Latest News

100% success on Alpamayo

Paul Moores is currently en route to Huascaran and reports from Huaraz that all five team members, plus himself and our Peruvian guides summited Alpamayo earlier this week. Four of the team are now joining forces with our Huascaran team, to attempt this, the highest mountain in Peru. This is the second year in a row that all team members have topped out on Alpamayo - an excellent result! [read more about Alpamayo]

NEW DATES: Khumbu Climber & Mera and Island Peak

Our autumn Khumbu Climber and Mera & Island Peak expeditions are fully booked, so we are now offering two new 28-day trips (including flights from the UK):

Khumbu Climber: 19 October to 15 November 2009
Mera and Island Peak: 19 October to 15 November 2009

Please contact us (00 44 845 345 8848) for more information and booking. [read more]

GII team back in BC - more snow!

Adele Pennington reports:
"Not expecting to be back at base camp so soon the G2 team have had an exciting 12 hours ascending to camp 1 and back again. With the good forecast we set off at 1.30am this morning with some light flurries of snow. As time passed through the night, the snow became heavier and visibility became reduced. We continued with optimism for several hours, with David and Paul reaching the safety of Camp 1 whilst the rest of us, just an hour behind, made a decision to turn around in the white wonderland. Descent was like a game of hunt the wand as all the tracks from this morning's ascent had been obliterated. With a GPS and a 10 person search, we got back on track to meet our HAPS wandering in the ice fall. Everyone was to turn around as the weather continued to deterioate. Meanwhile Paul, David and one of the HAPS escaped from Camp 1 at 10am and safely arrived back in base camp for a late 3pm lunch.

With camp 1 in deep snow we now have to sit and wait for the mountain to become safe again." [read more about Gasherbrum II]

GII: a break in the weather?

Adele Pennington repors:
"Today we woke to a much better day than expected and a change in the predicted forecast. To pass the morning the team walked up the moraine to get glimpses of our mountain through the cloud. Reports of climbers descending today confirmed our suspicions about the depth and unstable snow higher on the mountain. Now having had a day of sun and very little precipitation we have decided to move to Camp 1 early 1.00am tomorrow morning. Hopefully on Saturday we will climb to Camp 2 and sleep. We aim to be back at base camp on the 6th or 7th July when we can report further on our progress on G2."

Gasherbrum II - lots of snow!

"This morning the G2 team woke up to snow at base camp. As predicted we are in a period of unstable weather, reports from climbers who descended from C2 today indicated that there was thigh deep snow and quite unstable conditions higher on the mountain. In hope that we will be able to continue our acclimatisation phase as soon as possible, we all packed another 3 days of High altitude rations. Apart from the odd snowball fight it has been a peaceful day at base camp and we are all hoping that the further heavy snowfall predicted does not come to fuition." [read more about Gasherbrum II]

100% on Mont Blanc

All 6 members of our first Alpine Introduction Mont Blanc extension topped out on Western Europe's highest mountain yesterday, reporting good conditions and fine weather. Our groups are taking advantage of climbing Monday/Tuesday, when it is quieter in the huts. So far, we have had 21 out of 21 people summit Mont Blanc this season. [read more about Alpine Introduction Mont Blanc Extension]

Alpine Summer Courses - latest availability

This is the latest availability in July, through to early August. Some of our August weeks are now fully booked, so please check with us for the latest.

Alpine Introduction - 4 to 11 July (1 place). With Caroline Ogden, Julie-Ann Clyma and Mac Mackay.
Alpine Introduction Mont Blanc Extension - 11 to 15 July (1 place). With Caroline Ogden, Mac Mackay and Rob Collister.
Zermatt Climber - 4 - 11 July (1 place). With Greg Sauget.
Alpine Introduction - 11 - 18 July (1 place). With Andy Owen and Pelle Bagawitz.
Alpine Introduction - 18 - 25 July (1 place). With Andy Owen and Caroline Ogden.
The Haute Route - 25 July - 4 August (3 places). With Andy Owen and Pelle Bagawitz
The Haute Route Mont Blanc Extension - 4 to 8 August (2 places). With Andy Owen and Pelle Bagawitz
Saas 4,000ers - 18 to 25 July (2 places). With Jim Kerr and Dave Cumming.
Zermatt 4,000ers - 25 July - 1 August (1 place). With Paul Farmer and David Vallet.
Oberland 4,000ers - 1 - 8 August (1 place). With Tomaz Jakofcic and Richard Dupont.

