Training for Anidesha Chuli

I was sitting in the famous Num-Ti-Jah Lodge by Bow Lake at my friends wedding. Halfway to being drunk, I was not feeling like dancing but rather picking the brain of an extremely knowledgeable Mountain Guide and now friend, Mark Klassen. I was pressing him for advice on how to train for climbing at altitude, and I'll never forget his response: "Ha, train for altitude? Go out on Banff Ave, get seriously drunk, wake up two hours later, put a hessian sack over your head and try and run up Sulphur Mountain." Marks point was that no one knows how you will perform at altitude, everyone is different and there is no real way of knowing how you will do until you're there. The other point I took away from his comment was that regardless of your physical condition, altitude will always dictate progress and health. Obviously being super fit will help but it won't make you immune to coping with less oxygen.

* Climbing steep ice in Canada.

My training over the last six months in preparation for our expedition to Anidesha Chuli has been quite varied. During my last remaining months in Canada I was trying to spend as much time in mountains as possible. Enduring time in the cold, carrying a heavy pack, climbing steep ice and mixed routes. I also dedicated a lot of time to the gym, often spending hours cycling, running, weight lifting and swimming laps. My training Mantra has been "Lungs, Legs & Core". Since being back in Australia my training has obviously shifted a little - no ice to climb here. I've maintained the same mantra but switched my pursuits a little. I'm lucky enough to live 5 minutes walk to a nature reserve - Mt Ainslie. My house sits 233 metres below its mighty summit of 843m so I have been running small peaks and linking trails to create anywhere between 10 - 20km hill running circuits. I've also been training pack fitness, as that is the most relevent fitness I will require. This involves filling a big Backpack full of 25litres of water and walking up Mt Ainslie or other local hills. Road riding has also been a fun way to build a strong base of fitness while also maintaining great muscular endurance for the legs.

*Pack fitness training on Mt Ainslie, Canberra

The only golden rule I have had while training for Nepal was: 'Listen to your Body'. I have been way more paranoid about overtraining and injuring myself than going on this expedition not quite as fit as I would have imagined. I set goals and push myself but if I feel an old niggling injury starting to creep back in I stop, stretch and rest. In having said all of this, I have been unlucky enough to develop some bad lower back pain. After physio I think we have concluded it is due to a number of things, imbalance in muscle groups in my back, very tight IT bands, poor sleep and stress. I walked out of Physio today, two weeks before departure with a long list of physio exercises to correct niggling knee and back pain. I'm still training but have lessened the intensity and have stopped running. Uphill pack fitness, yoga and body-weight exercises will have to suffice.

                                                       * Training on the back deck at home.

I'm really excited at the prospect of experiencing altitude and to see how I perform. Knock on wood all goes well but perhaps after a few days of sitting around with headaches, coughing, waking up from periodic breathing and having no appetite I will think back to writing this and kick myself...time will soon tell.

Six days until departure, excited, nervous, happy, anxious, positive - an invigorating and refreshing whirlwind of emotions is slowly enveloping me and its intensity is only going to increase over the following two weeks.

I'll post again before I leave with more details on the trip and a rough itinerary of our movements while there.

Thanks for the encouragement and for following along!

Canada...

Canada? Mentors? Mileage? Talk about writers block, It took me a long while just to settle on a title for this simple blog post and all I could come up with was "Canada...".  The procrastination of choosing a blog title stems from the indecision about how and what exactly I want this post to reflect. A mix of things I guess, exactly as the failed title ideas at the start of the page would suggest. I want to share some of my highlights in Canada, reflect upon a community that accepted me with open arms and say thanks to many climbing partners and mentors who have had the patience to climb with me over the past two years.

When I arrived in Canada on the 12th of January 2012 I knew I had a long way to go before I would prove myself a respectable climber to....myself - sounds funny but its true. I moved to Banff with a very clear goal, to better myself as an all-round ice, rock and alpine climber. Upon moving to the Bow Valley I quickly realised I was surrounded by a world-class community of strong, psyched and extremely talented climbers of every discipline. I had plan of how to fast-track my progress as much as I could - by assuming the role of grasshopper.

