Wet and windy

It has been a very wet, windy and warm day in the Highlands today. The freezing level was well above the summits. We didn't get any climbing done but it is set to get wintry tommorrow and Sunday is looking as though it will be a good day with low temperatures and clear skies. There is always the slack lining for Saturday as part of the Fort William Mountain Festival. http://www.mountainfilmfestival.co.uk/

Tower Scoop, Ben Nevis - Play

It was pretty windy on the Ben this morning and we had some light snow until about lunchtime. This at least had the effect of making everything look more wintery and the spindrift reminded us of waht Scotland is famous for!

Tower Scoop is a grade III ice route in Observatory Gully and was nicely sheltered from the wind. The guidebook describes it as 65m long but it provided two good pitches with the top one very steep providing a pokey 3 because of the lack of snow. There were plenty of steps and so the climbing was not hard and the ice was nice and sticky.

Looking wet and warm tomorrow!

Glovers Chimney, Ben Nevis III, 4 - Play

Well after a few days at home it was nice to be back in the mountains today - and the sun has been shining all day! We climbed Glovers Chimney on the Ben. The first pitch is an ice pitch that was good thick ice but had a small section missing where it narrows - this was easily bypassed and once into the gully the snow was solid neve. The top chimney pitch had some ice but was mainly rock. The top of Tower Ridge was very straightforward on hard snow. Teams were out on Comb Gully - which looked thin, Smiths Route, Number 2 Gully & Number 2 Gully Buttress and lots of teams heading up Number 4 gully.

Dorsal Arete - Stob Coire nan Lochan - Play

Another beautiful day in the Highlands today. Walking into the Lochain was like walking in the Alps - absolutely stunning. We had blue skies, crisp cold weather and loads of fresh powder. Same story as the last few days though from a climbing point of view. All that fresh powder whilst it looks nice is an absolute nuisance! It means that the ground is still insulated fro the cold so is not frozen so axes won't hold in the turf, rocks are loose and of course the gullies are out of bounds because of the avalanche potential. Bryn and I ended up soloing Dorsal Arete and enjoying the views at the top. Enjoy the photos!

West Face of Aonach Mor - Play

Today was one of the best weather days we have had over the last couple of weeks. Bryn and I headed round onto the West face of Aonach Mor for a bit of exploring and climbed a grade II gully called Ruth, which we then left once the ice got banked out with snow and headed up a ridge which is not mentioned in the guidebook but was about grade II. We experienced some rare summit views and there was no wind all day. The mountains are all well plastered with snow and the skiing would have been great at the Nevis Range today. For climbing the snow is still all a bit rotten because the ground is still warm and the snow is insulating it. Unfortunately it looks as though its going to get warm at the end of the week.

North Buttress, Buachaille Etive Mor IV, 4 - Play

Bryn and I chose North Buttress as todays objective on the basis that we would be able to abseil off the route rather than have to summit and deal with the wind loaded snow slopes at the top and in descent. It was a category 4 avalanche report again today and was snowing the whole time we were climbing. We climbed the chimney pitches to easier ground and then abseiled off in 3 full abseils.

More heavy snow - Inglis Clarke Ridge - Denied!

Bryn and I headed down to the White Corries today with a view to climbing the Inglis Clarke Ridge on Creise. This is a grade 3 ridge that gets 3 stars for quality. We did not realise how high up the face of the mountain started until we got their. Ridges are normally a good bet in heavy snow conditions but we would have needed to cross some exposed snow slopes to get to it so backed off. A nice walk in deep powder across the heather!

Day Five Winter Skills - Coire Leis

It has been snowing heavily all day and all night last night - in fact as I type there is snow falling in the garden of the cottage here in Fort William. Last night Will had to go home early because his mother was ill and Jason left amid fears of travel chaos on the M6. Paul and I headed up into Coire Leis at the foot of Ben Nevis. It was a beautiful day in fresh snow and we even got some views later in the day. We did some crampon work on some ice covered steps and looked at emergency use of the rope, including ice axe belays. We also managed the chimney pitch if the CIC hut that was plastered in ice!

Winter Skills Course - Day 4 - Glen Coe

It has been a pretty wild day today in the Highlands. It has been snowing above about 350m since yesterday, the winds have been gusting 90 mph on a Westerly and their has been a category 4 avalanche warning in place. We headed into Glen Coe today to do a journey putting into place the skills that we have covered this week. It was a great day to talk about safe route travel and to understand the importance of wind in avalanche avoidance.

I decided to go to the Col below Stob an Fhuarain which sits at 875m. This gave us a sheltered valley walk on slopes that were below the majority of the snow. Once we stuck our heads above the parapet at the col it felt like the living end! The guys experienced a proper Scottish white out with snow blasted faces and wind chill around -20 c. The wind was strong enough to pick up one of our rucksacks and chuck it about 30m. We navigated off and dropped back down to the peace and quiet of the valley.

Day 3 - Snow Shelters

One of my group had a slightly strained knee today so we made good use of the Gondola at Aonach Mor again and spent the day looking at planned snow shelters. It was snowing heavily all day and reasonably windy - there we reports of a small avalanche below Coire an Lochain triggered by a couple of climbers as we left the hill - no injuries but an indication of the amount of snow that is falling.
We built a shovel up and the photos show it before, during and after. Good warm work!

