Holidays a comin’

The countdown is nearly at an end. Early Saturday morning I’ll be meeting Dan and Wendy and boarding the 10:20 to Geneva to start two weeks of bliss in the alps. Week one we’ll be heading to Chamonix for an Alpine Techniques course with Jagged Globe getting to grips with some steeper ground up to AD+ standard including the potential to get to grips with some smaller north faces. The second week we are heading to Zermatt and being joined by Kirsty where we plan to tackle some classic 4000ers including Duforspitze if the weather plays ball.

Preparation for the trip has been ongoing for some time, but with huts booked and a basic itinerary for week two sketched out all that remained was to get my kit together and work out how the hell I was going to get it on the plane under my 23kg weight allowance. Packing light certainly wasn’t on the cards…

With my kit sorted I turned to making sure Kirsty was fully kitted out too. The key item missing was boots so while Kirsty was back in London we headed into town to try some on. In the end we settled on a pair of La Sportiva Nepal Evos, a classic boot which will hopefully provide enough warmth for Duforspitze. Always keen to go the extra mile to be prepared, Kirsty got straight to breaking her boots in.

Tuesday dawned and unfortunately that meant the end of Kirsty’s visit so to cheer myself up Dan and I headed to Ellis Brigham in Covent Garden for a spot of ice climbing, a fun warm up for the alps. Dan has just purchased a pair of Petzl Quarks so he was keen to christen them prior to the trip and I don’t take much persuading when it comes to climbing.

All that’s left to do now is wait (well that and go to work twice). Next blog post should be a more exciting one!