Giles has recently returned from a holiday in New Zealand where he teamed up with Carl to circumnavigate Stewart Island by Sea Kayak. The trip was a success though they had to cope with fairly extreme weather and some tight weather windows. Needless to say on a day of 40knot winds they ascended Mount Anglem, Stewart island's own 'Munro'. Some 50km+ paddling days were necessary as was an 0500 start. With just 5 km to go they had to wait 2 hrs for the wind to ease before continuing. It was not exactly a holiday...taking 8 days in total Giles reckoned he lost 4kg in body weight.

posted by glenmore @ 12:12 am  0 comments

posted by glenmore @ 11:17 pm  0 comments

As the vast quantities of snow begin to melt the rivers are coming up and it won't be long before the paddling is first class! We have just received our new fleet of Piranha kayaks for 2010 including some of the new "2010 Burn's".

The team have speant most of today checking through the new boats and fittig them out in preperation for our first kayaking courses of the season.

posted by glenmore @ 4:18 pm  0 comments

Eighteen students from Edinburgh University Wilderness Medicine Society took part in a winter skills training day on Sunday 21st March. The day was arranged by the Scottish Students' Mountain Safety Officer, Roger Wild and the cost was subsidised by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. The students were instructed by Rupert Hutchinson, Kathryn Bromfield and Mark Scales.

The day began with planning and preparation including clothing and equipment, weather, avalanche awareness and route choice. The groups practiced navigation on the way to the northern corries where secure footwork and effective use of ice axe and crampons were practiced. Self-arrest was thoroughly covered and navigation skills were developed during the day.

James Conlon, the society's training officer said,
"Many thanks for all your help in organising and subsidising the winter skills course last weekend. We all had a fantastic time and received excellent tuition in winter mountaineering."

posted by glenmore @ 10:44 am  0 comments

The Mountaineering Council of Scotland (MCofS)

Vacancies for Directors

The MCofS Board is responsible for the governance of the Council and consists of 8 elected directors, each of whom is responsible for a specific area of activity which contributes to the achievement of the MCofS Strategic Plan. We are now seeking nominations from individual members and members of clubs to stand for election to our Board of voluntary directors.

Candidates will have a commitment to mountaineering, hill walking or climbing activities, and should be prepared to instigate projects which are relevant to our strategic aims. As such, the duties are likely to include chairing an advisory group of volunteers, which will inform and support the work of our officers.

The work - with a small team of colleagues, and officers, whose shared aim is to represent, support and promote Scottish mountaineering - should be very rewarding.

We wish nominees to be aware of the commitment required. Whilst we pay expenses, the work is voluntary and will require significant time and energy. In addition to experience gained in mountaineering activities, suitable nominees will benefit from:
• Familiarity with the way company Boards work, ideally in a not-for-profit environment
• Understanding of the general principles of corporate responsibility
• Experience of the voluntary sector
• Appropriate interpersonal skills, including an ability to communicate effectively, both written and oral
• Being computer literate, with ready access to email and the internet

The minimum age for candidates is 16 and MCofS positively encourages applications from suitably qualified and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, or religion or belief.

We anticipate having elections for three vacancies at the next AGM. One of these will be for the director responsible for Mountain Safety and Training, a role for which we anticipate a co-optee will be appointed in the short term, and stand for election at the AGM.

We are particularly interested in individuals with skills and experience gained in the following fields:
• Marketing, membership development and sponsorship
• Corporate affairs, including the legal implications of running a limited company, and human resources
Nominees should plan to participate in the MCofS AGM which will be held at Glenmore Lodge, by Aviemore, on Saturday 4 September 2010, at 16:00.

This is a fantastic opportunity to put something back into mountaineering and to help shape the future of the MCofS. To apply or obtain further information please contact David Gibson, Company Secretary, The Mountaineering Council of Scotland, The Old Granary, West Mill Street, Perth, PH1 5QP. Tel: 01738-493947 or 07845-919150. email davidg@mcofs.org.uk

posted by glenmore @ 12:28 pm  0 comments

Alistair Lees Memorial XC Time Trail



28th March



Innerleithen Forestry Commission Carpark




It's back and it's better ! Voted for recently in an online poll we started as the Best Course Ever, the traditional early season XC Time Trial will be held on Sunday 28th March.



This year we will be using a 21km course, and all riders will complete one lap. This is a great event if you are just starting out at XC, with all riders leaving at one minute intervals from 11.01 and no start line tussles.



The trophy, in memory of our friend Alistair who died of cancer in November 2007, will be awarded in the Vet category. We will be taking a split time at the top of the course and a prize will be awarded for the fastest male and female riders on that section.



Full catering services will be provided at the event, courtesy of the Rice Risotto van.



Event website www.innerleithenmtbracing.com

Posted by Rob, alpine Bikes

posted by glenmore @ 12:07 pm  1 comments

After securing lottery funding towards the end of last year, with the help of Alpine Bikes customer base, the project team are proud to announce that they broke ground this morning! I'll try and get some photos uploaded when we have them, but our anticipated completition date for this to be built is the end of the month.

