UKC

From how to get fit in the months before you leave, to tactics for the night before you start a route, to recommendations on decision making, Tom Ripley gives his top tips for aspiring alpinists.

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Really useful, Tom. Could I add - drink plenty of water to avoid debilitating headaches? Trouble is, it’s heavy. 

I think this is a great article with loads of useful information and tips.  Nice one Tom.

I've always carried about 500ml but drank loads before heading up, tends to work but quite grim when you have unexpected bivvys

Always used to carry a litre each for long classic, Salbit Westgrat, Cassin Badile etc.

Carried 2.5 litres up south ridge Noire, drank 1 gave the rest away on the summit.

Once soloed the Brenva without a stove, bad decision, took  lightweight too far. 

Good article Tom.

Good content and very well written, Tom.

Great article IMHO. Love the caption “the ever smiling NJ”…. Lot of respect for that guy. 

Oh yea - that is a good one. I’m a big fan of drinking a litre on the lift too. 

Electrolyte tablets are also brilliant. They mean I feel far less knackered at the end of a long day. They also good at making water taste better if you’re melting snow, which in my experience never tastes good. 

Love melted snow, always tastes great (unless it was yellow)  in my view.

Great article.  I wish something like this had been available when I started in the late 60's.  I knew all this, eventually, but learnt the hard way.

Spot on advice in this article. Headache pills to go with the water. A good option is fruit powder to make juice, or else lemon juice added to cold tea in a water bottle plunged into the snow. Very refreshing. Spend the first days sorting out glacier travel and avoiding the pitfalls this brings.

Recovering from a long drive in the heat, hiding from the sun for a couple of days , I am now enjoying a lukewarm pint of water with an electrolyte tablet.

Used to use staminade , was gutted when it stopped being imported. Went to the hassle of importing some direct from Hutchinson Labs in  Australia. Had to sign a disclaimer in case customs got shirty about a large package of white powder! 

The SIS and High Five tablets are more convenient to carry. Also save needing to boil water for tea. Lukewarm makes a good drink to rehydrate and saves a lot of fuel if melting from ice or snow.

Sorry to sound a smartarse but treat the cause not the symptoms. Staying hydrated with electolyte replacement works for me.

Good article Tom - thanks for writing it and for advice in the run up to my own trip.

On the last day of my first alps trip, I was also compiling a (far from comprehensive) list of advice...

1. Don't be scared to go. The alps felt so far away and so enormous to me. But, I really feel that if you have a background in UK trad, scrambling and hillwalking, with odd forays to Scotland in winter, plus some reading and practice tying coils, you will have all the necessary skills to get going. II/III Scottish can feel tougher than AD, in my limited experience.

2. Have soap and toilet paper to hand: many of the campsites have none and the refuges often run out. But, don't do as some people do and shxt on the glacier... or worse, the summit! Ew...

3. Have an idea of where you want to go, then buy some guides and maps at the local book shop on your first day. Much better selection in general than you can find in the UK, including English language guides.

4. Relax and soak it in: it's easy to accidentally get too caught up in the need to have a productive trip, and lose sight of the joy.

Finally, your point about having a partner you trust and enjoy spending time with is bang on and the best piece of advice in the whole article. Humour keeps you going when you're knackered and everything is going wrong.

Ta again!

I also thought it a really good set of tips Tom. One thing you didn't address in the moving together is whether there are times that it might be better for the party not to be roped up all?

Best advice I've seen for some time. 

I'd add learn good admin, don't keep stopping. Stop once after dawn, head torch off, lose a layer, suncream on, glasses, ropes or gear adjust.. drinks and nibbles between, quick photo, all done, get moving. Never stop individually for each task. 

Yes, an evening recce, walk the first few hundred metres if you can. It'll all look different in the dark if you start before dawn. 

Really great advice , wish i had this when I started. A couple of things I would add which are related but slight more pointed 

- Get serious about the weather - weather in the alps is a different beast to the UK . Work out how to make good desiscions and which apps to use.
- Settle into the enviroment - getting off the plane and onto a route doesnt allow you to work out things like weather logistics. Build up over the week might lead to a better outcome.

^^ Good advice for any all-day event - every minute stopped is a minute longer on your day, and they all add up.  That's why large walking groups don't work well, each extra person is an opportunity for something requiring a stop at some point - toilet break, bootlace tie, clothes removal. 

"If you're doing a long rock climb with a multi-pitch descent, get slick at abseiling. A slick pair should be able to descend a 10 pitch rock climb in a little over an hour. "

Abbing 10 pitches, or abbing the equivalent distance as pitches are often not full rope length?  3 minutes per person per ab seems dangerously fast.

I've come down Whympers after going up Moine Ridge, i abbed every pitch first, found the next stance and my more than competent second just clipped into the loop the two ropes made, then a combo of hand over hand, fast down climb daggering or face out stomping down he'd rattle down to me. Repeat.... I went first every time, tedious repetition, but also much quicker than swinging leads every pitch (up or down).

3 mins is quick, but there is an expectation on instructor or guides assessment that if you see your second get hit by a rock and appear unconscious you can escape the system and ab down in a similar time frame. Yes it's tight and certainly requires plenty practice. 

