The Weissmies Traverse

5am start. 40 other people all doing the same. Force yourself out of a warmish bed to a very cold Alpine hut. Bag was packed the evening before so it’s just extra clothes on then downstairs for breakfast. Cereal and milk, bread and jam and some hot but tasteless black water, or coffee, as they were calling it. Sense of trepidation about what lay ahead. On paper it was a 1,300m ascent to 4,020m, but this was via rock ridge and a narrow snow ridge. Surely it couldn’t be too bad?

Some teams already setting off as trying to pull boots on. Fill water bottle with ice cold water from stream outside. Head torch on. Pitch black. Set off. On wrong trail. Cross back to correct trail and hope no-one noticed. Dark is our friend in this matter. Hard going so early on. -5C.. cold. Hard breathing. Head torches light up the valley as we slowly ascend. Seems people are already at the top of the valley and starting on the ridge. We’ve got an hour to go.

Get to the top of the valley. Not too bad. Dad is slow but getting there.

Quick break before moving on. Sun starting to come up. Still cold as hell but the progress keeps you warm. With the early sunshine, look back at what we climbed the day before. Looks big. Small compared to today.

Easy going on nice soft snow. Way ahead is just rock. Or steep snow. Our choice. Worry about that later. Hour later we’re at the top of the first rock ridge with a choice. Cut right and hit a 300m ascent of snow. Easy going but very slow. Or hit the rock. Our guide decides rock. Harder and scarier, but in theory quicker moving. Not convinced. Harness on. Ropes on. Helmet on. Quick drink. Look down. Already very high up. Start on the the rock ridge. About 3100m. Not too bad. Ridge is 20m across. Loose rock. Snow is still solid. Won’t be fun when it melts.

Keep going. How far? Another 900m. Great. Brian and I climbing in 30m sections. He goes. Makes safe. I go. Make safe. He goes. Repetition makes it easier. Not too bad in short steps. Looks OK when looking up – just don’t look left or right. Conditions are brilliant. Sun out, not much wind. Amazing views.

How long have we been going? Will this rock never end? This fucking rope is doing my head in. Look over at the snow field alternative. Groups trudging up it? Having fun? Not sure. Can’t be worse than this. So steep. Keep going. Most sections are straight-forward. Quick bursts followed by breaks. Hold-ups ahead are welcome – time to breathe. Getting high now. Keep going. Rope is always in the way. Do we need it? Adds some safety. Snow melting, getting slippery. Get told – 150m to go to the end of the rock and hit the snow line. Turns out to be just 50m – fantastic. No more rock. Just a very exposed snow ridge! 3,900m now. Just 120 ish to the summit. Wait.

OK. Snow ridge. Crampons on. It’s OK. It might only be 0.5 m across. Lot of people have done it before you. Easy. One foot in front of the other. Rope is even more annoying. Left. Ice axe in. Right. Ice axe in. Look down. DAMN! Left. Ice axe in. Right. Ice axe in. Look ahead. OK. Not far now. 50m. 30m. 20m. Brian wants to stop half way along this ridge for a photo. Are you mad? Thank God there’s no wind. Take the photo. Can we get on now? End of the ridge. Ascend 30m to summit and that’s it!

Summit of the Weismies - 4,029m

Wow. First 4kM peak. Congrats. Hand shakes. Look around. Unbelievable views. Did I enjoy this? Not sure. Job done! NO! Still have to go down. Fuck. Look at this. Seracs and crevasses everywhere. Is that the biggest glacier ever?

Start down. Go steady. Crampons are digging nicely. Feeling happy to have made the summit. Still a lot to do before home safe. Mike and Dad up ahead. I’m leading Brian. Damn, but crevasses. Path goes very close to the edge! WHY? Because big hidden seracs to the other side. Surely overhangs. How is this safe? No idea. Don’t want to know. Don’t ask. Keep going. Wind down. Look back at what we just climbed. Wind rolling in… looks amazing. Wind down and around. Direct route would be through a minefield of crevasses. Happy to go slow. Get passed by IML and two victims being herded up and lightning speed. They’ll pay £500 for a 2 hour trip up to the top and back. No doubt they’ll pass us coming down. Worth it?

