 Hello, Mark. My headphones. Hello. I can't hear you. I'm on mute. But I can't hear you. You can hear me now? I can hear you now. Yes, perfect. I was just to say that we're just waiting for a few more people and then we'll make a start. But just seeing some more people join as we're talking. So welcome everyone. Thank you for joining us tonight. Okay, we'll make a start because it's eight o'clock. So thank you everyone for joining us this evening. This is the first in our series of cortex pro talks, where we'll be chatting over the next few weeks to some of the world's leading ice climbers skiers, mountaineers. Professionals who all really share one thing in in common, the challenge of pitting themselves against the elements and they quest for ever greater adventures. Our first guest this evening of our first guest in the, in the series of talks really is, is Ines Papa. Hello, Ines. Hi everyone. Ines is a climber and alpinist with a 20 year career already behind her. And no doubt a fair few adventures ahead, as we'll hear about this evening. She's sponsored by one of our favorite mountain brands, Arcterix, and also four times ice climbing world champion as well. She's tonight she's going to be talking about little about what she's been up to over the last seven months, whilst the rest of us or whilst we've all been in lockdown. Really unusual times here and her husband Luca have been searching out newer sense near the home in the barrier. And tonight she joins us from Slovenia. Is that is that right. Yeah, you've driven. It's just like I changed my mind a little bit since I think that talking that series of talks is a bit more about winter and ice and alpine climbing. In the past seven months were more or less about, you know, it was a summer season so I'm going a little bit further back in the last two years and like to talk about some of my most intense and intense climbs I've been doing in the past two years. Okay, yeah. Well, I mean, not at all. No, no, no, I've seen some of the pictures so I know we're into a great talk anyway. So just a few things before we start where we're, this is this is obviously a live event and please feel free to put any questions in the chat box for Innis. And we'll get to them as we as we go and at the end as well we're trying to get through as many as possible. It's also being broadcast live on Facebook. So if you want to, it's some connection sort of disconnect whatever reason then you can catch up on whatever you've missed there so has a habit doing that. I do hope you'll stick around till the end because at the very end we've got fantastic prize as well for anyone who sticks around till the end. And that's an autumn LT hoodie up for grabs so we'll I can win something, Mark. I can win something. That's great. So I'm going to stay till the end for sure. Great. Thank you. Good. I'm going to hand over to Innis. I'm going to mute my mic so I'll hand over to you now Innis. Thank you. Yeah, and whenever you have questions Mark just jump in and let me know. I am fine with answering questions during my talk anyways. But yeah, this is a very special situation for me talking in front of my computer and not in front of you guys and a huge audience I've been in the UK at the Fort William Festival some years ago and it was such an amazing crowd. And I really miss talking to you in person like it's hopefully gonna be happen again one day and I'm super excited to see you all again one day so Okay now we have the first picture. This shows me as an ice climber some or most of you might know me as an ice climber only but it was actually more or less the beginning of my career that I really started to feel that kind of freedom in the mountains climbing big roots in the mountains and ice climbing, but ice climbing, mixed climbing, I've been in Scotland several times and being really lucky with conditions partners I climbed with Ian Parnell I climbed the same usually with Dave McLeod all amazing characters. And ice climbing was always a really important part of my life as a climber but over the years I noticed that ice climbing only is just not enough I wanted to to you know transmit my skills from what I learned in the mountains on ice into the big mountains into the ranges and, of course, traveling became more and more a really important part of my life and this hurts my heart so badly that we can't really travel through these days but this is how we have what we have to deal with all of us right now and what I'm sure better times will come, but the globe is a huge playground for big alpine climbs in those ranges and one of the most for me was Casey Lasker because I tried I attempted that mountain three times in my life like three expeditions to the same mountain, not even 6000 meters high but fairly hard. The mountain kicked our ass again and again. And once I met Luca, my current husband. I noticed that it's probably the person I'd like to attempt again and I knew I wouldn't go forth time. So Luca and I we came in 2016 from the other side from Chinese site so the approach was way shorter. That way more knowledge from all my earlier attempts back in the other years. And yeah, finally, we found the face and really amazing conditions but again, as every other attempt we got into a huge storm late in the evening. But we were high enough to that we couldn't really bail but we found ourselves in a pretty exposed position, high up the mountain like close to the top but just not