Winter Skills Course Day 2 - Stob Coire nan Lochan

We headed into Glen Coe today and enjoyed some good crampon practice, snow analysis and the summit. It was not as cold as forecast today but there was no wind and some fresh snow so it was very pleasant. Getting windy again over the next couple of days.

Winter Skills 5 day course - day 1 - Aonach Nid

I was out with Jason, Will and Paul today on the first day of a five day winter skills course. The weather was wild with temperatures above freezing and winds high enough to close the Gondola - luckily we got the only ride of the day up and only had to walk down. We covered movement on snow, use of the axe, ice axe arrest and snow pack analysis and had a good day out.

Sron na Lairig - Play

I headed out with two friends Alan and Todd today to Glen Coe. We climbed Sron na Lairig which is an Alpine style ridge, grade II. I chose it because it is reasonably low and sheltered from strong Westerly winds with a forecast of 100mph gusts. The plan worked and we had a good day despite the weather. It was warm again but the ground was frozen as soon as we got onto the ridge and the rain even changed to snow. We were in the Clachaig by 3:00pm so all was well!

Castle Ridge, Ben Nevis - Play

It was a pretty wild and windy day in the Highlands today but it was cold so Bryn and I headed up onto the Ben and had a great day out on Castle Ridge. This is the easiest of the three big ridges on the Ben and is a grade 3 route. We moved together for much of it on a plastering of spindrift snow. Unfortunately the turf was not frozen lower down but as we gained height the conditions improved although it was still pretty windy!

A good day out!

Rob

East Ridge of Beinn a Chaorainn

Tuesday 22nd January

We headed up the Esat Ridge of Beinn a Chaorainn. The lads were keen to do some Alpine style movement on a ridge and this proved the perfect venue. There was plenty of snow on the ridge and it was a proper Scottish day with spindrift, gusts of wind and feeling fairly cold to start with although the temperature rose quite noticably during the day. There were a couple of other parties out which added to the Alpine feel!

Snow & Ice Learn to lead

I was working alongside Tim Blakemore (www.northernmountainsport.com) today in Coire Choille-Rais which is a little known destination near to Creag Meagaidh. Tim had 4 clients who were al climbers who had done some winter skills and wanted to progress to snow and ice climbing. We started off with a refresher of basic skills and then got the boys leading a two pitch snow & ice route that is not in the guide book but goes about grade 2/3. They did really well and we all had a great day out. It was a lot colder than yesterday with a well consolidated snow pack and clear skies for most of the day.

Stob Coire nan Lochan - Play

Yesterday I drove up to Scotland for the start of my winter season proper. I am up here now until the end of March with one or two forays home to see Kate and the boys.
A lot of snow has fallen since I was up here over Christmas and it is all looking a lot whiter than this time last year - or the year before! That said the temperature was a little higher today than would have been ideal but a bit of melt freeze will help the conditions build nicely.

Today my friend Bryn and I headed up into Stob Coire nan Lochan with a friend of Bryns, Alan to see what was in condition. We fancied doing SC Gully or Twisting Gully but both were looking rather thin so we plumped for Forked Gully. This is a grade 2/3 gully route that was complete and was great fun for a first day out. The photos show Alan at the foot of the route and the crag as a whole.
Rob

Scottish Winter Climbing

I have had a great couple of days up in Scotland with Alec, a good friend of mine. We drove up on Thursday of last week and camped in heavy rain just outside Aviemore in the Cairngorms.

Fridays forecast was not good so we did not rush getting up and strolled into Sneachda for about 9:00am. Only the easier gullies were in condition and all had plenty of folk in them so we chose Aladdins Mirror, a grade 1 route that is about 180m long and was a lot of fun. The weather did us proud and stayed dry although the ice was melting all around us in warm temperatures. The route was good fun and we posed for photos on Aladdins seat.

Saturday was forecast to be an improving day and so we headed into Lochain and climbed Y Gully Right Hand Route. This was a great grade II with some ice and hard neve and even a good cornice that I got to knock down on Alec below! As we headed down the clouds came in a it started snowing so perfect timing saw us back in the cafe as the weather crapped out.

Sunday was the best weather day of the forecast and they were right. We had beautiful blue skies and it was well below freezing all day. The route we wanted to do did not have enough snow in it so we climbed the Runnel, another friendly grade II with an enjoyable chimney top pitch and some nice ice. We descended the Fiacaill Ridge (grade I/II) and then headed home for New Years eve.

Scrambling in Snowdonia

Wednesday and Thursday were spent with Monica and Jane in Snowdonia. They are both in training for an expedition to St Lucia in January to climb The Pitons. We had a great couple of days in blues skies and that subtle light you only get in the middle of winter.

On Wednesday we headed up Seniors Ridge, over Glyder Fawr and across and up onto Y Garn.

On Thursday we enjoyed the North Ridge of Tryfan, posing for photos on the cannon and having the route pretty much to ourselves. Good luck to both of them in St Lucia.

Learn to lead

I spent Tuesday night this week with Matthew at Vertical Limit climbing wall in Worcester. Matthew has been climbing on the wall for a while and wanted to learn to lead. We spent a 2 hour session coaching his movement skills and teaching him the various skills involved. We are meeting up again on Monday to put it all into practice.