Some fun in the snow (Brecon Beacons)

[Dan00001]

Just a few photos from a walk to Pen y Fan last week and some dogsbodying opposite Pen y Fan over the weekend. During my walk I had to 'rescue' a girl who was seriously struggling on an ice incline and was, for want of a better word, 'frozen' on the spot. The microspikes I was wearing made easy work of the ice and I was able grab a hold of her arm and help her up and off of the ice. It amazes me that there are people in walking groups suggesting not to bother with microspikes. The Welsh cakes I ate atop PyF were homemade and delicious.

Saturday I was dogsbodying on the other side of the A470. The first call-out came in before 10am and some of the team members had to respond. It must have been pretty serious as helicopter extraction was called for. I managed to find a comfy, flat-ish spot in a gully next to a stream. I thoroughly enjoyed the few hours I spent laying in the snow doing not much more than drinking coffee and enjoying my surroundings. The snow over my bivi was to break up my outline, I didn't want to make it too easy for the dog handlers!

 

[Dan00001]

Dogsbodying:

 

[crosslandkelly]

Looks like a great weekend, thanks for sharing.
Where did you get the micro spikes?

 

[Dan00001]

Looks like a great weekend, thanks for sharing.
Where did you get the micro spikes?

You're welcome. I think I got the microspikes from Alpinetrek, but they are readily available from numerous places. These ones are Grivel. I think pretty much the two 'top' brands of microspike readily available in the UK are Grivel and Kahtoola.


Not that I have tried the Kahtoolas, but I like the Grivel because the spikes are on a sort of plate which cover a much wider area under foot. I just thought they seemed more stable. The Kahtoola have bearings in the eyelets where the metal chains connect to the rubber, which is supposed to increase longevity, but realistically they should last a very long time regardless.

Here's a photo of the undersides to show what I mean re the spikes/plate. The Grivel are on the right, Kahtoola on the left.

There is a brand called 'Nortec' who make good ones, too, but I've not looked at the,

 

[Limaed]

Have you tried the micro spikes much on rock covered in verglas? We issue crampons to our MRTs but I was wondering if micro spikes might be better in some conditions.

 

[MartinK9]

Great pics and thanks for saving one and training another

 

[Dan00001]

Have you tried the micro spikes much on rock covered in verglas? We issue crampons to our MRTs but I was wondering if micro spikes might be better in some conditions.

I honestly haven't used them a lot, We don't get a tonne of snow and ice in S. Wales, even in winter, unfortunately, so I have relatively little experience using them to be able to give much of an opinion. Yu can see from some of my photos, ice covered rock on a slope, they performed amazingly on stuff like this. Some of the dog handlers were wearing microspikes during training on Saturday, if that's of any help, and during a discussion on microspikes, one of them mentioned that she periodically sharpens the spikes.

 

[crosslandkelly]

You're welcome. I think I got the microspikes from Alpinetrek, but they are readily available from numerous places. These ones are Grivel. I think pretty much the two 'top' brands of microspike readily available in the UK are Grivel and Kahtoola.


Not that I have tried the Kahtoolas, but I like the Grivel because the spikes are on a sort of plate which cover a much wider area under foot. I just thought they seemed more stable. The Kahtoola have bearings in the eyelets where the metal chains connect to the rubber, which is supposed to increase longevity, but realistically they should last a very long time regardless.

Here's a photo of the undersides to show what I mean re the spikes/plate. The Grivel are on the right, Kahtoola on the left.

There is a brand called 'Nortec' who make good ones, too, but I've not looked at the,

thanks for the info. They look so much better than the no brand ones I use, when we get the occasional ice here in north London.

 

[Dan00001]

I found one of those on Corn Du! I bet they do just fine on a bit of ice in the street but definitely worth the upgrade to ones with larger spikes for hill walking, imo.

 

[bearbait]

I've had the Kahtoola Microspikes for many years and have been very pleased with them. Used them up in the Radnorshire Hills (Powys) last Saturday. I've used them in all sorts of terrains (including crossing a frozen lake in Canada!) and they make the transition from ice to snow to frozen ground perfectly well. I can't recall if I've ever used them specifically for "rock covered in verglas" but have used them perfectly fine on very heavily frosted pavement. I'd be a little cautious on very steep rock/ verglas inclines as there would be an element of "give" in the rubbery-plastic fitting.

 

[Nice65]

Dogsbodying:

Ooh, Garibaldis, cheers bye.

Snooze you lose Dan

Great write up and pics.

 

[Dan00001]

Ooh, Garibaldis, cheers bye.

Snooze you lose Dan

Great write up and pics.

Once he had found me, he came hurtling over to me and firmly plonked his wet nose up against mine and then was gone as fast as he came! There was another 3 or 4 back-and-forths before his handler arrived.

 

[Falstaff]

Great write up and info - thanks. I'm surprised you are able to keep warm enough as a "body", even with the sleep bag (rating?).

Is it harder for the dogs to pick up or follow a scent in/under the snow? Do the dogs have GPS trackers on them?

 

[Dan00001]

Great write up and info - thanks. I'm surprised you are able to keep warm enough as a "body", even with the sleep bag (rating?).

Is it harder for the dogs to pick up or follow a scent in/under the snow? Do the dogs have GPS trackers on them?

I had a Multimat Expedition Extreme 12XL mat on the ground, which is 12mm thick Zotefoams Evazote, a very insulating mat, the BA sleeping bag is supposedly rated down to -15c, it is very warm. I had a long sleeve base layer, Paramo Velez smock, and aften about an hour I donned my Helikon-Tex Wolfhound insulated jacket- which I'm very impressed with by the way. I did also have a fleece with me but was not needed. German army mittens and British Army Gore-Tex over mittens kept my hands toasty.

