Life Upheaval and Pre-Match Nerves

Learning how to ice climb with Ally

I've spoken to a lot of friends recently about why they write blogs: to record conditions or keep sponsors keen are obvious reasons but I realised that writing for me is a therapeutic process. It's a way for me to sort out the often jumbled disorganisation of my brain! Writing and telling stories helps me process events. I've realised that's why I often write about disasters rather than days when everything goes smoothly. I need to be in the certain mood to blog and this past 6 months I just haven't been in the right frame of mind for it.

Team rainbow hanging out in Ogwen! So warm for March!

Summer or is it winter?!? Scrambling anyway! 

As much as I hate to admit it, getting dumped at the start of the year sent me into a full blown tail spin. Whilst things between Dave and I hadn't exactly been rosy for quite some time, I was in denial about it and avoiding the situation. Dealing with rejection is never an easy thing to do but it also made me question what the hell I was doing with myself and why I was still in Chamonix. I've had bouts of very self -destructive depression, body dysmorphia and eating disorders since my early teens, but I'm a pro at putting up a wall, hiding my emotions and scars. Unfortunately once I get comfortable being around people I become less guarded and those who are close to me have had to cope with dark mood swings! Dave hadn't exactly had an easy few months and dealing with me too just became a little too much for him to bear. I don't blame Dave at all for calling it quits but I was pretty scared about having to deal with myself on my own again. Whilst we didn't get on in the hills he is exceptionally good at diffusing my panic attacks and dragging me back into the real world. Being featured briefly in the 'This Girl Can Climb' campaign video was actually amazing for me, as it's Past Emily giving Present Emily a 'C'mon Get On With It!!' pep talk.

One of Jen Randalls many lovely photos! This one is a still of me from our "Patience" video shoot.

Since I was in hospital getting chemo, I've developed a fear that I'm frittering my time away. I feel that I need to have no regrets in my life and that's probably why I'm always cramming too much in! For quite some time, I've been uncertain about what I want from life. What do I want to be when I grow up?! Actually being forced to confront this on my own was a blessing in disguise. I know a lot of folk in Chamonix have said that they are worried about me, this upsets me quite a bit as genuinely I'm the happiest I've been in a long time. So many good things have happened to me over the last few months! I got my climbing mojo back, learnt how to water ice did some cool routes, made some truly amazing friends, got some recognition (and possibly validation...) for my life choices and found several career paths that I'm really psyched on. No walls being put up here anymore that's for sure!!

Climbing with a very good (though not new) friend.

Being silly with some newer ones!

And here I am... ready (ish) for another set of expeditions! The build up to this summer in the Stans was so much less stressful than in the past. Third time lucky maybe?! Although I was starting to doubt whether doing back to back trips was a good idea financially, not working for two and a half months was feeling like quite a commitment. But then my Kosmos 2015 Expedition got awarded one of the Gore-Tex Shipton-Tilman grants. Not only was it suddenly financially viable but someone else was as inspired by a lightweight Alpine trip to the face as I am!

Lots of mixed cragging up the Midi, yahooooooo!

Everything has come together for me this summer, including finding several amazing people to sublet my room in Chamonix when I haven't even been looking. Though as ever there are always those pre-trip expedition nerves: am I fit/strong enough? What will 6000m feel like this year? Have I packed the kitchen sink? Why won't the Sat phone work?!? (it does now...) Have we got the right sort of food/gas/battery chargers?? WHERE IS OUR TRANSPORT??? (Going to have to go through these last two stresses three times this year.... YIKES) But all this starts to evaporate when you get off the plane. Now I'm just happy and psyched to be out here again with not one but two groups of my good friends. The next couple of months are going to be super fun, I can feel it in my bones!!

Matt survived his first alpine extravaganza in spite of my best efforts!

Jus' chillin' after finally doing the Tour Ronde north face!!

