Logan Expedition Blog 1, London - Logan Base Camp

Flying above the Logan Base Camp

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 - London Heathrow - Toronto

Final last minute packing and shopping this morning before the 6pm flight.  I decided to take my humungous Dana Design 100litre rucksack instead of my 70litre Osprey, so a complete repack was needed!

Luggage weighting at Heathrow airport

Have I got enough kit?

Using the free scales at Heathrow my bags turned out to be:

Ski Bag: 32kg

Rucksack: 23kg

Daybag: 10kg

2nd Hand Luggage: 5kg

In Toronto we had to check back through security and slept in the check in area until 4am.

Time for a quick nap in Toronto airport

Wednesday 4th May - Toronto - Vancouver - Whitehorse

Welcome to the Yukon

More flying time today, and each one on a smaller plane before finally arriving at Whitehorse, the Yukon Capital.  The arrivals hall, complete with Stuffed deer and other animals certainly made you feel like you were in the Yukon!  Squeezing our bags in the hire car was a mission, but we all made it to the Days Inn (there is also a free hotel transfer service) in a couple of car loads.

Thursday 5th May - Whitehorse - Kluane B+B

Attempting to fit all our kit in the hire car.

In addition to some kit organising we had ample time this morning to do some more food and gear shopping.  The huge gear shop, CMS, had a great supply of outdoor clothing and equipment, but no ski stuff.  And the supermarket was gigantic, stocking endless energy bars, vegan bars, trail mixes, dried fruit, all sorts of cheeses and every thing you would want.  There was also a good deli and bakery in town.  

2pm transfer with Up North Adventures took us along the Alaskan Highway to Klaune B+B.  It’s around a 2 1/2 hour drive, with great Canadian views (as opposed to just fir trees!)

Just before checking in we stopped at the airstrip to meet the pilot and team, this is important to get yourself ‘in the queue’ to fly in as there were other climbers and researchers waiting to get into the surrounding mountains.  You are flown in on a first come first served basis.

The views from Kluane were ‘huge’, incredible cloud vistas filled the sky above the lake and across the smaller mountain tops, which hid the larger mountains and ice fields beyond.  Not a hint of the glaciated peaks were seen, and you wouldn’t believe they were there unless someone told you.  This is part of the reason that not many Canadians know that Logan is their tallest mountain.

My evening was filled with packing the lunch and breakfast contents into individual daily lunch and breakfast sandwich bags.  Luckily we were the only people staying in the B+B and so had all of the main living space to ourselves to pack for the mountain.

Big skies in Kluane

Friday 6th May - Kluane B+B organising / waiting to fly day

Our entire day was quite easily filled with packing gear, checking equipment, putting up tents, waterproofing skins, attaching leashes and general faff.  During the afternoon we stretched our legs and went to visit Tom, the pilot, to discuss flying in.  Having been told to be ready to fly at 6:30 the following morning, it was ‘action stations’ to get ready this evening.

Practising putting up the tent by Kluane Lake

Saturday 7th May - Waiting to fly at Kluane

We woke to alarms clocks at 5:15am, to beautiful daylight outside and the odd cloud in the distance.  It was stunning.  Scrambled eggs, bacon and cream cheese bagels for breakfast - still trying to eat as much food as possible.  6:30am came and went, the weather towards the mountains didn't look good, and Lisa, our weather forecaster had told us there would only be a brief opening of better weather after lunch.

Phone panorama of the enormous views from Kluane

Soon, news came to us that we wouldn't be flying yet, and a 'test' flight would go out later on, so we should wait to hear more later on.  More eating and waiting commenced.  The weather didn't clear all day, but tomorrow looked hopeful.

Spring arrived a month early in the Yukon

Sunday 8th May - Kluane - Logan Basecamp, King's Trench

Another early wake up call with more incredible cooked food for breakfast, however this time we were collected at 6:30 to make the 5minute drive to the airstrip.  It was a stunning day, alpenglow lit up the hills and barely a cloud graced the sky.  Perfect.

By 7:30am, the 1st two, Phil and David, had taken off for basecamp.  While waiting for our turns we weighed the kit, the plane has a 750lb load limit, including people, per flight.  Coffee was consumed, and we could even get a live tracking update on where the plane was via their website.