Through chance meetings and being introduced to the right people I quickly became friends with some very strong, active and talented recreational climbers and guides living in both Canmore and Banff. It's no secret that climbing with people stronger and more experienced than you will fast-track your progress but I approached it with obsession by taking up every possible opportunity that arose. Often waking up at 5AM to climb multipitch rock routes before having to open the Patagonia Banff store at 10AM, calling upon far too many favors at work from staff members to cover shifts. I never told a word of a lie about my abilities, always being honest about my experience or in many cases lack thereof but I showed I was incredibly psyched, had half a brain and I knew when to listen and when to shut up. I watched my partners closely, asked lots of questions, and still do. Climbing is full of subtleties which can hugely impact efficiency, and in climbing, especially long or committing routes, efficiency is everything.

As time passed I slowly began to my swing my ice axes with more precision, coil ropes with more finesse and unlock mysteries of route finding on big, broken limestone walls. I would speak up and offer more insight on decisions that were being made in a vertical world. My confidence grew as did my appetite for bigger, longer, more committing routes. Before long I felt like I knew most of the community and certainly climbed with a larger network of people than I had ever imagined. A large number of my climbing partners now comprised of very well traveled recreational climbers, guides, and sponsored athletes. I could write pages and pages, listing special climbs and individual mentors and their impact they had on me but you would be asleep long before you were to finish reading, instead I will highlight a number of moments that were of significance to me:

• Climbing the North face of Mt Athabasca with Rob Owens, Andrew Querner and Mike Stuart. We climbed the North face with the goal of filming a short advert for a new Jacket Patagonia had made, the Troposphere Jacket. You can view it here: 

• Starred in one of Joe Mckays - Mike Barter Climbing Tools youtube videos - having watched joe's quirky instructional videos for years this was pretty cool thing to get to do with him. 

• Stanley Headwall  -  Going to Night of Lies and waking up  5 hours later to climb 'Man Yoga' with Ian Welsted. We managed to both onsight the first four pitches before bailing as a result to the sun going down. Beers and a late start were not an ideal setup for success but I realised that day I should believe in my climbing ability more.
  
  
  

• Mt Temple - Climbing the Greenwood Jones route on the North Face of Mt Temple with Jasmin Fauteux. We managed the route in 14 hours car to car, no speed records by any means but a time we were happy with. 

• EEOR - Linking Generosity & Reprobate on the East End of Mt Rundle with Samuel Lambert. Combining these two routes offered us a day of 24 pitches of both traditional climbing!

• Red Rocks  -  In 2012 I spent over a month at Red Rocks, Nevada. Samuel Lambert and I climbed almost every day and we manged to tick our ultimate goal - Resolution Arete, a 2500ft old school beast of a climb. We did it on one of the shortest days of the year. It was a 17 hour day. Below: Mt Wilson, Resolution Arete follows the turreted arete on the right hand side of the face.

• Alaska - In May of 2013 my friend Brendan Maggs and I flew to into Alaskas Ruth Gorge. We climbed three routes, two of them on the Mooses Tooth - 'Shaken Not Stirred & Ham and Eggs Coulior. A few days later we climb the Japanese Coulior on Mt Barrill but abandoned plans of Peak 11,300 due to short weather windows, single boots and frost nipped toes. 

• Mt Slesse - Jasmin Fauteux and I attempted the NE Buttress of Mt Slesse. We woke on the very base of the ridge at our exposed bivvy to an intense lighting storm and rain and had to bail. We then drove to Squamish and managed to salvage the afternoon with a the four pitch classic 'Rock On'. We were pretty devastated to get shut down with the weather on that route.

• The Grand Wall - Due to bad weather all across the ranges we decided we had little chance of success at big alpine objectives and settled for a week at Squamish. While there we managed to climb The Grand Wall. Far from doing so in great style I still managed to lead the Split Pillar, it was a great pitch, complete with whippers. 

• Attempt of Grand Central Coulior on Mt Kitchener - Me, Kris Irwin and Jasmin Fauteux attempted the Grand Central coulior on Mt Kitchener  - We ended up bailing at the base of the Doyle / Blanchard ice strip that was not formed, we could have climbed the mixed corner but my feet were freezing and the cost would have been too high. Despite bailing I still managed to do damage to my toes.

• Swiss Cheese - Every winter starts with pumpy days at the playground, I love climbing pure ice but last winter i seemed more drawn to mixed climbing. A definite highlight of my season was sending 'Swiss Cheese' a M9 dry tooling route at The Playground just outside Canmore. When projecting a climb my friend Sarah Huenekin used to tell me to believe, really believe. Now when working hard on a route that word rings in my mind, Believe...