All very good stuff.

I have never been a proper Alpinist but I do enjoy adventurous rockclimbs. In point 12. Know where you're going... it could be made explicit this includes getting back to base. 

Sometimes you need to give as much or more attention to the getting down as the going up. This still applies to descents you've done before and think you know! It's funny how memory doesn't always connect with geography when its getting dark, and you're cold and knackered...  

In reply to Toerag:

As others have said, 3 minutes per pitch per person on a well set-up piste is achievable safely after practice. UK climbers don't do this kind of thing on their local crags and I'm sure you're not alone in thinking you'd be rushed and therefore dangerous at this speed so this isn't a dig at you in particular.

(I very recently waited over an hour behind a team abseiling one and a half pitches down Dinas Mot's western gully. I may have been heard to wonder aloud what a Swiss guide would have done in my shoes!)

I think fitness can't be emphasized enough it really makes everything else so much easier and not just long days out in the hills, regular day to day aerobic and strength training.

Another good tip is to learn to read the terrain and avoid stopping to put crampons on and take them off.  If it's a short rock section keep the crampons on.  If it's a short ice/snow section cut steps.  Knowing when to move together is another difficult decision usually made easier when you and your partner know each other's abilities.  When I started out we didn't have a clue about this and we tended to pitch everything or solo.  This slows you down considerably as does carrying too much gear which used to be a typically British thing. I made all of these mistakes on my first Alpine route which took us 2 days with a bivi at the bottom and one 2/3's of the way up.  Many years later I did this route again and caught the first telefrique up and the next to last one down on the same day.  I did not enjoy the first ascent but greatly enjoyed the second.

Really good article, thanks Tom. 

When moving together, this can be made safer by placing a micro traxion on the gear above the crux which will stop the leader being pulled off if the second falls off. Placing it on a bolted belay at the end of the crux pitch is ideal so it will protect the leader from being pulled off if the second falls on the crux pitch. But be conscious that the micro traxion will not take in any slack if the leader needs to down climb / reverse the climbing they have just done. 

And some other tips for making alpine rock climbing slicker/ more fun: 

16) Consider hauling your bag rather than carrying it. Climbing with a heavy bag on isn't fun on hard climbing so haul a small haul bag instead. This should only be done on steep-ish ground with solid rock. A micro traxion makes hauling easy and it can be done whilst belaying your partner on guide mode. 

17) Climbing routes with bolted anchors where you descend down the route lets you run away more easily if it rains. Plus you won't need to carry shoes to walk down in. 

18) use guide mode to belay your second lets you eat/ drink whilst they are seconding. 

No no no. The alps are so loose now you'll send so much rock down the route you'll kill anyone below you. 

Plus once climbing in the alps bags are light, you can often shove the lid in the body and pull the draw cord tight to stop it flopping around there's so little left inside.

I'm presume you mean just normal cragging on lower level routes, not actual alpine terrain or routes.

There are more objective dangers in the alps I'd suggest more focus, not less, on the second. Mouth fulls of cereal bar from the pocket, but not picnics. 

Horses for courses.

As my original post said, I would only advocate hauling when the rock is good. Otherwise wear it. For example, we hauled on about 9 of 12 pitches of Fidel Fiasco (ED2 6c+). The other three were ledgey/ broken so we carried the bag. 

No, quite a lot of stuff in the Alps have bolted belays which allow abbing. E.g. the  Envers des Aiguilles or  Aiguille de Blaitière. 

Yes, it's perfectly possible to snack whilst belaying on guide mode safely. Easier in fact than when using a normal belay device. 

I'll leave that there.

We used to take a short rubber tube to suck water out of cracks

It wasn't the presence of bolts, just that if up in the alpine mountains I personally don't think it's wise to not have your bag/footwear with you. But we all ride different horses! 

I've recently got back from the Alps where, for the first time, we did quite a lot of this.  Two things -

1. I'd think about this technique as improving safety on ground you'd happily move together on. I personally wouldn't use it on ground where a fall was anywhere near likely. With even very good rope management stripping the rope sheath in event of a second falling with relatively little slack in the system is likely. (There are some Petzl tests on this somewhere.)

2. Belays on easier routes / easier sections of routes are often on large ledges. We found clipping the belay with the traction often introduced quite a lot of additional drag into the system as the rope 'comes on to' and 'leaves' the ledge. Better to clip the belay with a long sling as a runner and put the traction on the first suitable piece of gear on the following pitch.

I've never been a fan of water bladders for all of the obvious reasons, but I've started using one for alpine stuff, and it's been brilliant. I have a bad habit of not drinking enough when out, and the bladder ensures I'm taking on board enough water throughout the day without stopping. I've got one of the 'glass like technology' ones, so it doesn't taste of plastic either.

I stopped using bladders because I drank too much !

Worked out I had drunk 13L mountain biking from Coniston to Wasdale Head and back. Felt a bit flushed out

Edit. Mrs has just chipped to say she now used soft flasks on her shoulder straps.  Easier to refill than a bladder, easier to monitor volume intake, and better weight distribution.