At 9:30am, Chris and I were onboard and beginning the most incredibly scenic flight into the mountains.  Following the glacier's up from Kluane Lake, we were greeted by some of the biggest peaks in Canada, and the largest non polar ice field in the world.  The scale was unfathomable.  Many dreams of huge arduous traversing expeditions were conjured up in my head, as not many people had explored the terrain we were flying over, and many peaks and routes were unclimbed still.  60km long 5km wide glaciers spread out below us and we finally got a view of Logan too.  You couldn't have asked for a clearer view.

Just some of the incredible views we had flying into Logan basecamp

Flying into the landing we could see one tent set up in basecamp and the team of 2 Austrians heading up the glacier.  No sooner had we landed it was all hands to deck to unload the plane and move into camp.  Puffing and panting, you could tell we had arrived at 2700m!  It was quite an effort to move our equipment the 100m from the 'landing strip' to the tent.  Tent platform making commenced, complete with wall for wind protection.  Just as we moved in the last team members arrived.

Our first view of Mount Logan, the platter is straight ahead, with the main peak 2nd from left in the background.

What a relief it was to finally all be on the mountain, after months of planning and preparation we were all there, ready and nervous to begin.

You can just see the tent at basecamp (bottom left), and the 2 Austrians bottom centre, making their way to camp 1.

Digging snow is a strange addiction!  After tent walls were complete we got to work on a toilet, with walls, that soon (or rather hours later) turned into a rather pleasant igloo.  In the meantime, some of the group headed up the glacier for a quick recce of the crevasses on that section of the glacier.  As you turn the corner towards Camp 1, there is a section of the glacier that is quite heavy crevassed and normally requires due care.

Being at Base Camp also means proper food and cooking.  Tonight was pasta with real mince sauce, parmesan, tea, biscuits and soup.

Skinning up the glacier under cloudier skies, Camp 1 is just around the corner to the RHS

As we cooked we discussed whether or not we should have done a cache today.  Having spent a long time faffing and digging snow, we could have easily gone earlier.  To be honest, I hadn't even considered this in the plan, but it made perfect sense.  To be successful we needed to make the most of every bit of good or acceptable weather.  After dinner we packed up and carried our first cache as close as possible to camp 1.  An hour and a bit in, the pulk constantly hauling me back down the hill, we had covered 2.5-3km and 280m uphill, and the weather begun to change.  Light snow and fog arrived, so we cached there and skied back to arrive in camp for 9pm.  It was still very bright outside.

Returning to basecamp from our first ski of the expedition

With relief I finally got to test my new skis out (this was my first outing with them), and they worked beautifully.

'Training' for Logan; preparation, packing and pondering

A few days ago I returned from a successful ski mountaineering expedition to Mount Logan, Canada.  Standing 5959m tall in the southwest Yukon, it requires a one hour flight in from Klaune, and at least three weeks on the glacier to climb and descend it.  Preparation was paramount.  Here I detail, in short, some of the items that made up my pre trip prep.

Ski Mountaineering above the Icefall on Mount Logan

Timings - the crucial element

Excluding weather the majority of people are unsuccessful because they run out of time.  We allowed a total of five weeks for the trip allocated into sections.  One week to get from London to Klaune and back including organisation.  Two weeks mountaineering moving time, the minimum you would need to summit and return to base camp.  The remaining two weeks were to accommodate bad weather, either waiting to fly in or out, or waiting out storms on the mountain.  Our pilot reassured us the longest he hadn't been able to fly in was five days.

Physical Training

Long term endurance with heavy load carrying was what we needed.  To prepare for this I did lots of vertical km runs in the Alps early season, and tried to get a solid aerobic base back.  When the snow finally arrived in the Alps during January, early ski touring trips and weekly skins up the mountain gave me specific training.  The longest time I spent touring in a row this season was one week in the Queyras, where I was more than happy to break trail every day (expecting lots of powder on Logan's lower slopes).  Returning home to Wales for the end of spring meant multiple long days out in the mountains, either working or personally.

Running along the Pembrokeshire coastline

In the end I didn't do any training with a heavy rucksack on.  I figured I would remember how awful it feels to move with 25kg, and rather than knacker my knees doing water carries, I opted to do hill sprints and squats to look at my leg strength.