Get further. Get passed by IML and his sheep. OK. ‘Surf’ down thick snow field – fun. Climb down main top of glacier. BIG crevasse. Ladder over it. WTF? Apparently I’m going first. Easy. No worries. Down and up, then.. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? 30cm wide ridge with nothing on either side… drops away to crevasses… 300m deep. I’m first. OK. Just go for it. Can’t run in crampons. Just go for it. Get to the other side. Still have 3 other people to get across. Come on – I’ve done it – you can too. Go steady. Brian across. Dad across. Mike across. OK. Made it.

Worst over now… surely? No. Still crossing a glacier. Concentration. Crazy hot now in full midday sun. Can see the ‘bottom’. Keep going. Starting to level off. Getting easier. Confidence up. We’re getting there. We’re done. I wish. Keep going. Finally get to bottom of glacier. Ascent and descent of about 3000m has taken 10 hours. Still got to get to hut. Crampons off. Strip gear off. No water left. Trudge off valley, find next valley with hut. 2 hours to get down. Fucked.

12 hour day finished with a beer. Unforgettable stuff.

Saas Valley 2010

Holidays this year were a week in the Saas Valley in the Swiss Alps in Switzerland. It was my Dad’s idea, and when he suggested I join him and family friend Brian and mountain leader Mike for some climbing 4000m mountains, I thought why not? Bonding time with the old man, how bad could it be? Well, I made the mistake of checking out some video before going and was soon wondering what I’d let myself in for. I then found the blog of a group who had just got back from a trip doing moreorless the same thing as we were planning, I don’t think it put me at ease in the slightest. Don’t get me wrong, I’m probably above average fitness and fear levels, but still, photos of the Weismies traverse certainly had me wondering about my ability. After scavenging as much gear as possible, as well as a shiny pair of new Scarpa Cumbre boots and some Grivel 12 crampons, I thought I was all set. The one thing that had been reiterated to me over and over again – travel light! Whatever’s in your bag, you have to carry, so if you don’t need it, don’t take it. So with literally two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, some emergency food and zero luxuries (i.e., no iPad) we were set to leave Guernsey for Geneva.

Correction, the day before we were due to leave, Blue Islands called me to let me know that actually they’d made an “administrative error” and that we were now going to Zurich. Administrative error my arse – I eventually uncoverd that they had a group booking they wanted to fulfil (coinciding nicely with England vs Switzerland… in Switzerland) and obviously our flight was the one that got bumped. So our planned trip from Geneva to Saas Almagell went out the window. Fortunately though, Swiss public transport is by far the best I’ve ever used and it really made little odds to us. On arrival in Zurich, the station, in the airport, booked us a train, with four changes, to Saas Almagell. But our ticket showed us exactly where to change, at what time, at what platform, and when our connection would be there. Which was never more than a few minutes. In fact, at one point where we had to change at Saas Grund for a bus in to Saas Almagell, the bus was specifically there waiting for the connection. If ever there was a model of how an integrated travel network should run, the Swiss have built it, a not inconsiderable feat considering the array of geographical/topgraphical challenges they have faced in so doing.

So we arrived in Saas Almagell just a few hours after leaving Guernsey. The view was imposing, mountains all around, ready for a week of climbing.

VW Polo GTi 6n2 electric window switches refurbishment

The electric window switches on my 2001 6n2 VW Polo GTi recently had always been a bit hit and miss – they’d work about 75% of the time, then one day, they just stopped working completely. It’s a common problem on these cars – and actually, I’d wager it doesn’t just afflict Polos, probably any of the Golf/Seats/Skodas etc. that use the similar components. The problem in my instance was not electrical (well not really) – that is the windows and the switches themselves were fine, the problem was that there was a build-up of “green corrosion” on the electrical contacts – a side effect of the oxidation of the soft metals used in the contacts. The end result is that the green sucks away the power running through the switch, so enough doesn’t get through the circuit, and hence the switches don’t work.

