WIND !!

Again with Barrie Tall, Roger Othick and James Morrison on the Jagged Globe Intro to Winter Mountaineering course we headed for Stob Coire nan Lochan in Glencoe. We got to the Coire on schedule and saw that the thaw has had a devastating effect on the snow, but there is enough for our purposes... We were very sheltered as we geared up, but we knew that the wind was waiting for us up high...

We headed up to Broad Gully. The wind was strong but not pushing us around too much at this point.

Broad Gully has lost so much snow - there are now patches of grass as seen in the photo!. Dorsal arete is loooking very sorry for itself..

Near the top now...

I popped my head over the top of the gully to see how bad the weather was. I went back to the group - goggles on, crampons off just before topping out. We then had the 'adventure' of short roping round the top, back into the coire... the wind was STRONG...

Aonach Mor - Sans Harness

The east face looks in good condition at the moment (from the top!). Here is a cut exit for White Shark (I could have done with one of these 2 years ago, when I got stuck under the cornice!)

Lena and I opted for an easier day today using the Gondola to get to Aonach Mor East Face. We had a relaxed walk up to the top, talking about what to do, with bags full of both ice and mixed racks. So... Our bags were full of rack, but one of us didn't have a harness (she'll remain nameless!), so the conversation changed to - how shall we spend the rest of the day! We had a quick walk about and there were quite a few climbers about. I looked at a couple of exits - White Shark has a good cornice notch. Left Twin is as easy as ever. Right Twin has a big sagging cracked but frozen cornice over it, but climbers have found an exit, sharp left looking up (right looking down) (Split Buttress exit).

Here is Ben and Lena - one of them forgot their harness today!!

Nevis Range was hugely busy today

We used a little of our spare time to drive over to the Ben track from Nevis Range to take a look at the tree damage. A lot of tree felling is needed before this road is viable again

Here is the main obstruction 100m after the gate

Ordinary Route, SCNL

Summit Buttress with Ordinary Route (IV,5) starting from the bottom

On Saturday Lena and I finally got a chance to get out and do a climb. With the conditions at the moment we had choices fairly open to us, but we knew that we didn't want to queue, so we wanted to keep away from some of the more obvious climbs. We headed for Stob Coire nan Lochan in Glencoe and after a quick discussion, looking for something to swing leads on, we chose Ordinary Route on the Summit Buttress. There were only a few other teams about in the Twisting area, SC and Dorsal.

The weather was fantastic and the climbing was very good. The snow is in great condition, but we did find some poor slab patches - SAIS have it right.

Central Buttress

Pitch 1 of Ordinary Route

Looking down pitch 1

Near the end of pitch 1, Lena coming to the belay

Lena sets off on pitch 2

Lena on pitch 4

Lena and Ben

A busy holiday

That's me back to the grind at Transition now after a week off.  I had some great days out with groups Hillwalking and Gorge walking as well as working on a Summer Mountain Leader Security on Steep Ground day which was run by Pete Hill.
The rest of my time off was spent with the family and relaxing.  Sorry no pictures for this post!

Hopefully the weather will settle down for the weekend and beyond to let us all get out to play again!

Coire na Tulaich / Stob Dearg

So, with Roger, Barrie and James, on day 3 of our Jagged Globe Intro Winter Mountaineering course we set off on another adventure. We headed for Glencoe and Coire na Tulaich aiming to use the skills we learnt yesterday on the Ben. So they led themselves up the gully using rock anchors, snow anchors, indirect belaying and semi-direct belaying.

We quickly took in the summit of Stob Dearg. We talked about turn around times on big mountains. Barrie is soon heading off for Lhakpa Ri, and so we adopted a turn around time for our summit and got to the top with 3 minutes to spare! Back down again we talked about how to get down steep slopes and abseiled off our snow ballard. Here is Barrie enjoying the abseil.

James initially had concerns about abseiling but ended up wanting a second go...

Roger taking it in his stride.

So another great day. Where shall we head tomorrow? ...

