Winter steps...

It's been a challenging first part of the winter for me. Just before Christmas, my previous back injury recurred putting me out of a action for a few weeks. Winter conditions have been slow to build up in the mountains with quite a few periods of thaw and never a huge amount of snow to build up a good base.

I had booked to do my MIC training at Glenmore Lodge during the last week in January but due to the complete lack of winter conditions, this was postponed until early February. Thankfully, everything seemed to come together at the right time, with cold temperatures, snow and a significant improvement in my back all happening at the same time.
I had a few days out testing my back, including an icy trip up a verglassed Tower Ridge, some soloing on the easy Nevis gullies and a grand day snatching a couple of ice routes on Aonach Mor while they were still there!

Icy Tower Gap but not very wintry!

Ascending No.4 Gully with WHC students

With winter returning, my MIC training course went ahead at the start of February. The course was run in an excellent manner, allowing us to really get the most out of each day. Our first day was a refresher looking at snow anchors and the difference between these in the context of Winter ML and MIC. We had a good bit of exfoliating spindrift to contend with but managed to get lots covered.

Next up was our mountaineering day and we headed to the Fiacaill Buttress and onto the ridge looking at short roping in winter. This was a great day and really emphasised the importance of good judgement and decision making (despite me losing my ice axe at the end of the day!).

We headed to Creag Coire Cha-No for the first of our climbing day and explored accessing the crags from above and climbing in series, with teaching points and progression all covered.

With a high avalanche hazard over West, our parallel climbing day saw us going on a mini-adventure to Lurcher's Crag. We descending South Gully and looked at changing the different rope systems from single/mountaineering styles to climbing in parallel on the harder sections. This was a grand day out and the crag had a superb sense of remoteness despite being easy enough to access.

On our final day we went to the Twin Rib area in Coire an-t Sneachda and covered accessing crags through the crag apron as well as changing over from different rope systems and some snow pack analysis.

Many thanks to Derek, Mark and Dave at the Lodge for running a superb training course and to fellow candidates Niels, Patrick and Ross for making it good fun too.

Back to work on Sunday, I was out with returning client Nikki and her son Olly for an outstanding day on Meall Cumhann followed by some scrambling and an abseil on Scimitar Ridge. A great day with great company- thanks guys!

Summit selfie with Nikki and Olly on a snowy Meall Cumhann (698m)

Abseiling on Scimitar Ridge

Monday saw me start my consolidation process towards my MIC assessment and I was out with Mac and Sam who had kindly offered to be my guinea pigs for a couple days. I have signed up to the AMI Mentoring Scheme to help me towards my MIC assessment and it was very useful to chat through plans and options with my mentor, Al Halewood.

With strong Easterly winds forecast, we headed to a new route for me, the Dragon's Tooth on the Ballachulish Horsehoe. This was the fist time I had done this route and it turned out to be a great wee day out with some nice easy climbing up the gully and some good grade I-II mountaineering on the ridge. We stayed reasonably sheltered from the winds too!

To up the challenge a little bit, on Tuesday we went to tackle the super classic Curved Ridge (II/III) on the Buachaille. Things were unsurprisingly busy on the route but we made steady progress and had some amazing views from the summit. The descent into Coire na Tulaich was well travelled and safe so we made good time back to the Glen. Thanks to Sam and Mac for being excellent company over the last few days.

After a quick stop at home I had the pleasure of delivering one of the Clachaig Winter Safety Lectures. Thanks to everyone who came along in support and to Ed at the Clachaig for asking me to present one of the lectures. Hopefully everyone found it useful and entertaining!

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A Week of Contrasts

Wednesday saw my first bit of 'Summer' work for West Highland College. Dennis, Julie and I were working with students to look at aspects of leadership in the mountains. With the snowline still being quite low, we kept even lower and had a great wander in Glenfinnan. Plenty of scenarios for the students from blisters and grumpy clients to broken ankles and missing people!

I had an unexpected day off on Thursday and Steve asked if I'd be keen to go climbing. With a great forecast and good conditions reported, there was only one answer to that! We headed up Observatory Gully and decided that Ordinary Route (V,5) on Observatory Buttress was too inviting to walk past! Great ice, weather and company and really enjoyable climbing meant for a superb day!

Heading up Observatory Gully (pic Steve)

Steve on P1

Me on P2 (pic by Steve)

More great climbing

Happy chappies! (pic by Steve)

We had a big thaw over Friday and Saturday and today I was back up the Ben with Mia and Nathan on the Mountain Track. The thaw was evident from early on but there was still plenty of snow around even on the track. A great effort from the pair who managed up and down in around 7 hours. First time in crampons too!

With high pressure forecast this week, looks like Spring will be making and appearance!

Winter Fun!

It's been a busy few weeks since the last blog post. We've had some stormier weather which seems to have settled down and the last few weeks have been fantastic in the mountains.

I had a couple of great days with Rebecca and Debbie who were here on a Ben Nevis Winter weekend trip. We had a proper wild day around the CIC hut looking at Winter skills (and survival skills!).

 Rebecca and I headed up the Ben and she put in a superb effort getting to 1200m before calling it a day.

Andy and I headed out climbing and it was a sociable day on the Douglas Boulder with Steve and Hannah on Gutless and Nathan and Cormac following us Jacknife (V,6). It was nice to get on the sharp end on something a bit harder and the crux pitch was great with good protection and absorbing climbing.

 We had planned on a second route but on descent I was struck down by the Winter vomiting bug! Glad I wasn't on anything too committing that day!

 Last weekend Hannah was out with Gemma and Nick  and Dave was our with Sonnaz and her friends for a couple of trips on Ben Nevis and Winter Skills. Some stunning weather showcasing the UK's Highest Peak in all it's glory!

 After a few days in bed recovering, I headed back up to the Ben on a very 'Scottish' day! With lots of spindrift piling down the mountain, we settled on Fawlty Towers (III) for a quick hit.

 Last week I was out in Glencoe with Julie and 3rd year students from West Highland College looking at decision making in the mountains, using the 'Be Avalanche Aware' model. This was a great day out and there were lots of interesting points for the students to consider

Mark was out for us with Liz on Friday tackling the Ben in some challenging conditions, well done team!

Yesterday was set to be glorious so James, Andy and myself decided to go climbing! Andy led up P1 of Vanishing Gully (V,5) which was in great nick whilst I got to lead the steeper icefall and up onto Tower Ridge. The continuation gully had a great little pitch where it narrowed which was well worth doing. With a few slower teams ahead of us, we decided to descend Tower Ridge and back into Observatory Gully. Lots of teams out enjoying the day, with the Orion Face looking very popular (and rightly so!)