On return from the trip I felt that my fitness was great, I had plenty of days pulling pulks but feeling strong.  The summit day was long and tiring, but I guess you can't feel good all day every day!

Gear
Gear deserves a whole post of it's own for this trip, so I'll summarise a few key items I took.

Skiing down to Logan Camp one, fully laden from the summit

Personal Gear
Boots:

• Dynafit female TLT6, 2015/16 model, I sized up a shell to ensure lots of toe space for keeping warm and fitting new liners in.  Removable tongues weren't used at all.
• Palau overlap ski boot liners (the thickest warmest ones they make, the same as Intuition liners but much cheaper!).  These were so warm and added stiffness to the ski boot too.
• Forty Below Freshtracks Overboots, only warm on the last few days of the trip as it wasn't too cold the rest of the time.  Expensive but cheaper than frostbitten toes!
• I also took some chemical toe warmers which lasted the entire summit day and were amazing.
• Vapour Barrier Liner Socks were used for the first two days but I got so hot I nearly got blisters on both feet (very unusual for me), so for the rest of the expedition I wore thin icebreaker merino wool ski socks
• Lastly an incredible boot fit from Stephen at North Wales Ski Drop, and this is the key to warm comfy feet.

Ski setup:

• Movement Response X series skis - great, light, easy to ski on all snow (including slab)
• Dynafit speed bindings, old school style.  I went brakeless for the first time ever and it was great!
• B and D Ski Leashes, skip the realisable bit out, you don't want to loose a ski up there and strap these to your feet.  The super long phone cable leash goes over the overboot and trousers etc... easily and you can take your ski off, raise it to eye level and the leash keeps stretching.
• Scott standard non collapsible ski poles with big baskets on, I only own one pair of ski poles
• Black Diamond Momix skins, easy to put on and take off, good glide grip and glue.

Team members comparing each others ski choices Photo by Cathy O'Dowd

Gloves

• Thin OR PL gloves
• Dynafit lightweight primaloft mitts - think alpine lightweight silly gloves!
• Black Diamond Guide Gloves (incredible, worth their weight in gold)
• Black Diamond Absolute Mitts

Things I wish I had

• A lightweight chair to sit on outside rather than a single piece of mat
• Camp booties to walk around in

Cathy and David looking equally confused by the GPS and compass!

Group Gear
Tents: Hilleberg Saitaris, 6.6kg 4 person all weather tent x2.  A 4 person tent is much more spacious for 3 people in winter sleeping kit.  Although for the summit bid we squashed 4 people into one it was a bit cosy for long term living.
Stoves: MSR XGKs.  The gas canisters v liquid stove debate was never ending.  Liquid 'won' in the end, but I still don't know which I prefer and teams on the mountain had both working well.
Electronics: Included Delorme InReach x2 for satellite text messages, iPhone for typing on the InReach easily, live tracking and Facebook updating, Goal Zero solar panels and battery packs, various kindles, cameras, 2 GPS Garmin 64s, watches and more.

Hilleberg Satiaris tents putting up with the bad weather on Logan

Food

Generally I take 500g food per day on expedition, all or mostly dehydrated.  This normally works out as porridge, a few lunch bars, one dehydrated meal, some drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, cup of soup) and a few squares of chocolate.  Not much!

Chocolate muffins and coffee for breakfast in Whitehorse

Food for Logan was a somewhat drawn out decision, both in team discussions and personal choices.  We thought it could be -25C and windy every day, and each one would require a substantial amount of load carrying, therefore requiring 750g food per day to sustain us.  On average my food was 450cal per 100g.  This meant I would have 3375calories per day to eat, and while on paper this doesn't sound like a lot, the reality is that it is a huge amount to eat at altitude when you are tired, cold and have a few hours of melting snow ahead of you.  750g of food for 21 days is 16kg.

Preparing expedition lunches

Below is a summary of what food I prepared for each day:
Breakfast: 50g ready break and a 27g sachet of instant oats with 20g powdered milk and a spoon of soft brown sugar.  1 sachet of instant cappuccino coffee mix

Lunch: some ryvita thins, oat cakes, fig rolls, party rings, digestives, jelly babies, ginger nuts, a chocolate bar - kit kat chunky or twix, a nature valley protein bar.  Super concentrated juice and powdered ginger to make my water taste better when I got 'bored' of it.