I have Hamish MacInnes Mountain Rescue handbook which is an interesting read. As it's based in Scotland, there is a lot on avalanche search and rescue, something that's much less likely in most of England & Wales. If I remember correctly, dogs can pick up scent under the snow to a certain degree, and obviously they can pick up any scent above the snow. Search dogs and probing teams are mentioned a lot. Probing teams are exactly what the name implies, they have long probes that they push into the snow until they reach either the hard ground beneath the snow, or a soft body.

The dogs don't have gps tracking but the handlers do have tracking built into their radios which the control vehicle can track.

 

[Falstaff]

Thanks, thats a lot of great kit. Pity the chances for the poor person in a real search situation, who most probably will not have as much or as good kit.

I did read the Macinnes book years ago but, as you say there was a lot on avalanche, and I got bored with the detail and don't think I finished the book. Not that it wasn't relevant, but all I can remember was his suggestion/illustration of tobogganing to ride it out if caught in one.
There was also the critically of whether a snow slope was concave or convex, but cannot remember which one was riskiest.

 

[Barney Rubble]

I had a Multimat Expedition Extreme 12XL mat on the ground, which is 12mm thick Zotefoams Evazote, a very insulating mat, the BA sleeping bag is supposedly rated down to -15c, it is very warm. I had a long sleeve base layer, Paramo Velez smock, and aften about an hour I donned my Helikon-Tex Wolfhound insulated jacket- which I'm very impressed with by the way. I did also have a fleece with me but was not needed. German army mittens and British Army Gore-Tex over mittens kept my hands toasty.

I have Hamish MacInnes Mountain Rescue handbook which is an interesting read. As it's based in Scotland, there is a lot on avalanche search and rescue, something that's much less likely in most of England & Wales. If I remember correctly, dogs can pick up scent under the snow to a certain degree, and obviously they can pick up any scent above the snow. Search dogs and probing teams are mentioned a lot. Probing teams are exactly what the name implies, they have long probes that they push into the snow until they reach either the hard ground beneath the snow, or a soft body.

The dogs don't have gps tracking but the handlers do have tracking built into their radios which the control vehicle can track.

Nice one, I enjoyed the write up and pictures. I'd dearly love to do some wild camping in the Brecons at some point in the future.

Ref your choice of sleeping mat. The multimat pads are very good indeed, it's perhaps with good reason that they make the issue kit for the British military. I always find it quite frustrating when modern manufacturers (Thermarest, Exped, Nemo et al) market their closed cell foam mats with such low R values and infer that they're only good for one season use. It's abundantly clear that they're capable of so much more. Multimat seem to be the only exception to this marketing strategy.

 

[Dan00001]

Thanks, thats a lot of great kit. Pity the chances for the poor person in a real search situation, who most probably will not have as much or as good kit.

I did read the Macinnes book years ago but, as you say there was a lot on avalanche, and I got bored with the detail and don't think I finished the book. Not that it wasn't relevant, but all I can remember was his suggestion/illustration of tobogganing to ride it out if caught in one.
There was also the critically of whether a snow slope was concave or convex, but cannot remember which one was riskiest.

Get MacInnes book 'Call-Out'! Absolutely fantastic book. It's an account of some of his rescues. It was one of those books I didn't put down and read in a couple of days.

 

[Dan00001]

Nice one, I enjoyed the write up and pictures. I'd dearly love to do some wild camping in the Brecons at some point in the future.

Ref your choice of sleeping mat. The multimat pads are very good indeed, it's perhaps with good reason that they make the issue kit for the British military. I always find it quite frustrating when modern manufacturers (Thermarest, Exped, Nemo et al) market their closed cell foam mats with such low R values and infer that they're only good for one season use. It's abundantly clear that they're capable of so much more. Multimat seem to be the only exception to this marketing strategy.

They are manufactured by a company called Beacons Products Ltd. Beacons Products used to manufacture the karrimor Karrimat for Karrimor before karrimors demise in 2004. They carried on manufacturing the mat, plus other mats, under the name Multimat. The Multimat Expedition range are the old Karrimat, cut from the same Zotefoams Evazote and Zotefoams Evazote/Plastazote combination as in the Expedition Summit, which Ranulpph Fiennes chose to take on his Antarctica expedition.

In one of Ranulph Fiennes Antarctica books, he used 2x Karrimor Karrimats for sleeping on the snow/ice. He said in the book that 1/2" of Karrimor Karrimat was enough to suffice these conditions. I think the Karrimor Karrimats, back before they were produced in thicker variants, were 9mm thick so two of them would have been 18mm thick, not half inch, but either way, I think one of these 12mm Multimats would suffice any UK temperatures by itself, for an experienced outdoors person.

 

[walker]

Nice one, I enjoyed the write up and pictures. I'd dearly love to do some wild camping in the Brecons at some point in the future.

Ref your choice of sleeping mat. The multimat pads are very good indeed, it's perhaps with good reason that they make the issue kit for the British military. I always find it quite frustrating when modern manufacturers (Thermarest, Exped, Nemo et al) market their closed cell foam mats with such low R values and infer that they're only good for one season use. It's abundantly clear that they're capable of so much more. Multimat seem to be the only exception to this marketing strategy.

I love my ultimate, I also have the 12mm yellow one for winter and the black one for summer . I've tried inflatable ones but wasn't impressed as much as I am with multimat