The team is getting ready for the Mammut Peak Project; we are picking up training again on a higher and more intense level so that we will be fully prepared for the trip.
Because Mammut has asked us to make a team picture we’ve arranged a photo shoot this Saturday with Pingreply at the Monte Cervino near Rotterdam.
We would like to share some of the pictures with you already as we’ve did on our Facebook page as well.
This ‘behind the scenes’ picture is quite funny as well; spot the photographer 
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Dear Aelmans Melchior Congratulations – you’ve made it into the final round of the Mammut Peak Project. You, your team and a Mammut Alpine School guide will now be climbing one of 150 peaks in this, the greatest peak project of all times! The jury liked your proposal and chose your tour. That means you and your team members will each be getting items of apparel from the Mammut Jubilee Collection, consisting of a hard shell jacket, soft shell trousers and a backpack, all sporting the special Peaks Collection design. We’ll contact you again soon in person to make all the necessary preparations for your venture, agree the setting-off date and assign your mountain guide to you. Our website will soon be ready for Round 3, and the data relating to Round 2 will be transferred to the new website. As this takes time to organise, we will be taking the team pages out of service on Monday, 10 October 2011 for reprogramming work. That means that you should do any necessary editing to your team information today! The data will be transferred to the tour planning platform outdooractive.com where it’s easier to read and edit, and then we’ll be putting the 150 tours back on the Mammut website. Your tour will also be available on outdooractive.com as well as on some partner pages. Personal details will not appear here. If you don’t want your data to be migrated away from the Mammut website, please let us know by Monday, 10 October 2011. We’re delighted that you and your team are part of the Mammut Peak Project! You too? Then show us! Take a celebratory picture and upload it to our Facebook fan page. We look forward to seeing it? Best regards |
So whats up the next few months:
June 25 – July 3
David and Melchior will be in the Swiss alps to climb some mountains around Zermatt and also try the Taschhorn – Dom Traverse which is one of the classic alpine tours.
July 29 – August 8
Susanne, David and Melchior will be guiding a group of children with ADHD and/or Autism in the Schobergruppe (Austria) with a non-profit Foundation called Xmotion.
Every year some members of the Dutch Alpine Team commit at least one week to work as a volunteer for this organisation.
September 2 – September 5
The whole team will hopefully participate in the Mammut 150th anniversary called the The Biggest Peak Project in History. Also see this page about the project.
The Dutch Alpine Team is competing in the Mammut Peak Project challenge. Yesterday I’ve wrote the motivation for fase 2 (the selection of the teams).
Here is what I’ve wrote:
14 days ago I’ve got this email from Mammut with “Congratulations, you’ve made it into the next round!” as the subject…NICE! 
Now 300 team leaders are selected for this next round and half of it (150) will be selected to participate in the actual Peak Project.
The next step for us was to select a mountain which we wanted to climb and present it to Mammut. Here you’ll find the motivation for our mountain I’ve just submitted to the Mammut jury:
After spending some hours thinking which mountain to climb we’ve came up with a few criteria to which the mountain should comply to:
- unique; we think a lot of people will go for the famous mountains like Matterhorn or Mont Blanc so it has to be unique.
- original: the mountain has to have some original ‘features’; a link with Mammut 150th anniversary.
- time: the team has to be able to complete the climb within a rather small time window; a long weekend would be optimal.
- reachability: because of the rather small time window the mountain needs to be reachable in short time. This was a difficult one as a lot of the mountains we’ve put on our shortlist aren’t that easy to reach.
- difficulty: not all of my team members are equally experienced (some have more experience in rock climbing and others in alpine) so I have to take that in mind; I wanted all (5 at the moment) of the Dutch Alpine Team members to be able to join. Unfortunately one of the team members isn’t able to join so for this trip it’s 4.
Once we’ve got this list with criteria the search for ‘our’ mountain started on summitpost.org by selecting mountains based on height and located in Europe. At first we were looking at mountains of a height which included the number 150 so with a height of 3150 or 4150 meter. Some interesting mountains came up and where put on the short-list like Cima Brenta which is 3150 meters high. This mountain did comply with some of the criteria but not all and it was, in our opinion, not original enough.
We then thought why not search for a mountain which was first climbed in the year Mammut has been founded; 1862. It turns out that there are a lot, even famous ones like Grossglockner, Dent Blanche, Täshorn, etc. But once again these are not original enough.
Also we’ve found some rather unknown or less famous mountains…..the feeling one of these had to be it grown bigger….
One of the mountains on the list is Monte Disgrazia which my team and I have chosen to climb. It is maybe not the most spectacular, highest (3678m) or difficult (PD+ rating) one but it fully complies with the criteria and even more:
Unique: It’s not famous so little change other teams would select this mountain
Original: It was first climbed in 1862 (the year Mammut has been founded) by a Swiss guide named Melchior Anderegg (after which the team leader is named).
Time: the hut from where to climb can be reached in 4 hours. Also the climb itself will take about 7 hours.
Reachability: from The Netherlands it’s easy to drive to the area.
Difficult: the normal route has a PD+ rating so all team member are able to join the climb.
Taking all above, and especially the 2 points for originality we are sure this has to be ‘our’ mountain!