there and I was like oh no this is not true now. Why is it happened again. We are running into storm, but we suffered through the storm. We had a terrible baby. Luckily, we were both close enough already that we were sharing one backpack sleeping bag. The next day blue sky again brilliant weather and we continued our way up to the highest point of that mountain. He said Oscar became really important part of my life because I invested so much and this is what I always love to tell people hey, whatever you have a dream you have a project you you got your ass kicked. Go and try again and believe me or not once you will succeed and we succeeded and I was for sure one of my best days ever in my life and all the disappointment from earlier attempts was just forgotten. And then you look at the phase and you draw in this beautiful line that you just climbed. It makes you feel proud. It was the first descent it was like attempted by so many other teams and everyone could have been doing it if the conditions were right but if you're there at the wrong time, you can succeed so we were lucky enough to be fast enough to get the right conditions and we finally did it. So with that kind of great feeling and positive mindset we realized many other projects together but also one of the most pretty ones in the area at home where I have been living past 25 years of my life. So I call this place my home bestest garden and our mountain is called batsman really scenic mountain but no one has done this traverse all of the summits in the in the winter. So we came up with the idea and we just had to to find the right window the right conditions. We knew it's all about the conditions. It would be a long long day but if we continue and if we find a smart way how to climb how to climb it and we have a smart logistic. We would do it. But then the big guy came at the very end and we didn't find the existing route it was just all covered in snow and ice. So we apparently climbed a new line up to the highest point and after 36 hours and many many vertical meters like 3600 or something. We finished the traverse the first with the traverse of batsman, which was just the perfect preparation and training for a big expedition in the Himalayas. And since I have never been on an 8000 meter peak that was became more and more my desire to at least try a big mountain in the Himalayas and put style in Alpine style. So we went to Shishapangma south face in 2018 in the summer and and not in the summer in the spring season and our goal was to climb this huge 3000 meter south face of the mountain, maybe hopefully on a new route. And so far we were really spoiled by good luck of weather of conditions of teamwork of our personal health and so we were convinced we can succeed here as well. But things on this huge face changed our mindset dramatically in a way that I still have a hard time to to forget about what happened because we were acclimatizing properly because the high altitude would take a lot of energy from us so we had to be prepared really properly. And the neighborhood mountain just 7000 meters high almost killed our lives while we were sleeping in the tent because the weather forecast was really unpredictable and the snowfall didn't stop and this huge flank above us was just deep enough that the snow wouldn't stay and it came all the way down onto our tent and while we were sleeping we could feel the pressure of the snow and I woke Luca up and put him off the tent and yeah we just made it off the tent right at the time. So there was no way we would keep going this expedition we were so shocked and it was such a close call. Now we had quite a difficult time to understand what was wrong so far we always got the feeling we have everything under control we can with the you know power we have and with the passion we bring. Nearly everything is possible but the mountain told us a different story. And this really took us quite a little bit of time to recover from the shock and all the desire about climbing. Alpine style in higher ranges was just gone and but climbing has always been part of my life of Lucas life. And so we couldn't just stop climbing but climbing has so many different phases you know you can so many different types and we focused for quite a bit on rock climbing in the home area and open new roots and. plate in the vertical rock phases that but slowly both of us like Luca and I could feel slowly the desire coming back for. Yeah, big ranges, not quite enough to go back to the Himalayas but finding a place where we would feel safe enough to disappear if something happened and yeah the Canadian Rockies came in all our minds in our mind and since we have many friends over there and came more in Canada. Arcterix is a brand from Canada at home in Vancouver so it feels like my second home and that was just the time when we planned our trip to Kenmore to the Benf Mountain National Park but we were we always wanted to stay open minded with where we would go what we would do we had many many ideas and. many plans, but we wanted to keep things open and to just do what feels appropriate and and and right. So. Our first trip into the valley of 10 peaks was just more about exploring then. That we really planned a difficult climb, but we had all our gear with us just in case you never know it's a long hike in many many hours. The roads are covered in snow, then you put up your up your tent at the bottom of those big faces that