If you want to keep track of my progress you can follow our website here: British Muzkhol 2015 Expedition I've promised George I'll stop putting fake GPS points into the twitter feed though... (Kabul, Hawaii etc....) but hopefully we will return in a couple of weeks as 'Master Mountaineers'!

LOVE this photo of my main objective this summer... Pik Kosmos!

Season Ender...

Training in an air cast...

You know you are recovering when you keep accidentally leaving the house without crutches… With the season and tourist based work coming to an end, I had lots of plans for alpine routes in my time off; unfortunately this wasn’t to be!

For my birthday trip, we decided to go check out a sport-climbing crag near Les Marecottes. The descent was a bit of a nightmare down steep, loamy gullies and I spent most of it cursing my choice of baggy skate shoes! However when we finally reached the ledge with the shelter on I was feeling more psyched! The climbing looked fun, the view across the valley was beautiful and the hut was amazing! Someone has obviously put a lot of love and time into making it.

The beautiful 'hut'

The first multi-pitch route we climbed was easy and fun; not entirely knowing where we were going to abseil down made it a bit more exciting. However on the second route, I was struggling a lot. Even though I wasn’t feeling the love, I decided to lead the second pitch. When I hit a series of wet handholds (and then footholds) I panicked and tried to down climb before finally falling off. Sadly all the slack rope that I had created in down climbing sat on a ledge halfway up the pitch. When I fell, I fell much further than I expected I would and hit the ledge on the way past.

An explosion of pain in my ankle didn’t get any better as I was lowered to the ground. Fortunately Dave managed to rescue most of the gear and ropes as I crawled back to our bags. Even though I couldn’t put any weight through my ankle, I was pretty confident that I hadn’t broken any bones. Having spent so much time in the Scottish highlands, I’m used to the idea of getting yourself out of trouble and felt pretty guilty about the idea of my first helicopter ride. So I kept trying to convince myself that maybe I could hobble and crawl back up the hill. Maybe we could sit out the night and it would be ok in the morning…

With daylight fading pretty fast and the pain not getting any better we decided to phone for rescue. They managed to find us and pick us up just before it got totally dark. The ride down dangling on the outside of the helicopter was pretty exciting; it’s definitely made paragliding a whole lot more appealing.

About to be swung out from the cliff through the trees, impressive skills from the pilot!

The helicopter dumped me in a field then flew back to pick up Dave...

A trip to Sion hospital showed no break, just a type 3 sprain so with a very fancy air cast I was discharged and sent on my way. Fortunately Tom Grant came to rescue us, as the van was at the top of the crag 2 hours away with both mine and Daves wallets in it. Miraculously, neither the helicopter nor Sion hospital needed payment, proof of ID or insurance documents. Dave did then have a painful public transport journey the following day to rescue our bags and the van, SORRY!

Not very psyched on life just then! And in posession of a very fat ankle...

Sadly, cancer faff struck again... My hormone therapy makes me prone to blood clots, which isn't ideal when wearing a tight immobilizing cast! So I had to have a delightful daily injection into my stomach to thin my blood. As I've developed a discomfort (not quite phobia...) of needles Dave had the job of doing it for me whilst I tried my hardest not to kick him.

I struggled to find motivation for doing anything at all in the first few weeks of wearing the air cast. I had articles to write about Kyrgyzstan mountaineering, as well as applications for future funding and expedition planning. But I just couldn’t get the psyche together to even think about mountaineering. Instead I just took on more end of season cleaning work and distracted myself with that. Now that I’m back in the UK and able to walk, I’m able to train again and feel a lot more focused for summer alpinism. Buying a road bike was definitely a good move for my sanity!!

Cripple camping... Free of the aircast I was able to do a few more fun things

This time on crutches I was determined to do exactly what my physios tell me, and not to push myself by taking too many painkillers and trying to climb! Even so, the last seven weeks have been pretty slow and frustrating.  At the start of April I was just starting to feel confident in the mountains again and had been climbing some fun routes in the mountains; being stuck at home on my own did not make me very happy! 

