Gareth Mottram has been using Páramo for the past few years. His interests include the environment, conservation, energy, carbon, exploration, mountaineering, science, technology, rock climbing and ice climbing. In 2009 he and his team set out to put 'Sarychat on the map' - here's his story and experience of Páramo...
"Sarychat Glacier, Western Kokshaal-Too, Tien Shan, K yrgyzstan With a MEF grant for the expedition, we had to give it a go - our aim, to explore the Sarychat glacier on the Kyrgyz/Chinese border, which is poorly mapped, apparently unexplored and unclimbed.
Our best information came from the American Alpine Institute 1:100,000 map. We knew we were heading into the wilds when our logistics company copied the glacier and river names off our map!
It took a gruelling nine days of load hauling to reach base camp. Conditions varied from dry and still at 20ºC+ to damp wind-driven snow - often in the same day. River crossings could mean simple stepping stones or wading through waist deep torrents. We encountered the worst moraine we'd ever seen and navigated the massively crevassed glacier, before setting up camp to climb for a few days.
On our first day, an exhausting 10 hour push, we put up a route of Scottish 2/3 and summitted two peaks, 4,864m and 5,014m. The second day, in two groups, we attempted two harder routes, Scottish 4 and 5. To our amazement both routes went and the two teams summitted three more peaks.
It took 24 days in the mountains losing over 6kg each, living on pasta, porridge and vitamin tablets, with blisters, bruises and frustrations. But we climbed five new peaks by three new routes, saw Ibex, Eagles, Tibetan Ravens, Giant Marmots, views no-one else has seen and, amazingly, stayed friends!
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Páramo gear lived up to the billing, keeping wind, rain and hail off on the load hauls and keeping snow out and warmth in on the mountains. Their ability to shift sweat and massively vent make the Aspira and Velez ideal for variable mountain conditions. The breathability and softness of Parámo waterproofs make biviing in them remarkably comfortable - no need to change into cold waterproofs. I've used Parámo for a couple of years now for winter climbing so it was the obvious clothing system for the midlatitude high altitude mountaineering planned for the Kyrgyz expedition. We took Aspira legwear, Aspira and Velez Smocks plus Torres Smocks for the high mountains, Cambia Sport long sleeve Tshirts, Cambia Boxers, with Fuera Smocks and Stretch Pants for loafing at camp."
Gareth Mottram
Website : www.paramo.co.uk