Supper: one or two dehydrated meals 100g / 130g per meal, from mountain house or adventure food per day.  One 100g sachet of powdered potato, a good cube of cheddar and butter, for every other day.  9 squares of galaxy chocolate per day, hot chocolate powder and biscuits.  One sachet of soup per day, I hate soup and this wasn't consumed!

Food top tips

• If I was to return to the area I would take 500g food for 14days and 750g food for 7days.  On occasion I was hungry enough to eat a 450calorie dehydrated meal and 100g mash with butter and cheese for supper, however, despite keeping my appetite throughout the trip we just didn't burn enough to want or need more food.
• Variety is key for interest and excitement (one of our team took mostly nuts for every lunch and was rather bored within a few days!)
• A tent team spice kit adds flavour to your meals, most of them are quite bland
• Having a 'never-ending' stash of your favourite biscuits is great for rest days and cups of tea (I took 3 packs of ginger nut biscuits and some digestives
• Bubblewrap your biscuits or breakables to stop them crushing into biscuit powder
• Take more chocolate, hot chocolate powder, jerky and porridge sugar than you think 

Cathy and David on their way to the summit of Logan in the wind

Final thoughts

• Spend time (and money) on your gear.  It was difficult to find many previous Logan trip reports with gear in so I looked at photos, asked people and put as much cash as I could into looking after my hands and feet.  
• Five weeks was a good amount of time, we were lucky with the weather and flew home a week early.  It could have easily been the other way around.
• Train or spend time in the mountains if you don't normally.  Feeling fit and healthy on the trip felt great.
• Food variety, I can't stress it enough.  Colourful, different, flavourful food.  Not all of it has to be 550calories per 100g.
• Go 'heavier' for a Logan trip, the extra food is worth it for the time you have to spend acclimatising.  You can't race up the mountain, so you might as well slow yourself down with chocolate and cheese!
• Pack your fatter skis (fatter by alpine ski touring standards, 90-100mm underfoot)
• Organisation is crucial too, and many thanks must go to Phil Jardine who led the expedition and was brilliant at organising and researching the entire trip, as well as all of the other team members whose research and preparation made it the success it was.

Eagle Ski Club Leader's Training week, Monte Rosa ski area

I started writing this blog at the start of February!  Earlier this ski season I went on the Eagle Ski Club Leader's Training week.  It's a week long ski touring training week aimed at getting you ready to lead tours for the club.  This year we've been based in Brusson, just down the valley from Champoluc, in the Monte Rosa ski area (between Cervinia and Gressoney).  Despite the snow conditions being very poor for touring we have managed to learn lots and get some great ski tours in.  Below is an account of what we got up to.

Incredible views across the Alps

Sunday 24th January (Sunday shakedown day!)

Waking up to the reality of pretty bare mountains and being in a newly formed group of people, we planned for a piste day.  Staying on the pistes meant we could check out the abilities of our co members, but predominantly allowed us to see just how little snow there was in each of the valleys and wonder where on earth we would go ski touring!

Skiing the Eagle Couloir

As with all skiing plans, they sometimes don't quite got to plan when you see a line you'd like to ski!  On our way up to the Indren we spotted the Eagle couloir being skied and it looked very well filled in, and possibly the best off piste skiing we had seen yet.  That was it... we had time and the capability to do it, so we headed up the Indren lift and made our way down the hard wind blown snow into the couloir and down to the Refugio below.  From here we made our way up to point 2911m above the hut on skins and tested our abilities to pick out the best snow to ski on for the way back.

Transition time under a moody sky.

It was a great first day, and we covered lots of topics from decision making to skinning and skiing route choices, the 3 A's - aspect, angle, altitude, and much more.