But to be fair, when I get to spend so much time in the mountains doing what I love, the chances of getting injured once in a while are probably fairly high. Looking on the bright side, all this non-specific training will do me the world of good in the long run! I'm certainly feeling a lot fitter again, roll on summer!

Feeding my mapmyride addiction on Beeston hill...

Thanks to Dave for the photos and sorting the helicopter, van and doing my injection every night. Also for being so patient with my grumpiness!!!

Back to Earth with a Bump

Mixed climbing on tied off terrible ice screws... My favourite!

Why my veins don't work.

Sometimes, I wish I were braver. Once again I find myself in an MRI scanner, fighting back the tears and trying not to hit the panic button. How can I handle my nerves on a high mountain and yet go to pieces during a routine hospital procedure?! It’s not the noise or claustrophobia that freaks me out but the canula and the feeling of cold liquid forcing it’s way through my tired veins. This year, the nurse and I both thought that my veins had recovered a bit. But apparently I still have chemo tracklines that would make a hardcore junkie proud! I guess my biannual round of hospital visits felt worse this time as exactly a week earlier I was carrying loads across a river in Kyrgyzstan. I felt too fit and well to deal with the idea of maybe being sick again. Luckily I don’t have to as I got the all clear for another year PHEW. All you budding doctors should note that telling a patient “Have your life back for another year” is not the most comforting bedside manner…

Bouldering on north wales' hardest V3 between hospital trips.

Gritstone cragging at the start of October - down Jacket obligatory

Since then the autumn has been a blur of exhaustion, cragging near home in Chester, attempts at training and trying to write formal trip reports. I hadn’t realized just how much the expedition had taken out of me until quite a few weeks after. Suddenly I felt like I had been on my feet for the whole summer, which actually I had! Being super well aclimatised to 4000+m obviously carried me through for a good long while though, suddenly running 10km and cycling 30 felt pretty easy. Having become used to carrying 30+kg bags means that 20kg of luggage allowance feels like nothing!

Dave Looning the Tube

Emma ready to place the next bit of gear!

Back in Chamonix for ten days, I found myself too tired to consider any hard climbing and rediscovered my love of bouldering instead. Not suffering for a bit is quite nice! I love the fact that I can have an ‘easy’ holiday in Chamonix and still get 4500m of ascent in. Now that I’m all signed up for the Vertical K race next June ascent is what I need! Doing ‘Shit Route’ off the Midi with Ally was good fun in spite of the floral smelling liquid at the top. Although I managed to forget my crampons and had to get the lift back down to fetch them, it’s nice to remember that I can still mixed climb… Sort of!

Ally heading up towards the top ice fall on Shit Route, I sand bagged us up this accidentally, telling Ally that 'it's easier than the Chere Couloir'. It isn't....

Heading towards Tower Gap in beautiful evening light.

Hands free rest for Jonnie on Arch Enemy

Winter has been pretty slow coming in Britain, which is sad. So far I’ve only managed one weekend in the Highlands. Fortunately it was amazing and brought winter psyche levels pretty high! Although at the time I cursed my enthusiasm for doing Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis as a ‘good little warm up’. Everyone I know of, who has attempted this route early season, has epiced hard. Tom, Marcus and I probably should have learnt from this! We found the conditions to be pretty hard, a bit sketchy and time consuming. It was actually a relief when the unconsolidated snow over rock slabs low down gave way to a couple of inches of thick verglas high up.  The conditions definitely made the day more memorable than we were expecting. Maybe we should have persevered to the top, with daylight fading fast and the wind picking up we decided to be sensible and abseil from the gap. Nevermind, the Ben definitely isn’t the Drus and ‘will still be there next year.’

Treacherous rock slabs on Tower Ridge.

Bill on Daylight Robbery, Creagan Coire Cha-No. It looked so much fun that we abbed down and climbed it too!

When conditions and weather aren't playing ball it's time for a bothy trip with your pals!