so remote there's no other climbers. It's just, it was just good to be back in the mountains after nearly a break of alpine climbing. Again we faced the difficulties of weather and conditions it was snowing and like every day. We could face some really dramatic spin drift and we just starts to early we have to wait and to be patient enough to find safe conditions, because just attempting without really knowing we would make it. At least we had a plan B. That was the plan so we turned back into town to anymore and had this amazing. Chance to run into Barry Blanchard. He is a legend. He is like the guy who opened back in the days many, many of the big claims and the Canadian Rockies. And he was so helpful so supportive with information with stories he's been sharing from his essence back in the 80s. So one of the routes he's been he's he has done with his team, Dave Chiesmont and Carl Tobin was a Mount Faye the East face, but Barry also told us they couldn't finish the line straight up to the summit. So they had difficulties with snow with avalanche they got hurt and they had to abandon so they finished the climb but not in the straight line. So this was still an open project and everyone was kind of curious if this was possible the face is quite big it's like over 1000 meters and sustained difficult climbing. Yeah, but we just had to wait the right conditions and write the moment when the conditions turned into brilliant so I guess that was our hope. But if you don't check you want know. I ran into our friend Brett Harrington she is a longtime friend that she was like trying to find climbing partners so we invited her to join us because we thought being in a team with the three of us totally makes sense and she kind of he was, it seems she was the right person to join the climb on Mount Faye East face. So this time we were smarter we didn't carry our gear. On our backs, but we were pulling it behind and fledged us, because the approach is long but not super steep. And the snow was just perfect for that. Yeah, then we set up our first little camp on the base of this mountain and yeah it was like everything seemed right we looked at the mountain. We looked into each other eyes and we could feel the positive energy in this little team. So we couldn't really wait to finally start climbing but it was a short rest after the long hike in, because we started at midnight. We knew from very pleasure that the lower part of the face is really prone for avalanches. Once the sun hits the face in the in the morning, we should. He said we should try to be as high as possible so we were climbing in a really good speed like safe but still fast and we gained hundreds and hundreds of meters to the sun would hit the face and all of the sudden. We got a little bit into spin drift but this was nothing we were worried about and yeah the closer we got to the head wall the more convinced we were that it's probably possible. For sure, not easy anything else than easy but maybe possible and yeah there's always this point of no return you know when you hit the upper head wall. You have to an alpine style you only bring a limited amount of gear and the repelling the higher you claim the smaller the chances that you were able to repel with what you have on your harness. So we had to make a decision here, which was quite a start of the steep part of the wall and Luca looked around the corner to find a smart start of this steeper part and all of the sudden he found this crack system super steep overhanging like mixed something like really really really long moves and it was like belaying him was really impressive because he was like flying up not the first not the first go because he was aiding this pitch like from each piece of gear he could place to another one. But then once he finished this pitch I could see him thinking if we still have the time he could free the pitch and then I was kind of asking him if he want to come down because we could see we still have enough time. And we were prepared for a bv anyways so he was really happy to send this pitch second go turned out to be a difficult pitch in proper mountain boots like m8 or even a little harder. And Brett and I started following and Luca kept going leading this block he was really in his element he was flying up you could see his skills like over, like what he gained over many many years in his home mountains in Slovenia and also in the Himalayas. He was the engine of the team for sure he was the engine and we could just do anything to support him and take over the lead whenever he was tired. The day was nearly at the end and we were guessing there was still another half day to the summit. So we prepared ourselves to quite uncomfortable bv on a little ledge of snow we showered and we're waiting the next morning. And that was when Brett started leading a couple pitches and we noticed it's anything else than over it was still steep like vertical rock mixed with ice and alpine ice you know the quality of the rock got kind of scary in there the gear we could place got less and less and every single move needed to be really safe because we knew no one will help us up here we can only help ourselves so a single fall would be a terrible accident and so yeah you try to climb safe but kind of fast the same time and then I took over the lead and kept going so we could slowly see ourselves closer to the end of the climb and yeah still pitch after pitch was forcing all of