Skye trip

Glenda and I took a last minute decision to head over to Skye at the weekend. We arrived Friday night and our plan was the Dubh's ridge for Saturday. After walking down Glen Sligachan in the dark for 1hr 30min we piched the tent for the night. We awoke to stunning views, glorious blue skies and sunshine. Unfortunately we were short of time to climb the dubh's ridge so headed up Sgurr Na Stri for some playing on the rough gabbro- splendid!

Back on rock...

My first time out climbing since I broke my back in September. Did Phantom Slab (VS 4c or 5a I think?) in Glen Nevis. Lovely route, and nice to get back out climbing. Topped out to the sun setting and just hitting the tops of the hills.

Glencoe Guiding

Was out today with Chris, Steve, Graham and Jonny from London in Glencoe. The guys were planning on some Winter walking but due to lack of snow we made do with a Spring trip up both Munros of Buachaille Etive Beag. After a very wet start the rain eased and we were treated to some great views of the Glencoe peaks and down to Loch Leven and Loch Etive. Some cloud and gusty winds on the tops added to the atmosphere! The team did really well and we even had time to have some practice of basic winter skills on the remaining snow patches. Well done guys!

Glencoe scramble

Was up in Glencoe today with glenda for a Spring like scramble up the zig-zags of Gearr Aonach. Lovely wee route and much nicer than the unrelenting path up to the Coire! Then we headed up the NE ridge of Stob Coire nan Lochan. A small group out doing some Winter skills/snow anchors on the few remaining patches. Feels very much that Winter is over!

Dry Tooling at the Lodge

Back from an MLTA CPD Dry-Tooling Course at Glenmore lodge today. This was run by Pete Hill MIC ( www.petehillmic.com). The small group of four allowed us to benefit from some coaching from Pete and we all learned lots. We then headed outside in the sunshine for some routes on the granite towers. A great day overall, lots of fun and a good workout on the arms!

Navigation Practice in the clag!

Out today in the hills just north of Kinlocheil doing some navigation practice for my (hopefully upcoming!) Winter ML assessment. Wet, windy and cloudy weather made for some interesting conditions and the pretty featureless ground allowed some challenging legs to be done. Good test of the waterproofs too!

Winter Skills on Ben Nevis

Had a great day on Ben Nevis today teaching Nik some Winter Skills. This was Nik's first time out in Winter and he did really well learning how to move efficiently on snow and ice. We covered how to use crampons, ice-axe self arrest and self belay and some avalanche risk assessment. Lots of spindrift around and some soft slab building up quickly on the underlying hard snow