Salewa Raven Boots: A Review

Introduction

Weighing around the same as their competitors, but quite a bit cheaper, the Salewa Raven Mountain B2 boots are designed by Salewa for:

High mountain

Snow/Ice

Rocky/Technical Path

Mud/Grass

Mixed Mountain Terrain

I bought the boots around 18 months ago and have used them on a variety of terrain. The following is my review based on that use.

Welsh Winter Mountaineering: A few photographs

Plas Y Brenin: Welsh Winter Mountaineering (A Course Review)

Introduction

 

Plas Y Brenin is an outdoor sports education facility with quit a reputation for excellence. Their main site is in the small village of Capel Curig in North Wales right in the Snowdonia National Park. As mentioned in December 2015, I had signed up for a Welsh Winter Mountaineering course with them. The only thing missing was the snow, but some did arrive, and we found more. I mention this separately from my review as this was the only part of the course with much to desire and out of the hands of the Plas Y Brenin team.

 

 

 

 

HAPPY NEW!!!


 

Well I've gone and done it now.......

I've finally made the jump and paid out for a Welsh Winter Mountaineering course with Plas Y Brenin. I know that a course in Scotland would have a higher guarantee of snow, but I also want to book a scrambling course in Wales with Plas Y Brenin later in the year.

 

The information for the course can be found here:

 

http://pyb.co.uk/courses-detail.php?coursecode=WWM04&irisref=247

 

I'm looking forward to the course more than Christmas. I'm off to do the course the first week in February 2016 and will feedback my experiences on here. I've gone for the full bag of mashings; the course, accommodation and insurance. The pricing is on the site, and I think it is very reasonable when taking into account five nights stay and all the meals. But like most things, proof of the pudding is in the eating.

 

One positive already is communication. I asked a question via email and the response took a couple of days, but was very good and exactly what I needed.

 

If you have experienced a Plas Y Brenin course please feel free to pass on your comments below.

What I keep running into........

Besides helping improve my fitness, my early morning runs have another advantage.

Time for change

 

Possibly not quite as dramatic as it may sound, but I have decided I am too sedentary and started on a road to improved fitness. Or, possibly more accurate, a trail to improved fitness. From 1991 for almost twenty years I studied and trained in the martial art of Taekwondo, including 3-4 workouts at the gym every week. I was as fit as the proverbial ‘butchers dog’. After the ‘almost twenty years’ I had to give it up due to other priorities having, by then, reached the grade of 5th Dan Master. Although I have done a fair amount of walking since my accident back in 2010, I haven’t been as fit as I had liked. I have found the hills harder work than I should have. So several months ago I began a plan to improve my hill fitness.

 

Eagle Crag: A Tough Old Bird

“How the chuffnell do I get up there?” (Marc: September 2015)

 

 

Those were my first words when I looked at Eagle Crag, not for the first time, but certainly for the first time with intent to ascend it. Having decided to start and look at new challenges, not quite so traditional, I had read about Eagle Crag in ‘Scrambles in the Lake District - North: Volume 2: Northern Lakes’. I then saw a Tweet by Alan Hinkes about his ascent of Eagle Crag, Nethermost Ridge onto Nethermost Pike. I decided that this might make a good step up onto tougher walks.

 

 

 

Oxford Crag, A Place of Learning (Grade 2 Scramble Number 3)

Located on the northern slopes of Arnison Crag, Oxford Crag is referred to as a grade 2 scramble in the Cicerone book ‘Scrambles in the Lake District - North: Volume 2: Northern Lakes’. I had a morning free during my most recent visit to the Lake District, so I called into Patterdale to check it out.

 

 

DMM Locking Carabiner Recall

There is a recall notice for particular models of DMM Locking Carabiners. I thought I had better pass this information on as I had to check one of mine that happens to be one of the models potentially affected. Fortunately mine is okay, but yours may not be.

 

Link for information from DMM:

 

http://dmmclimbing.com/documents/dmm-product-recall-14-09-2015.pdf