• Fearful Symmetry - What an incredible way to bring in the New year. I climbed this route on New Years day with Joe Mckay. After watching his youtube videos for years in New Zealand I never thought I would be rope gunning him up elusive famous ice routes in the Ghost River Valley.

• Curtain Call: Jasmin Fauteux and I climbed Curtain Call the previous two winters. This last time I got to lead the second pitch - a very rewarding pitch of ice to climb!

• Sea of Vapors - Trophy Wall. Paul Taylor, Jasmin Fauteux and I climbed the ultra classic Sea of Vapors. I could not ask for a better climb to wrap up two years of climbing in the rockies.

These are only a small handful of special climbs and memories that I was lucky enough to share with great friends. While my life almost entirely revolved around climbing I was lucky enough to meet and befriend many other people who inspired me in their own way. One friend and mentor who inspired me greatly was Paul Zizka. During quiet times at Patagonia shop I used to sit and browse his collection of awe-inspiring photographs. One night when I saw him post one of his many impressive Aurora Borealis shots I decided to contact him through facebook. He responded swiftly and after chatting back and forth it was not long before he invited me to go chasing Auroras with him, offering to lend me his back up camera and tripod. Paul's generosity with his well earned  knowledge and precious time was incredible and I was so excited to have found yet another mentor in another discipline I was extremely excited to better myself in. Over the next few months we shared ideas and collaborated on night climbing photography projects - some of these images went on to help Paul gain incredible exposure and well deserved attention by several media outlets. I'm so happy as it was a small way of being able to say thank you to someone who otherwise I would not be able to offer a great deal, aside from enthusiasm and company on cold nights out shooting.

Here are a series of photos Paul Zizka took on some of our nights out together, the formula was pretty simple - I would climb frozen waterfalls by night and he would take photos, the results were pretty magical..

.* A shot of myself climbing at Haffner Creek, Kootenay National Park, British Columbia.

 *Haffner Creek, British Columbia. 

                                                    * Myself climbing at Johnston Canyon.

I feel that no matter what I manage to write on this space it will not even come close to portraying how special the Bow Valley and my friends there are to me. I'm no where near a skilled or patient enough writer to do my experiences, epics, triumphs and friendships justice but one has to try. My time spent in Canada was overwhelmingly positive. Never before have I felt I belonged in one place so much. It felt like everyday I would make new friends to learn from and laugh with. So here's to you friends of the Bow Valley - thanks for having me and helping me grow - I might just be seeing you sooner than expected.

Anidesha Chuli 2014 Expedition, Nepal.

I first met Paul Hersey when I started working at Bivouac Outdoor in Christchurch, New Zealand. I had read both his books 'High Misadventure' and 'Where the Mountains Throw Their Dice', which left me laying awake at night, gripped both with fright and inspiration by tales of climbing success and tragedy in New Zealand mountains and peaks abroad. Paul worked at Bivouac once a week, every Tuesday. Having read his books and with constantly seeing his name in the climbing magazines, I was pretty excited about working with him. My co-workers at Bivouac described him as the big kid, and they could not be more accurate. Paul and I quickly became friends, and spent our shifts together drinking way too much coffee while talking climbing. Paul was one of my first mentors, and I had no idea that just three years later he would be asking me to accompany him and his wife Shelley to attempt an entirely unclimbed mountain in the Nepalese Himalayas.

    *Anidesha Chuli 6900m, Photo Credit: Ben Dare.

On the 7th of April I fly out of Sydney to Kuala Lumpur where I will reunite with Paul and Shelley before boarding our flight to Kathmandu. We plan to spend three days in Kathmandu after which we will travel by bus and jeep to Taplejung. We will then trek 8 days on route to Pang Pema, the base camp for Kangchenjunga - the worlds third highest mountain. A further two days trekking will take us to the upper Ramtang Valley, where we will establish our base camp at an altitude of roughly 5000m.

