Hier, c’était journée de repos, j’en ai profité pour aller voir la statue en hommage à Tenzing Norgay, premier Sherpa à avoir atteint le sommet de l’Everest. L’endroit ne pouvait pas être mieux choisi, le point de vue sur l’Everest, Lhotse et l’Ama Dablam est parfait par beau temps, ce qui était le cas. Ma journée s’est résumé à ça, faire du lavage, prendre une douche, changer de t-shirt et essayer de me reposer pour la journée d’aujourd’hui. Phorste
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Voilà déjà 2 jours que nous sommes sur le trek du camp de base.
Everest is a big expedition but like all other expeditions, you have to take it one step at the time and focus on the next task.
First big task was to pack my bags, leave home and say goodbye to Veronique for 2 months, on the day of her birthday, no need to say that this was a very emotional moment. Second task was to go through the different airports ( yul-yyz-ist-ktm) and hope that my bags would follow. Well, this got me very nervous as my 2 bags were some of the very last few to get out, but after waiting for over an 1h, they finally showed up and got my smile back. fun fack : Tony, the guy that was seating next to me on my ist-ktm flight is actually a member of my climbing team. What are the odds in a big boeign ? Anyway, we both got our bags, found the IMG driver waiting for us and made our way to the hotel Tibet. No time to lose, after meeting Greg and Dallas, we got to play this great game called "duffle shuffle" : gear check, repack, label bags for camp and trek, wheight the bags and get ready for the next morning for the group meeting. Always feels great to see familiar faces around the world and I got lucky on this. I already know 4 other climbers on our team and met some from other groups too. Today is a free day in Kathmandu, to enjoy the jet lag and make sure we got everything before our group dinner tonight and hopefully an early flight to Lukla tomorrow morning all good in Kathmandu so far Namaste ! The North face est bien connue pour ses vêtements d'expédition et de voyage de grande qualité mais qu'en est-t-il des autres collections ?
Avec une température ressentie de -24oC, je me suis dit que c'était une journée idéale pour publier une revue du Parka Himalayan de TNF. Plus gros manteau et plus chaud de la collection chez TNF
Last week-end was probably the best to put up to test the North Face Denali special edition leather gloves that was given to me by the shop The North Face Westmount - DIX30 opérées par Au Sommet.
À travers plusieurs discussions avec des gens d'expérience, on m'a fortement conseillé de pratiquer mon escalade de glace pour revoir les techniques et être prêt pour la face de Lhotse.
Le week-end dernier j'ai donc écouté ces conseils et je suis parti à la rencontre de François-Guy Thivierge, ayant lui-même atteint le sommet de l'Everest en 2008, pour un week-end d'escalade de glace et de formation aux chutes Montmorency et évidemment pour discuster avec lui à propos de l'Everest. Ce fût un privilège qu'il partage son expérience avec moi. J'en ai également profité pour tester mes nouvelles bottes Phantom 8000 de Scarpa que j'aurai à l'Everest ainsi qu'une paire de gants The North Face Denali - sur laquelle je ferai mes commentaires dans un autre billet The holidays sessions paid off. Today, I felt great on the bike and even achieved few new records. all time best power on 20sec, 30 sec and 1 min. I guess the program of increasing 1 watt every 2 workouts is working well. Let's see until when I can support the increase.
Pour plusieurs la saison des fêtes rime avec vacances, repos, arrêter l'entrainement au profit des souper bien arrosé et d'un horaire de laisser-aller.
Cette année, je passerai évidemment du temps en famille comme à chaque année mais pour ceux qui se le demandent, aucune chance que j'arrête de m'entrainer. Déjà que le retour des fêtes est toujours difficile après une pause d'entrainement, cette année est encore plus importante vue mon départ pour l'Everest dans exactement 3 mois, le 23 mars 2017. je maintiendrai donc mon horaire normal (ou presque) d'entrainement et je tenterai de ne pas trop abuser des bonnes choses que le temps des fêtes nous amènes joyeuses fêtes à tous ! Ceux qui me connaissent bien savent que je suis un grand fan de la marque The North Face depuis plusieurs années pour la qualité et la durabiltié de leur produit pour la montagne Aujourd'hui, comme il m'arrive souvent, j'ai décidé d'aller au magasin Au Sommet du quartier Dix-30 pour voir si je ne pourrais pas trouver une (autre) paire de gants en prévision de expédition à l'Everest. Par pur hasard, c'est Steve Bucci, propriétaire des boutiques Au Sommet qui m'a servi. Lui expliquant mon projet, il n'a hésité à me supporter à sa façon. Il me fournira dorénavant, à travers ses 2 boutiques, tous les vêtements nécessaires non seulement à mon expédition à l'Everest mais également à mon entrainement. Attendez-vous donc à voir également apparaître des critiques de produits que j'aurai la chance de tester avant et pendant mon expédition. Merci Steve et toute l'équipe des boutiques The North Face Westmount - DIX30 opérées par Au Sommet ! For those of you wondering what kind of boots you need to climb Everest, any other 8000m peaks or even Vinson in Antarctica you need triple boots.
few models exist on the market and if you take a close look the two most popular model are the Lasportiva Mons Evowww.scarpa.com/phantom-8000 and the Millet Everest GTX. But with the revamp of the already great lineup of mountainering boots of Scarpa, I'm sure we will see more of the new Scarpa 8000 For my feet, there's nothing like the comfort of Scarpa boots. From the regular hiking boots to the double boots, I have all their lineup except for the 8000. When I went to Vinson, I decided to go with the Millet Everest GTX and it was the worst trip for my feet ever. so lesson learn, they went down on EBAY and I've waited to get a new pair of Scarpa. Can't wait to try this new model. Only on special order in Canada but really worth it. So happy that I finally received my pair today and they are beautiful ! Spending so much time at the gym and in transit to and from the gym, I've decided to spend more time home and optimizing my space.