Skiing down 'into the abyss' from the Col de Cascoccia

Monday 25th January - Antagnod - Col de Cascoccia

In addition to looking around us for the entirety of Sunday, this, combined with some local conditions information led us to a few more ideas of where we might be able to ski tour (or rather, where all of the local guides had taken their clients and we knew would be some snow!).  Leaving a car at St Jacques we drove to the quiet resort of Antagnod.  Here we took the chairlift to the top, traversed left and skinned 452m up to Col de Cascoccia (between the Facciabella and Bec de Nanna). We skied ok hardpack beside breakable slabby crusty stuff down a superb wide open gully and into mush and crappy snow lower down.  Skin track setting was looked into in more detail and some ropework.  It remained very hot and sunny.

It was such a lovely evening on Monday I couldn't resist going for a run above Brusson up to the Bringuez alpage!

Tuesday 26th January - Bettolina pass

After taking the ski lifts from St Jacques to the Col di Bettaforca we had a short skin to the Bettolina pass (3100m, just north of the more prominent col of the same name at 2900m).  Following an summer route we had a simple skin through incredible scenery, and the odd bit of excitement along the way.  This gave us further opportunities to discuss use of the rope, strategies while skinning downhill and route finding.

Skinning along the summer path

Don't fall... skinning downhill around an exposed corner!

The lack of snow cover made route finding particularly problematic today.  After some scouting we opted to walk down the rocks until a place where we could safely put our skis on.  The snow was surprisingly good in places, and the uncommitting nature of the route meant we even had time for a good lunch break!  The final section of the descent provided us with more route finding and a 'lovely' track to zigzag back down into St. Jacques.

Looking out beyond the Alps towards the Med

Wednesday 27th January - Indren to Alagna

Another great day of weather lay ahead of us.  Warming up by hooning across the entire ski area from St. Jacques to the Indren  we started to skin up the Indren glacier, hoping to find a suitable point to ski onto the Bors Glacier and continue towards Alagna.

Dancing above the Indren Glacier!

Great skinning over hardpack snow meant we arrived at what was clearly an abseil station in no time.  After much discussion we decided that the abseil wasn't worth the ski.  It was interesting to discuss abseiling and 'watching out' for members of the group that aren't confident mountaineers, and the difficulties of matching expectations with terrain, skills and risk.

Skiing back down

Weighing up our choices, we decided to ski down the classic off piste ski route past the old Indren station and below following the summer path (into the Olen river cwm?) under the line of the old lift.  The top section had a great gully that we cautiously skied down before opening up into a steeper area of incredible snow, oh to come back here on a powder day!  Passing by the other old lift station popped us back into the lift area. 

Skiing chalky snow beyond the gully system

Keeping time on our side we skied the pistes until we were firmly above the St Jacques/Champoluc valley.  Getting stuck here if a lift shut down in the wind would mean a very long taxi or skin.

Skiing down the gully system

Thursday 28th January - Cuneaz valley skills day

As the forecast wasn't great for today so we opted for a skills based (rather than touring based) day.  After a super warm up on lovely pistes we headed along the Cuneaz valley on skins.  First skill, we built a shovel up from a foot of powdery snow on the floor that was just about big enough for all of us to squeeze into.  This was quite a feat as normally a snow shelter is easier to build in sticky snow, and almost impossible to create out of powdery light snow.

It's not every day you practice abseiling down the piste!

Other topics covered included making Abalakov threads and getting them right each time, challenging kick turns inamongst a steep tree covered slope, and survival skiing back down!

Building a shovel up out of a foot of snow on the ground

Friday 29th January - Morge - Tete des Fra

The last day of the week, and probably the best skiing too.  After an hour's drive west down the Aosta valley towards Courmayeur we stopped at La Salle near Morgex and headed towards the road's end just North at Morge.  Skins on at the roadside, and we begun the 1100m skin towards the Tete des Fra.

Focused skinning in front of Mont Blanc

Upon arrival at the summit we could choose between powder or spring snow, what a luxury in January!  Powder it was and several incredible turns later we were back at the car.  What a great way to end the week.

Looking back down the skinning track from the Tete des Fra

Huge thanks must go to Rick Marchant, our guide, Alain Hosley for co-ordinating the week, the Eagle Ski Club for their enormous generosity in continuing to support aspiring leaders, and of course my fellow ski tourers on the week.  It was a superb week of learning and ski touring, and has given me lots to learn, think about, and put into practice.  Who wants to come touring with me next year?!