Needless to say, you don’t need to replace the switches to get them working again, it’s just a case of removing the corrosion and letting the juice flow through the circuit again – and that means saving yourself around £50 (if you replaced all three in the front). And it’s dead easy to do.
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Shake to sh… confuse

My iPod was doing a curious thing lately. Every now and then, it’d make a low pitched sound, then skip to the next track. Sometime it would do it in quick succession. I’d try to go back to the previous track, but no dice. Most confusing. I was getting really worried that it was a problem somewhere – iPod screwed, was it a couple of tracks in my library… what was causing it? It was a mystery… until I did what most people never do… read the manual. (Well, more accurately, I fired up ye olde Google.)

And… it’s actually a feature called “Shake to Shuffle” which is OS3.0 is switched on by default.

So if your iPod Touch or iPhone is acting a bit odd, fear not… you can turn it off.

Facebook connect application creation errors

If you’re in the process of developing a new website nowadays, chances are you’ll want to link it to Facebook in some way. Facebook Connect is the Web 2.0 API style way of doing things, if you’re willing to get handy with yet another markup language… FBML. I’ll leave you to work out what it stands for*.

But anyone trying to get started is likely to stumble over two of the most bizarre, yet simple errors, right off the bat. I was trying to get things working with one of my sites, Saint Saviours Cricket Club, when I encountered these two errors:

1) Facebook Connect “Invalid URL” message

Crazy. You can try every version of your URL which you know is correct:

http://www.mydomain.com

mydomain.com
www.mydomain.com

http://mydomain.com

etc.

What works?

http://www.mydomain.com/

Notice the trailing slash. That they didn’t include a little bit of help on that is ridiculous.

2) Facebook Connect signup page closes out to a blank page

You get the page to submit, but nothing happens, and you just get a blank page. This is most likely due to a problem with the site name you’ve specified. I haven’t worked out exactly what causes the error, but it might the existence of spaces in the name. You can get through it by picking a random number (e.g., 6 digits from your mobile number) – that worked for me. And you’ll then notice that all your other attempts to submit actually got through – and you’re free to use them (and delete all the ones you don’t need).

I’m gobsmacked that there are such weird little bugs in such a big system. Have they not tested these things?

* Footnote: if, like me, you’re doing this on a Wordpress install then be sure to check out the Simple Facebook Connect plugin. He’s done *all* the grunt work for you – you’ve just got to turn it on!

Tweak your Facebook privacy settings

Facebook and Privacy is a bit of a misnomer – it’s well known they’re deviously after any last bit of information they can get from you to use in their nefarious ways. Still, they do offer quite a full-featured website for free. Anyway, you can can quickly check exactly what sort of personal information you’re releasing to the world with this quick tip:

1. Log in to Facebook
2. Paste in the title bar:

javascript:(function(){var%20script=document.createElement(’script’);script.src=’http://static.reclaimprivacy.org/javascripts/privacyscanner.js’;document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0].appendChild(script);})()

3. Hit return. A frame should load above Facebook, showing you the various areas of your profile. Hint: if you’re of a Firefox & NoScript persuasion, you’ll need to temporarily disable.
4. You can then tweak your settings to suit your mood.

Heads up via oneandone.

Guernsey 30in30 cycling for Les Bourgs

So for the second year running, I’m taking part in the 30in30 – a charity cycling event, raising money for a local (Guernsey) hospice that looks after the old folks. The challenge gets its name from “30 days, 30 rides” although was supposed to mean 30 people, 30 rides, 30 days. It’s actually 41 people this year. And what it really really means is that for the next 30 days, I have to cycle for at least an hour every day. Here’s the website from last year… hasn’t yet been updated for this year.

Anyway, predictably, it’s all about raising money… in the two years it’s been running, it’s raised around £75k – so the obvious target is at least £25k this year to make the £100k.

So… send me some cash!