Expedition Event 2022 Roundup
Photo: Monstrous Regiment Expedition 2022, Kyrgyzstan
It was a such a joy to host our first Expedition Event since February 2020.
Hosting it for the first time at our Capel Curig shop certainly didn’t disappoint!
Building up to the weekend, our extremely popular podcasts hit all major platforms. Series four was recorded especially for the Expedition Event with some very special guests. Don’t miss the Kit Lists episodes with Everest Basecamp Trek specialist Paul Poole, Polar travel specialist Catrin Thomas from the British Antarctic Survey and Rab sponsored alpinist, andinista, Himalayan climber and expedition specialist Andy Cave. If you are in the market for Mountaineering boots then take a listen to “Good ‘n’ Stiff” with Scarpa Core Sales Director Glyn Padget and if you value your stomach health then World Extreme Medicine Joint Medical Director Dr Will Duffin has a world of great advice to follow on safe drinking water.
Across the weekend we welcomed old friends and new as customers were able to chat with some of the worlds most experienced Guides and Expedition leaders:
International School of Mountaineering Director and British Mountain Guide Adrian Nelhams held free workshops on how to plan an expedition and looked at pathways to help climbers and mountaineers achieve their mountain goals. As a British Mountain Guide Adrian works internationally offering a huge variety of fantastic courses as well as private guiding so he was well qualified to help customers shopping for specific trips, offering ideas on layering and product features that would work well in different environments as well as here at home.
Rab sponsored athlete Jon Gupta owns and runs Mountain Expeditions, a specialist expedition company offering UK instructing & guiding, worldwide expeditions & expedition specific training. His mountain experience includes organising and guiding the current record breaking 7 summits Guinness World Record, regularly guiding 6000, 7000 and 8000m peaks including Everest and K2 and with over 30 ascents of Kilimanjaro, he was very happy to talk with customers about kit and pathways into the outdoor profession.
Outside the shop customers had an opportunity to see both MSR and Soto stoves in action, learn how to strip them down and service them too with our fantastic brand representatives. There was also the opportunity to try Real Turmat expedition foods which are rating very highly among the shop staff as possibly the tastiest food we currently stock! The Chicken curry was a definite favourite, the Clipfish – weeeeell, the jury’s still out on that one.
On Saturday night our friends down the road at the National Outdoor Centre; Plas y Brenin hosted a captivating evening talk by Brian Hall. Sponsored by Mountain Equipment, Brian talked about his new book to a full house. High Risk which is not only a collection of stories centred around some of the hardest climbers of the 70’s and 80’s but also a profoundly personal recollection of his friends with haltingly honest accounts of how mental health and trauma shaped their lives at the time and his own to this day. Definitely a book to add to your climbing library.
Yet more of our fantastic brand representatives were on hand across the weekend from Rab, Mountain Equipment and La Sportiva answering super techy questions from customers and staff on down, sleeping bags and high altitude footwear. We also had staff members on hand recently returned from expedition to Kyrgyzstan and another currently planning an expedition to a rarely visited area of Nepal to attempt an unclimbed peak. Watch out for their interviews which will be published on our Joe Brown Outdoor Academy Expedition Event page soon.
Our last job on Sunday was to draw 19 lucky winners from a huge carrier bag of raffle tickets. Check your phone or e-mails to see if you are one of our lucky winners as all have now been notified. A list of winners is available here. A MASSIVE thank you to all who brought raffle tickets and tickets to see Brian Hall talk as together we raised a whopping £1011 for Community Action Nepal to continue Doug Scott’s legacy delivering life changing health, education and livelihood programmes in the remote communities of Nepal.
Thank you to all of our suppliers who supported us with their time and prizes for this event and also to our friends at the Moel Siabod café who offered free hot drinks to our customers across the weekend – very welcome in the soggy Autumn weather!
Don’t forget to take a look at our Expedition Event page on our Joe Brown Outdoor Academy website here where there are links to a selection of diverse films offering a broad insight into what the mountains mean to us individually. You can join Jon Gupta climbing from basecamp to the summit of Everest, watch how Afghani rock climbers defied stones and bullets to achieve more in the high mountains than they ever dreamed or learn more about the great work of Community Action Nepal. There are short videos full of tips on packing for alpine trips from the ISM team with links to Podcasts and Buyers guides too. Still to come are interviews with members of our staff team (uploading shortly) and we will be publishing our very first product videos too!
So curl up with a brew and enjoy a little digital expedition therapy while we get planning our Expedition Event 2023.
See you next year!
Photo: Paul Casey, Zaalay Range Kyrgyzstan - Which One Should We attempt?