This'll be great for the Tweed Valley as it will give another superb facility within stones throw of Glen Tress.

I shall post a formal announcement when it's all up and running.

Rob
Alpine Bikes
Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 12:02 pm  0 comments

This has been one of the best Scottish winters in living history! This week alone we have had blue sky perfect conditions followed by over 3ft of fresh powder dropping. It has been perfect for skiing and all the winter programme although yesterday and today has called on all our instructors to be creative with how they use so much snow!

The snow plough has been going full time to keep the road clear although some of our guests would cleraly like the opportunity to be trapped here in this winter wonderland. Some of the instructor team stayed over to make sure they could get in for the last day of their five day courses and helped to make sure the bar takings were not falling behind.

These shots show the variety of conditions in one week here in the Cairngorms.

posted by glenmore @ 3:39 pm  1 comments

Uplift Scotland is aiming to run uplifts almost every weekend!!

Just in from Tally, “Uplift Scotland are aiming to run uplifts almost every weekend throughout 2010. Bookings will only open 6 weeks before the uplift, this is to allow events to still take place at the venues. We will endeavour to give as much notice as possible to any weekends that will be events not uplifts. Once bookings open the uplift will definitely run. Go to www.upliftscotland.com for more details!”

Rob

Alpine Bikes

Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 2:47 pm  0 comments

“IMPORTANT RACE INFORMATION – CHANGE OF DATE Due to Forestry Enterprise double booking Pitfichie Forest we have had to change the date of the first round at Pitfichie to the 24th/25th April, one week later. We sincerely apologize, we booked our date some time ago and Forest Enterprise acknowledge this but the Granite Rally is using the forest on the same dates and unfortunately we are lower in the pecking order.

Why the FCS accepted our booking last December we don’t know. Anyway, we have to change because both events cannot run at the same time.

We are now racing at Pitfichie the following weekend APRIL 24-25

Sorry about this, but it was out of our hands. We realise that this new date clashes with an SXC round, but we cannot swap venues on the original date. We can only offer our apologies to those who are inconvenienced.

Derek”

posted by glenmore @ 2:47 pm  0 comments

Sponsored by Alpine Bikes, Buff, Trek, Fox clothing and Borderline Events

After the unfortunate cancellation of round 1, Round 2 of the Alpine bikes winter Series race took place at the weekend. As the name suggests it’s a winter race and the weather definitely kept it’s end of the bargain, with an overnight low of -15 and -7 showing on my car on Sunday morning.

The track at first appeared to be a bit sketchy and some big names decided that rather than risk a pre season injury, they’d watch from the comfort of the side. As the end results proved, the brave would win spectacularly. Total entries for the event were over 300 but only 203 raced, which at least kept proceedings a bit shorter.

Don’t get us wrong, there were some quite spectacular crashes, and our local A & E department will undoubtedly have been grumbling about the number of biking injuries (one of the consultants thinks mountain biking should be banned), but at least we’re not dying of heart attacks on our couches!

As I say some of the winners did it with great style.

Lewis Buchannan, his first ride as a junior goes and beats the field by 14 seconds on a borrowed bike from us. Lewis beat all comers last year, and looks set to do it again this year – if you want to sponsor a highly talented rider, this is your chance. He’s a great ambassador for the sport and is worthy of the attention.

Lewis’ 14 second gap is impressive, but Alpine Bikes Sponsored rider, Joe Connell took a further 3 seconds from that, taking the youth win by 17 seconds over Stuart Wilcox with Gregor Notman in 3rd. Who says there was no grip to exploit out there? As I say victory was for the brave (or insane).

Juvenille class was won by Niall Morrison, Dan Farley in 2nd place with Frazer McCubbing in 3rd.

The hardtail category (big respect to these guys, especially on an icy course) was won by Steve Larking with Stuart Black in second place and taking 3rd spot on the podium was Tom Cleave (who’s forks snapped in practice and were replaced by us overnight to keep him riding).

Masters category was won by Daz Westwood, Sion Jones in 2nd place just in front of Erland Mowat in 3rd.

In the vets class Pete Hoggan was the victor over Stevie Boyd with Seb Ramsay in 3rd.

Unfortunately for Harriet Latchem riding in a field of one meant all she had to do was get down the hill to win the Elite women’s, but her time did put some men to shame, which has got to be some consolation.

Bex Reilly took the women’s win,from Angela Coates with Mairi Gillis in 3rd. Mairi was riding her new BOS Idyll forks for the first time in anger and reckons they were awesome, which is good as we sold them to her! Her view on the forks when she came in was “They’re amazing”.

In expert riders, it was Alasdair Maclennan with the second fastest time of the day that took the win over Dale Russell with Eliot Machin in 3rd place.

It was a fantastic day, and again thanks to the following sponsors:

BUFF
FOX CLOTHING
TREK BIKES

And of course, BORDERLINE EVENTS, for organizing the whole thing and more importantly, getting the first round in at the pub on Saturday.
3 weeks till the next one, and we’re all hoping to have slightly better weather and more people down the hill.

Rob
Alpine Bikes
Innerleithen

posted by glenmore @ 12:08 pm  0 comments