Please contact Tom Briggs on 0845 345 8848 for more information and booking. [read more]

Gasherbrum II - acclimatisation at Camp 1

Adele Pennington reports from Base Camp on GII:
"The G2 team are all now enjoying the sun at base camp after spending two nights at Camp 1 and a character building journey down through the ice fall. At midnight on Thursday night Helen, Bunter, Ron, Mark, Adele and Sharif left the comfort of base camp and moved up to camp 1. They made excellent time and arrived at camp 1 in good shape at 7.35am on Friday morning. By this time Dave and Paul were up and ready to move a few hundred meters towards Camp 2, whilst the rest of us recovered after our midnight start. Paul, David and the High Altitude Porters (HAPs) had made an excellent job of establishing Camp 1. At midday the boys returned afer ascending 300 meters towards Camp 2 and the rest of us woke up to enjoy some of our high-altitude rations.

Paul complaining that there was no pastry on his Lancashire hot pot caused much discussion as we tried to confirm if such a dish ever did come with pastry. The afternoon was spent resting with intermittent banter as five of us shared the Cosmos tent and shouted across to Bunter and Helen in their own private accommodation. The following morning at 4.00am Paul and Dave departed to base, leaving the rest of us in peace. At 9.00am the team were all ready for a short walk towards the fixed ropes to Camp 2. Our HAPs had already left at 7.00am to take loads and establish the Jagged Globe Camp 2. The afternoon was spent sleeping and preparing equipment for the next load carries to the upper camps. The weather changed during the afternoon and more snow meant that we abandoned our plan to ascend further to Camp 2 on Sunday morning. Instead, we decided to return to base camp to join Dave and Paul.

The five hour hike back to base camp was entertaining in all respects. Huge crevasses have to be jumped on the upper plateau and then the game is to avoid swimming in the deep pools of water between the penetentes. Mark was the swimmer of the team but did manage just to retain his sense of humour. Today our HAPs have been up to Camp 1 and back to drop a load of oxygen in a 5-hour round trip. Our other two HAPs are now at camp 2 helping the altitude junkies sherpas fix ropes from Camp 2 towards Camp 3.

Unfortunately we have had some poor weather forecasts predicting some heavy snow fall from Tuesday afternoon and therefore we have not made future plans for our next acclimatisation phase to sleep at Camp 2." [read more about Gasherbrum II]

Superb conditions in the Alps

Andy Owen has just phoned in from Chamonix after a fantastic start to our Alpine Courses. Andy was guiding on our Chamonix Climber course this past week. They had 5 good days of weather, with it being a bit iffy today. Andy reports:

"The conditions in the high mountains at the moment are absolutely stunning. Some of the goulottes are in the best condition that I've seen in the past 5 or 6 years. We did the Contamine Grisolle (Left Edge) Route on the Tacul Triangle, the Chere Couloir, got pretty far up Dent du Geant and finished off with the Cosmiques. Probably the best conditions I've ever know on the Chere Couloir. Today the weather's been a bit less settled, so we've been doing some rock climbing in the valley."

Jagged Globe has another Chamonix Climber course starting this weekend (sorry - fully booked). We have places on our Arolla-based Alpine Introduction. [read more about Chamonix Climber]

Nepal - autumn availability

Here is the latest on expeditions and treks, which still have places this coming post monsoon season. Due to demand, we now have a new Everest Base Camp Trek on 9 October:

Everest Base Camp - 4 - 23 Oct. (2 places). With Alun Richardson IFMGA/BMG
Everest Base Camp - NEW DATE: 9 - 28 Oct.
High Passes to Everest - 9 Oct to 1 Nov (4 places). With Tom Briggs.
Mera Peak - 2 to 25 October. (3 places). With Tony Halliwell MIC
Mera Peak - 9 Oct to 1 Nov. (2 places). With Andy Chapman MIC
Baruntse - 17 Oct to 20 Nov (places).
Dhaulagiri Circuit - NEW DATE: 25 Oct - 14 Nov.

[read more]

GII team head into the icefall

Adele Pennington reports: "Today has seen a lot of activity by the Gasherbrum II team. David and Paul left at 1.00am this morning for Camp 1 (5,910m) where they reported their arrival at 8.00am. Our High Altitude Porters carried a load to Camp 1 and three of them are staying to start fixing ropes to Camp 2 tommorow. They will be joined by a team of Nepali Sherpas from the Altitude Junkies team. Helen, Bunter, Ron, and Mark, together with Adele and Sharif, departed at 4.30am and made their way out to 5,400m into the ice fall, before returning to base camp to avoid the sun. Tommorow night this team will leave base camp to make their way up to Camp 1 to sleep for a couple of nights. Hopefully by the end of the weekend we will have our first acclimatisation phase over and the route fixed to Camp 2. There is a great atmoshphere here on GII with the major teams Amical, Altitude Junkies and of course Jagged Globe all cooperating to prepare the mountain." [read more about Gasherbrum II]

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