our left power the power we had left and it was really difficult we could just hope for a stable weather the second day that we would at least have some visibility when we top out and descent on the mountain the other side in hiking terrain but in terrain where you really want to see something but yeah the higher we climbed the worst the conditions got the snow got deep and Luca was digging in snow like for half an hour and that got kind of dark when he did his last moves to the edge of the mountain like it was overhanging it was deep and it was just you knew we knew you can see this little cornice on top we had to get around this cornice and then it would be over so this is what the last pitch was it got kind of dark Brett and I started following and it got really night when we all stand on top of this mountain then you can see in our it's a shitty photo I know but it was a selfie done with the phone and but you can see our happy faces but the sand was still ahead of us and it was a long one took us another two days to find back down to Moraine Lake and finally back to Kenmore but when we hiked back with our last little bit of energy and food we had in the backpacks we promised each other that this route deserves a special name and so it was obviously dedicated to Mark Andre and our late friend and Brett's partner so he had actually the plan to climb this route with Luca earlier before he passed away and got killed in an avalanche and he had this magic song in mind from Simon Garfanko which is called the sound of silence and that seemed just the perfect name for a perfect line in my opinion a really good style and this is yeah this is my little story about alpine climbing and how I learned to find the desire again after a difficult time with fears and also yeah moments where I didn't really want it to touch my eyes tools again but this mountain changed everything and yeah I'm happy that I found the right partner not just in life but also for climbing Luca and we are having plans every minute and we are always ready to climb mountains whatever the situation allows so hope we can make it to Alaska next spring that was the plan for this year but COVID-19 changed everything and yeah this is actually my little talk to you guys tonight and if you have any questions just feel free to ask. It is thanks thanks very much for that that's great it makes me definitely want to go to the mountains really inspirational thank you I've got a few questions that came in so as you were talking there Abby and her eight year old Annabelle said she's really enjoying the talk so thank you for that she also asks would like well she would like to know what's your favourite snack is to give you energy when you're in the mountains. Honestly I love the most proper sandwich. But this you can't always have you know it's like I like nuts I like dried fruits. I also like to eat a piece of speck of lard and some some crackers so but when we when we be we and then we have the time to cook something I use Leo food which is dehydrated food pretty natural and biological so this is the tastiest for my stomach. Great stuff I like speck as well it's nice and one one other question and obviously after the after the avalanche so when when did the avalanche happen what was that what year was that trip. It was in 2018 and she's a part of my self based. Okay, because you're obviously you're obviously a parent as am I as as that. Do you think being a parent has changed your attitude to risk at all because how old your your son now I guess that happened before. Yeah my son was born in 2000 so he just turned 20 this year so he's not a proper child anymore but of course he's always my child. Yeah, and yeah, Mark this is a good question and many people are asking me about that, but I think I've never been a person that would push it to a level that I wouldn't be, you know, I also have that kind of. expectation to myself to always come back home to to have a long life. I love to live and of course there was often, but more in the planning process before I went to a mountain this thinking's like. Is this fair towards my son should I really take the risk or not. So that was actually one reason I haven't been crazy lots on expedition and also one reason I haven't been on an 8,000 meter peak. When I went with Luca I was still not ready to to die of course or to get killed but he was like 18 years old and I thought with Luca I feel totally safe like he's super smart and always ready to. I don't know if it's necessary so this gives me like the partners make a difference you know when I got the feeling. My partner is pushing it too hard, I would not try to catch up with the person again and this is always good to find the right partners when it comes to risk level like the risk level has to be the same level more or less. And does your does your son climbing you know. Yes, he does he's more into bordering sport climbing and that kind of stuff is he loves to sleep in and. I think I think climbing with no is for sure not what he really wants to do in his life but honestly I'm happy about it. I love seeing him. Craig a I love seeing him bordering and it's just it's perfect. I like I have I'm kind of proud he still likes to climb you know because he grew up with climbing and many kids from other parents that grow climber friends they they can't see it anymore they they are over with climbing when they are 18. But I think the more you push your kids. The