"Feel free to cope"

Thank you for all the kindness shown to Saturdays blip from up above the inversion, I'm glad you all liked it as much as I did.

Today was my much looked forward to High Altitude Medicine course. 14 really eager participants all arrived early, despite a few having hit the bars and clubs of Chamonix the night before - well it's not often you get to spend a day with someone who is the absolute foremost expert in the world in their speciality. Jon Dallimore needs no introduction in trekking and mountaineering circles - he actually is the man who wrote the book - and the research paper and all the articles....

We spent the day learning quite literally life saving procedures for High Altitude Pulmonary and Cerebral Edema - using oxygen generating chemical mixes, a portable altitude chamber - but equally as impressive after 25 years of working in emergency medicine Jon was able to take a group of pretty highly competent first aid people and improve our basic procedures. Several tiny tips have already changed the way I'll deal with a lot of 'standard' first aid. A really fascinating and informative day.

As ever I really enjoyed being around someone so comfortable in his expertise, Jon had plenty of informative, unique and sometimes harrowing anecdotes, but they were all told with compassion and a slightly dark medical humour. Everyone's favourite phrases were his leadership motto (this blips title) and warning that the worst ailment to be encountered in the mountains, and one that often sadly proves fatal is "a chronic deficiency of judgement".

Oh - and just to finish my cardinal blips - this is West - the Dôme du Miage.