So here it is, brand new home gym to do my muscular workouts to get in shape and ready on time for Everest. I will still go at premiere performance for Powerwatts and at AllezUp for climbing but now I'll be able to do also a lot from home On me demande souvent ce que je fais pour le cardio. En plus des sessions de Powerwatts, je trouve qu'il n'y a rien comme monter les 250 marches dans Westmount (coin The boulevard et Renfrew pour ceux qui se demandent c'est où) avec ma vest de poids de 60lbs - j'utilise les produits de MIR weight vest - et mon training mask.
En plus d'en retirer un bénéfice pour mon cardio, tout mon corps travaille pour monter et descendre les marches. combien de fois ? au moins 5 aller-retour vue que je le fais la même journée qu'une journée de PowerWatts Tomorrow, we're heading to Chimborazo - Highest peak of Ecuador - for one final stop before coming back to Canada.
it's been a great trip so far and can't wait to see how it will go on Chimborazo. I've never been a fan of alpine starts so this trip as been challenging but I guess I'll have to deal with it as the Everest summit push is all done overnight Time to rest, enjoy the view and get ready for the next climb What a day ! A lot of people ask my why I climb and when I describe an expedition they're always saying something like : " and you enjoy this. where's the fun ? rather be on the beach" . True, sometimes 80%, sometimes even 95% of the climb is not so enjoyable but in the last 5% there's the emotion attached to reaching the top of a mountain. Really hard to describe, only mountain climbers can relate to it. So it's full of emotion that we've reach the summit of Antisana this morning Véronique, Fredy and I in a perfect weather day with clear blue sky and an amazing view of the volcano avenue.
For Véronique, it was her first big summit and she can now relate to how emotional you get when you reach a summit. It wasn't easy for her as Antisana is quite technical with plenty of crevasses but digging deep, she made it and we happily celebrated the summit together. I love mountain climbing ! We've been in Ecuador for few days now visiting, hiking around and getting acclimatized. Well the relaxing part of the trip is over. Today was our last hiking day, going up the Quito Teleferico and then hiking to the top of the Pichincha Volcano (4784m).
we enjoyed the view over Quito and we got a glimpse at our first target : climbing Cayambe. It will be fun and interesting to see how Véronique adapt to this new environment has this is a first for her. Actually, there will be a lot of first for her : sleeping in altitude, walking on a glacier with crampons, on a rope team, over night. I'm confident it will be a smooth ride (except maybe the car ride to get there...) Ever wonder what kind of jacket you wear on a 8000m peak ?
Clearly not you regular winter coat for the Montreal Weather. Ok, it's cold in Montreal, sometimes it feels even colder than Denali or Vinson because of that wet cold air but never like up high in altitude. You have to have some serious gear to stay warm and come back in one piece. Yes, I'm talking about that one piece down suit jacket that you may have seen in flagship stores and wonder who would ever buy one. The answer : me ! (and all the other climbers going after a 8000m peak) not many brand offer this type of suit. Most popular are Mountain Hardwear, The North Face, Marmot and Feathered Friends. I've decided to go with the absolute zero down suit from Mountain Hardwear simply because I know it's going to work and it was the best deal I could find - trust me, a downsuit doesn't run for cheap. Can't wait to try it on this winter to plow the snow in my backyard ! Yep, the weather is as bad as they say it can be on Mount Washington !
so all day we had a rainy kind of day but the weather was holding, I guess it was just waiting for us to get near the summit, to make sure we had it all ! Thankfully, from past experience on Mount Washington, knowing how bad it can be and simply being smart, Veronique and I had all the proper gear to face it. We had our full gore-tex kit, light down jacket, extra layers, etc. ready in case things went wrong. Sadly, it's hard to believe that even with all the publicity that this mountain gets from bad weather, that people simply hike it in short and t-shirt without even a rain jacket or proper shoes. No wonder that every year there's people having trouble up there... Getting to the top was in full cold rainstorm with winds and low visibility. Took a picture, went inside ( yes, I know, this is always a weird part about Mount Washington) to switch layers from short and rain gear to long sleeve and gore-tex and that was it. Wet and Cold - Great way to start a week-end ! As we are getting closer to our upcoming climbing trip in Ecuador, Veronique and I are spending the weekend in a very famous spot : Mount Washington and Mount Lafayette.
So over the week-end, we will start Saturday with the infamous Mount Washington to see if the weather is really as bad as they say and then, if we make it back in one piece, we'll travel to Mount Lafayette for a Sunday hike and drive back to Montreal. |
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Welcome ! Here you'll find all the news regarding my different expeditions, ongoing and future trips, gear reviews and general comments
Bienvenue ! Ici vous trouverez toutes les nouvelles concernant mes différentes expéditions, voyages en cours et futur. Vous y trouverez également des revues d'équipements et des commentaires généraux.