less they do it from themselves the earlier they stop doing it. And so I don't know what if I do did everything right but I never pushed my son but I opened him the door to different kinds of activities in the mountains in the mountains and obviously he loves it. He still loves it. Also skiing and. It's good advice about children and pushing them into something isn't it and Chris asks how long have you been working with architects and what input do you have into their product development. And I just thought about that this morning for some reason and believe it or not it's 20 years. I'm working with characteristics. It's been a small company back in the days and but the personal contact and the friendships that grow over the years. We're just gaining and I could see the products. Like the product line was growing and growing and now it's 20 years later and I, I get everything from my turrets that I need for monitoring and what I appreciate is a lot is not just the quality of the product this is high end for sure. This just fulfills my needs in the mountains, but also the understanding of what we as athletes, what we are doing you know, we do risk our lives with what we are doing but I would never get any feeling from the company that I need to push myself into something I am not ready to do it. Every single project I'm doing is grown in my own head in my own mind and there's never been any, any disappointment so this has been a really powerful 20 years with the brand. And yeah, of course, it makes me proud to be able to help developing the products, testing them, giving feedback to the designers. It's fantastic. Yeah, at the end you get what you need and without any compromise. Have you, have you a favorite product that you wear day in day out. I attached it this morning because I, I kind of use it every day. It's the new clay FA. Yeah, it's, I love it. I use it in summer and winter as a base layer as the only layer and yeah, it's a really neat jacket insulated jacket for activities in the mountains, but of course I also use hard shares a lot. Yeah, as we is a really proper jacket with full fills all the needs that a client requires in the mountains. It's a lot of, you know, frustration to a fabric. When you know you climb over two days and you don't care about your jackets you just want to get up and survive and at the end of today's still alive it still works and yeah this is what what I really appreciate. Yeah, that's quite something. Just put a lot of pressure on you, a lot of wear on your gear. And Kenny, Kenny asks, he's got a few questions actually. When choosing a line on a first ascent, how do you, a first ascent, sorry, when, how do you go about it? Do you make what you consider to be the quickest route or the safest or the most challenging or the most fun, or is it something else? That's a good question. The most eye catching line that also is promising a safe climb. So, of course a new line and unclimbed line is always a big adventure. You never know if it's possible and the chance to fail is pretty high actually. But yeah, an eye catching line that, you know, where the desire is just like it makes me feel this is possible. We climb in alpine style. I really appreciate climbing in alpine style because you are allowed to be fast with a smaller backpack with a limited amount of gear. But it also limits the time of your ascent, you know, you can't climb for 10 days and nearly an alpine style because you have to carry food for 10 days, gas for 10 days. And this makes things interesting when it comes to speed. So I'm not really into speed climbing, but climbing fast is a good promise on succeeding quite often. Thank you. Kenny then asks, you mentioned that you visited the Fort William Mountain Festival a few years ago, is that right? Yeah, so you've been to Scotland. So he says, how do you rate ice climbing in Scotland? I presume you did a bit while you were up there. How do you rate ice climbing in Scotland? How do I rate it, like writing? Rate, so how good is it, my comparison with elsewhere that you've... Ah, it's not possible to compare with anywhere, anything. It's so different that there's no comparison possible. It's fantastic. I really love it when conditions are in. The first trip when I've been in Scotland, I brought, let me guess, eight or 10 ice screws, which was a totally stupid move, because you never find, or nearly never find water ice in Scotland. It's more about mobile gear, any other gear, but no ice screws. The second trip, I brought two ice screws because I thought just in case, and you know what, I didn't use any. And then my third trip, I didn't bring any, and believe it or not, every ice route was in conditions. Like I would have need eight ice screws to climb a line on the Nevis, but luckily over the years I got more and more friends in Fort William and Scotland. So it wasn't a problem to find some ice screws. Great. We've got a question here from Anonymous. Do you have any advice for a beginner boulderer looking to get into outdoor climbing? A boulderer. Yeah. So someone doing indoor climbing looking to get into outdoor climbing. I like, I think bouldering is the easiest mountain activity to get into them into the nature without risking your life too much. Well, I'm not so much into bouldering, honestly, but I think if you read articles, if you get, you know, psyched or like really hard-touched by pictures, try to get there and have a look and find those