it shows you that the most important thing to be good at on an expedition is hiking and load carrying...

Below is a simple list of what to train/train for:

• Hiking (general all round strength in legs)
• Load carrying (might seem an odd one, however when you have a 30kg rucksack you will be glad)
• Flexibility (well more the ability to make high steps and bridging moves)
• Swinging strength (the ability to just keep on swinging the axes)
• Calves (1000m later the calves will have had a bit of a work out, make sure they wont let you down)
• Arm strength (pole use and axe use, you don't want your arms to get too ridiculously pumped)
• Use of big boots (they are different to walk in)

How will we design a training program to fit around work?

So the best training for an expedition is an expedition

Bradley's solution:

This is a hard one, my work as an outdoor instructor basically will contribute one hell of a lot towards my training program, leading big walks on Scottish mountains and carrying heavy loads wild camping. This, as well as paddling will build up a good basic level of strength however I will need to use my own time to focus on specifics of the training. These can include personal climbing to develop arm strength and flexibility further, carrying heavy loads and swinging ice axes (I will be looking for some drytooling possibilities). Another training method while working on the hills is walking up them on the balls of the feet only to train calves.

Alek's Solution:

Since I have a more sedentary occupation, and will be using most of my holiday days for the expedition, I'm going to have to be a little bit more creative here. There are two real aspects to the training- endurance (and cardiovascular fitness) for work at altitude and mixed climbing ability. Since for various reasons I probably won't get any mixed in till the summer (fingers crossed), the best I can do on that front is a little, drytooling and a lot of axe-pull ups (for all the good it does without the proper technique...). 

Thus, this leaves the endurance training aspect of the expedition. Also known as "Plan get ridiculously fit". So the best form of training would be, as noted above, to walk up mountains as fast as you can with a heavy load, for a couple of hours each day (with rest days and variation in distance and load). Sadly I do not have a seizable mountain in my back yard and will have to settle for the next best thing- running*. Luckily, Olomouc is very amenable to cross country. I will be using a schedule (similar to a lot that can be found on the web) the basic pattern of, towards the end, distances will not be increased due to finite time, however weight will be added to pack (5kg/10g/15kg) in August, September and October:

Mon	Tue	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
Axes/Wall	10km	15/20 km	10km	Axes/Wall	20/27km	27km+
Forearm pump time!	1km 'Sprint'-1km jog	Cross Country yay	1km 'Sprint'-1km jog	Forearm pump time!	Two nice circuits here.	Hill day?

Now all I have to do is get over my latest cold, off this blog and onto the trails...

*Rowing and swimming by the way are great for cardio, but not quite as specific to the goal- though interesting, swimming, due to the problem of breathing, has an interesting aspect to of hypoxia that you find in high altitude adventures, so is actually, in a way, more specific, than running at sea level, but I'll leave the physiology to wikipedia.

Beginnings

So I don't really know where to start with this blog. However as its titled beginnings I suppose that is where to start.
So this blog is appearing not at the beginnings of our planning, infact its months behind to be honest. However today I was filling in some grant applications towards our upcoming adventure and I decide that this quote is probably where to start.

"Why are you doing this?
The question of why a man attempts anything at all, is a very good one indeed. Do we climb mountains out of a love of mountains or a love of ourselves? Do we climb to escape the oppressive comforts of civilisation or to embrace them more fully upon returning? We do not subscribe to Mallory's view that the objective "being there" is justification enough (Mallory's personal meaning of the phrase regardless). An unclimbed north face is a challenge thrown out to all mountaineers. Moreover, the aesthetics of a route that strives, arrow-like, to its objective are undeniably alluring. The undulating path to the summit that calls itself a ridge-route is in fact a maze, but the deceptively straight line straight to the promised summit, alone crowned in snow, appearing simple to navigate, is in fact a subtler labyrinth. We, as climbers, cannot ignore this kind of challenge."

It brings up a good point, why are we doing this? Well maybe we ourselves do not totally understand why we climb, however I can start by describing why we are doing this expedition.

The plan was formulated through a very successful week of Alpine mountaineering in Switzerland where we climbed 5 significant summits and generally had a great time.
The outline of the plan was simple to find a good unclimbed mountain face which is within our expedition capabilities where we can climb it in the best style possible and have some sort of basecamp not surrounded by ice (e.g on a glacier).

We came up with a few objectives, some which are definitely earmarked for the future and decided on pursuing this current objective further.

Now seeing as neither of us had been on a mountaineering expedition to Nepal then we obviously started looking into the governmental rules behind and making first contact with companies in the country.
We are now at a stage where we are organising permits and have sent off all grant applications. So pretty much we are at the stage where it all goes live. Exciting times indeed. 

Now to round it off I will bring us back to the question of why are we doing this. There are so many reasons and non reasons perhaps so I will leave it with the simplest answer of all and the answer that is so nondescript, because we like doing it.

We will try and keep the blog as updated as possible, though planning an expedition is hard when we are not sat on a computer 24,7. But then if we were we wouldn't be in any shape to attempt the expedition anyway.

Caio
Bradley