Latest News & Events Diary

The BMC has submitted a list of people to be invited including senior figures from the mountaineering world and key partner organisations, a number of BMC volunteers, competition climbers, the outdoor media and leading grassroots activists in rock climbing, mountaineering, hill walking, and exploration. Guest numbers are limited so regrettably not everyone can be invited.

Read more on the BMC Website

Climbing competitions: dry tooling, speed, bouldering, and lead comps with over £1,000 in prizes; film festival, talks, beer, party, trade stands, live music, workshops.

Last year Rich Mayfield and Mark Stevenson completed all the 60 routes in Hard Rock in 35 days and finished with a grand party, The Hard Rock Festival. See this video taster: Hard Rock Challenge Film

This year the celebrations continue and again in aid of Mountain Rescue.

Tickets are £5 per day or £15 for the weekend (including camping). If you are looking to camp for the weekend you need to pre book your tickets.

Full details at http://www.hardrockfest.co.uk or http://www.swfilmfest.co.uk

If you require anymore information or wish to buy tickets, please contact Hard Rock Festival II on 01769 572070 or email them at info@rockandrapidadventures.co.uk

DMM are also on the hunt for a customer service representative who is fluent in written and spoken German. You'll be based in Llanberis and your main role will be building strong relationships and identifying new business opportunities within the German speaking countries.

Full details and how to apply here: JOB VACANCY at DMM

Wild Country, based in Tideswell near Buxton in the Peak are looking for a International / Export Sales Co-ordinator. The primary role is to maintain and develop Sales in Export markets

Full details and how to apply here: International / Export Sales Co-ordinator

With the assistance of an American mountaineer and two Sherpas, Italian climber Marco Confortola was able to reach base camp and is currently awaiting helicopter rescue. As soon as weather permits, Confortola will be picked up from base camp and flown to Skardu, Pakistan, where he will receive advanced medical care. He is said to be suffering from extreme frostbite on his feet, like the other survivors of the avalanche.

"Up there it was hell. During the descent, beyond 8000 meters, due to the altitude and the exhaustion I even fell asleep in the snow, and when I woke up I could not figure out where I was," Confortola told his brother Luigi in Italy via satellite phone.

Last weekend Dutch climbers Wilco van Rooijen and Cas van de Gevel were flown to a military hospital in Skardu; they are receiving treatment for their own frostbite.

"Everything was going well to Camp 4 and on summit attempt everything went wrong," van Rooijen reflected. He said that while earlier expeditions had fixed lines through the Bottleneck, they had placed them at incorrect places, making them unsafe. "We were astonished. We had to move [the fixed lines]. That took of course, many, many hours. Some turned back because they did not trust [the lines] anymore," he explained.

Read the full report by Melissa Thomasma on the Alpinist Website

Today, after a rainy night in base camp, I headed down to the empty mess tent to enjoy a quiet breakfast. I quickly got working on starting my now very tired generator, and plugged in all my dead electronics; after receiving countless emails and phone calls from the media, and making very difficult calls to the loved ones of the deceased, my 17.2Amp lead acid battery wasn't quite cutting it. I logged into my email and was again barraged with requests for interviews from the media.

I took a break from the computer, and headed down to Gilkey Memorial to put up the plates we had made to memorialize Hugues, Karim, Gerard, and Baig. It was ironic, as the last time I had gone was with a happy healthy Hugues. I am, however, happy that he in the end, achieved his goal. This was his third year in a row on K2, and finally he had made the summit and lived his dream. It is a shame that triumph and tragedy seem to come hand in hand on K2. After the memorial, I headed back to base camp. I still have my fingers crossed for the Italians, as they are still waiting for the helicopter evacuation from ABC on the Abruzzi Route.

Read the full blog entry at www.nickrice.us

Also of note is this analysis by Freddie Wilkinson at the Huffington Post: Avalanche Triggers Survival Situation on K2

A new route was established last week by Russians Valery Babanov and Victor Afanasiev on the southwest face of Gasherbrum I (8068m) despite Afanasiev suffering a severe head injury from rockfall. Their alpine-style blitz took four days, from July 29 to August 1, two weeks after their ascent of Broad Peak (more details on the Alpinist Website).

On the night of July 30, their second night on the wall, a rock falling from above ripped through the tent and struck Afanasiev on the head. Babanov spent the remainder of the evening helping his partner control the bleeding. "We thought our climbing was over," Olga Babanova reports her husband saying over satellite phone. "But we cannot descend the same way we came up. It was dangerous." To retreat, the pair was forced to continue to the ridge, but upon reaching it Afanasiev "decided that he had the endurance to go to the summit."

Read the full report by Erik Lambert on the Alpinist Website