First Night In A Tent This Year

We had great views of Muck, Eigg and Rum from the Ardnish Penninsula

Outward Bound - Teams and Leaders Course

On Wednesday I chose the Ardnish Penninsula as the destination for our expedition. We were set to head out and camp near the Peanmeanach Bothy on the West coast. The weather was absolutely perfect - dry, cold and clear. The group did say it was a little cold for them, but they would have noticed the poor West Coast weather if it decided to arrive! We even got several snow flurries which added to the atmosphere. The sunset on the beach was brilliant, but better was seeing the moon rise over the hillside and see it traverse the clear sky all night over our tents. She shadows cast by the moon of our tents was almost as intense as the day time shadows. With this night time light it felt like we could have been inside the arctic circle. It was a cold night, and with my thin bag, made me start to think about Alpine bivvying - and plans for the summer! Scottish porridge for breakfast brought me back home.

My winter work is now over and my first week of spring work is now done, so on the agenda now is a little climbing holiday to a great venue in Great Britian, where everybody seems to be heading for some reliable winter climbing conditions - Fort William - Brilliant. Time to get the axes out again. 

We had great views looking over towards snowy Moidart

Peanmeanach Bothy at the SW edge of the Penninsula - can you spot the 7 tents?

It was a great sunset, and even better night, with a full moon, clear all night with no clouds

It was just the right level of challenge for the group. They were still tired after getting to the top of Aonach Mor on Tuesday, and they were definitely tired by the end of the expedition.

Ben Nevis on Thursday

Learning Skills On The Ben

Today on day 2 of our course, we hit the Ben. Many climbing routes are now missing, but we saw people climbing on Point 5 and Hadrians as well as the Comb.

Point 5 and Hadrians looked still okay. There was at least 2 teams on the Point and 1 team on Hadrians. There was 1 solo climber on Tower Scoop - and he said it was 'okay' !

Roger. Tower Scoop in the background with the solo climber approaching.

We got on with our skill training. We did all sorts of slipping, sliding, and general rolling about down steep slopes. Awesome fun... Here's James having a laugh..

We moved on to snow anchors, and bucket seats to start. Here is James digging... We couldn't destroy anybody's bucket seats or buried axes - awesome work... Barrie's seat held 3 men pulling hard..

We moved on to abseiling and did the S. A. Abseil.. Just a quickie before we headed home.

On my way home (!) I had a quick look at Stob Coire nan Lochan. Broad Gully is getting thin, and Dorsal has perhaps gone now...

Intro To Winter Mountaineering - Aonach Mor

Jagged Globe (blog) - Intro to Winter Mountaineering Day 1, with Roger, Barrie and James. After talking about clothing, kit, weather and avalanche forecasts we headed to Nevis Range to get high fast and get to the snow...

We headed for the summit..

Last time I was here the summit cairn was virtually buried by snow - on ly the top stone visible.. Different now!!

There are lots of cornices with these gaping cracks. The cracks are large around easy gully especially and either side of Left Twin Exit...

Looking down from the top - Left twin Exit on the left, and Morwind exit on the right...

Sunny day on the Shelterstone

Sam Williams and I made for the Shelterstone crag yesterday in the sun.  After a nice walk in up the Goat Track we were met with crags down in loch Avon that were bone dry (all except Hells Lum).

The Shelterstone crag.

We started up The Needle E1**** and made fast progress linkin pitches together and making light work of the crux pitches.

Sam following up pitch 1.

Leading the first 5b pitch.

Happy at the belay.

After I linked the second 5b pitch with another sam took over the lead again and we inadvertently found ourselves below the last two 5b pitches of The Steeple which including its 5c picch further down is an over all E2.  We'll stick with the solid E1 with what ended up being 4 5b pitches.

The main Steeple crack on its penultimate pitch.

Take the shot!

Sam linking the last two ptiches together after a strenuous yet exhilarating crack climb.

Two climbers on The Needle crack E1****

The climb ended up being even more spectacular than we expected even with the unintended detour at the top.  What a great day!