Anidesha Chuli is an incredibly beautiful unclimbed mountain which lies in the Kangchendzonga region of eastern Nepal. It rises from the Ramtang Glacier to a height of 6900m; a respectable altitude which will provided challenging conditions. The Kangchendzonga region was only opened to trekkers and climbers in 1988, and is still considered a "restricted" area by the Nepalese government. Our plan is to climb the Northeast face and East ridge from our base camp in the Ramtang glacier. From base camp to the summit there is about 2000m of vertical to ascend, and once acclimatized we expect the climb to take between 6 - 8 days. We have chosen to climb alpine style as a team of three, carrying all of our bivouac, cooking and climbing equipment with us on the route. We have allocated about four weeks time to spend at or above base camp, allowing us adequate time for acclimatization and two summit attempts.

In April/May last year, Rob Frost led a team of strong kiwi climbers to attempt the first ascent of Anidesha Chuli. Unfortunately, one of the climbers took a long fall high on the Northeast face and sustained serious head injuries. The team then impressively partially self-rescued themselves to a lower altitude, and were later evacuated by helicopter. Rob and the other members of the 2013 expedition have been extremely supportive and helpful in the preparation of our upcoming expedition, offering a huge amount of information and insight.

    *Anidesha Chuli, photo by G. Dingle, from 'Wall of Shadows' 1976

Our 2014 Anidesha Chuli Expedition is part of an ongoing project called 'Backyard and Beyond', started by Paul Hersey, Shelley Hersey, Jamie Vinton-boot and Troy Mattingley. The success of their first film 'One Fine Day on a Mountain' has inspired us to document and produce a film about our expedition to climb Anidesha Chuli. In order to do this we require a large amount of hardware, including dolly sliders, tripods, multiple DSLRs, small point and shoot cameras and GoPros. We will also take a laptop and another external hard drive to base camp to dump footage on during our trip. Over the past year I have been incredibly inspired by other photographers, namely Paul Zizka and Jon Griffith, to pursue my own photography more seriously. A few months ago I bought a Canon 6D, Canon's lightest full frame camera which handles low light and high ISO extremely well, making it a perfect fit for a climber who is interested in night time and landscape photography. I am extremely excited to document our trip in Nepal, and my mind is reeling with ideas of different ways to tell the story of our adventure: from isolating distant summits, shooting wide open at a bright blanket of stars, to star trail experiments. I'm almost just as excited for the photographic opportunities as I am the climbing.

   * Power of the 6d. A shot I took during a night ice climbing session / shoot at Haffner Creek, Canada.

For the past two years I have been living in the Canadian Rockies, working 3 - 4 days a week, spending the remaining days climbing ice and mixed routes in the winter months, and rock and alpine routes in the summer. My time here has been invaluable for my climbing progression, and I have achieved goals I thought would take me twice as much time. A large part of this personal success is a reflection of the community I have been surrounded by, and the psyche, experience and patience of mentors and friends I have climbed with and learnt from. My experiences here have grounded, inspired, scared and humbled me, and without the mileage from the last two years I would be no where near ready for an expedition such as this. In preparing for Nepal I have changed the emphasis of my training from power and strength to cardiovascular endurance with my mantra being "Lungs, Legs, Core". I am currently nursing frost-nipped toes, so the treadmill, rowing machine, stationary bike and swimming pool have been my weapons of choice for fitness to avoid the cold whenever possible.

In three weeks I fly back to Canberra, Australia. I have not been home in two years, and am excited to touch base with friends and family. Once back home, my training will be more outdoors focused, as I will be battling heat, not extreme cold, and my frost-nipped toes won't be a concern anymore. I'm looking forward to road riding, hill running, weight training and climbing warm sandstone. 

This opportunity could not have arrived at a better time. When Paul originally emailed me asking if I wanted to join the team, I was struggling with deciding what to do next in life. Move back to New Zealand? Apply for another work visa and stay in the Bow Valley? Moving back to Australia is always an option, but having fallen in love with climbing mountains it makes it a rather challenging place to live. I look upon this next adventure as a door of opportunity that has opened to further my climbing career, and a stepping stone that presented itself at the perfect possible time. I'm honoured to be invited on such an expedition, and look forward to a grand adventure with two fantastic friends. Regardless of failure or success, it will be an incredible experience in an awe-inspiring landscape with endless learning opportunities. As for what happens afterwards? Well that all depends on a lot of things, but I do know that a trip like this will at the very least offer me some clarity as to where my heart longs to live.

If you're interested in following our trip then keep an eye on this page. Here are a few other links that you can find us on:https://www.facebook.com/pages/John-Price-Photography/476099019170115

http://www.paulherseywrites.com/

http://shelleyhersey.wordpress.com/