BMG Summer Alpine Test 2011

After a long summer of aspirancy (during which I also managed to move house back to the UK) myself, Andy Nelson, Andy Townsend and Euan Whittaker met back in early Sep for the 6 day BMG Alpine Assessment. BMG guides Bruce Goodlad and Terry Ralphs convened the assessment.

The forecast for the first day was a RAIN! We met at the Midi station and went on to the glacier to demonstrate glacial movement and crevasse rescue. After various amounts of rope trickery, we headed off to finish up with a quick ascent of the cosmiques arête and not surprisingly we had the route to ourselves. The forecast was due to improve over the next few days, but unfortunately not quickly enough to dry our kit by the morning. So travelling back to St Gervais the 4 of us in our mobile thermionic drying room began discussing our testing week ahead.

Monday saw a wet walk in to the Mountet hut above Zinal. The following morning the stars could be seen and we headed up to the Besso Blanc du Moming Traverse, which allowed a variety of techniques to be demonstrated over excellent terrain with an intricate descent.

The forecast for the next few days was optimistic and on Wednesday morning after some excellently demonstrated cat and mouse/shoelace techniques we headed up the North Ridge of the Zinalrothorn. The weather was initially very good, but the winds were increasing and a lot quicker than predicted, so at around 4000m both teams descend in order to maximize the remaining day. The benefit of the Mountet hut is the quality of low-level terrain in the vicinity of the hut and after a quick lunch we climbed an amazing 10-pitch grade V rock route, followed by the traverse of the Mamouth. With the weather report still a little uncertain the next objective was the Trifthorn. This gave us an opportunity to demonstrate navigation and protection through some complex glacial terrain, followed by some steep snow and short roping techniques to a blustery summit. After retracing our route and a quick pit stop at the hut, we then descend to the valley and relocated to the Val d'Herens for the last night and finally some good coffee.

During the final day we traversed the immaculate Petit Dent de Vesivi followed by more good coffee, debriefs and results. For a week in which the weather reports were not brilliant, the assessors managed to maximize the time available to us, in which we travelled over a variety of excellent, intricate and complex terrain. My thanks go to the other candidates for good banter, the assessors and to Bruce and his wife Kate for the hospitality given to the candidates after the assessment.

Paul Chiddle, November 2011

Infinity Mountain Guides