grades. You, you, you're able to climb in the gym or maybe even start in a lower rating than you're used to climbing the gym. I think footwork is a really, really important one when it comes to climbing in general and especially bouldering. And this is something you learn only in the nature, not really on plastic. Thank you. So Anonymous asks, he's interested to know if the recent or the ongoing pandemic, I should say, has hampered any of your 2020 plans? Can you say that again? So the pandemic, the COVID, has it affected, so you must have had some plans at the beginning of 2020. I mentioned already, we were supposed to go to Alaska, the bags were packed, everything was organized logistics, everything. And we were supposed to look at, I was supposed to climb in the Ruth Gorge and later to climb in the Mendenhall region of Alaska, and then going to Canada and yeah, keep going on the Pan-American highway until it's south to finish that long, long journey one day. So that was just supposed to be the first trip of the Pan-American, but yeah, all of a sudden it didn't happen. But yeah, I hope we can do it next year, but we did find some really amazing places in our backyard. As many of you probably, we opened new routes, we explored the place, we climbed difficult rock faces and it wasn't boring at all. I think this is in Bavaria, is it? Yes, Bethys Garden Bavaria. I think that we got slowed down a bit in our rhythm was pretty much what maybe everyone needed at some point. We would never come up with the idea of going by bike through Switzerland and climb the most iconic faces, which I did in the summer with my friend Karol North from Germany. So we spent a month only on our mountain bikes, we're pulling our gear behind and we're climbing as many faces as we could get there. It was a good experience to not use the car for one month and I think it was also the time to rethink all the, how much traveling we did in the past and how much airplanes were involved. And the global warming is just so obvious, like maybe also Mother Nature needed that break. Yeah, absolutely, because I mean you've traveled the world climbing lots of places, haven't you? So it must have been particularly tough in many ways, suddenly realizing that was not possible. Of course, my heart was bleeding, Mark. It was terrible, especially because I grew up in Eastern Germany behind the Iron Curtain and I was 16 when the war came down and I was a revolutionary with my parents. We were part of the revolution and all of a sudden the war came down and we could travel, you know. And since then, since I was 16, I've always been traveling and really enjoyed that freedom of go wherever I can afford to go. And yeah, all of a sudden it was impossible anymore. It was just, it was breaking my heart, yeah. Just a couple more questions if I may. Yes. So I've got one question from Alice. She says, what's your next project? I mean you touched on that because you didn't get to Alaska this year. Is that plan for next year? We go there next year, hopefully. Yeah. And yeah, there are some mountain faces we have Luca and I have in mind for the winter season in the Alps, which depends on conditions, but yeah, there is definitely enough playground in the Alps that we won't get bored. No, that's great. And then one final question I think from Kenny is he says, I noticed you, you ski to reach some of your ascents, do you ever climb with your skis to make a ski descent somewhere? So I think there's some pictures of you with your skis. I really like skiing, but I use skis more or less to approach the mountain and to go back home, but not really for steep skiing. I don't know, skiing is a different level. If you do expeditions like that, it's a different level of skills that you need in skiing and I'm not at this level. Thank you. That's been fantastic. Thank you very much for your time this evening. Obviously under normal circumstances. Thanks everyone for the really nice questions. I really like the questions. It's fun to answer them. Yeah, they've been great. And under normal circumstances, we probably would have hosted you in Covent Garden or in Manchester at one of our stores, but sadly obviously that's not the case. So maybe one day again, I would love to come over. We'd love to have you over that would be great. Just to kind of go back to what I was saying earlier, thank you for joining us tonight. I'm just about to post a link to, if anyone wants to enter competition, then you can win an Atom LT hoodie, courtesy of Art Terricks who've been our support this evening. So big thank you to them and to Gore-Tex as well. We've got these talks happening over the next four Thursdays, so if you'd like to join us next week, we've got John Bracey talking. He's one of Britain's foremost alpinists and he'll be talking with us next Thursday evening, so do sign up for that. I'll catch you on Facebook and really all I want to say was big thank you to you and as for giving it your evening to chat to us. I know it's getting on for 10 o'clock where you are now. It was a pleasure to me. Thanks for the invitation and I'm looking forward to see John's presentation. He's a really character. I really like him. How great you know John. Okay, that's great. Yeah, of course we know you. Such a small community, isn't it? Everyone knows everyone. Exactly. So thank you very much and thank you everyone for this evening. Really appreciate it. It's been great. Thank you. Bye bye.