Crag Problems Assessment

Jokob starts the day leading in the sun

The weather was much better on Thursday, set to be dry, light winds and an early frost in the glens. With a bus full of climbers we set off from Fort William to Kingussie Crag. Al, Gillian, Jamie, Ben and I had teams of third years from the ATM degree course at UHI-WHC, and it was to be their assessemnt day for crag problems. This is part of their Incident Management module. We got to the crag and found a team of 2 climbers from East Sussex (currently from VanDweller), using Kingussie as a second best option to winter climbing. Currently with nothing wintery to go at, Kingussie was a good dry venue for them #waitingforwinter!

Connor cruising up The Groove

I was with Jakob and Stewart for the day, and Jakob started by climbing The Slab. On a neighbouring climb Connor was on his way up. As Stewart Climbed, Jakob had some minor problems to deal with, then as Stewart neared the end of his second, he found a piece of difficult climbing, and so Jakob had to give an assisted hoist.

The sun warms the rock to start the day

Stewart and Jakob at Kingussie Crag

Later with Stewarts turn to solve problems, Jakob abseiled onto a knot in the rope, so Stewart had to deal with this, unfortunately for Stewart, that was just the beginning, and Jakob seemed to have lots more problems on his ab.

Stewart solving a problem with Jakob stuck on abseil

With Jakob taking over as the Instructor, Stewart now abseiled but quickly got cragfast and needed to be rescued with a Y hang.

Jakob rescuing Stewart from the abseil as he got cragfast

We finished the day with bottom roping, and here pretty much everything I could think of went wrong, Jokob climbed too far sideways, he got cragfast, stuck, even Stewart found a knot in his rope as he belayed.

At the end of the day with smooth performances from both Stewart and Jakob, we managed to walk away problem free, which is more than Connor could do with his boot stuck up a tree. Unfortunately, back at the college, he even had to rescue his brand new winter boots. A great day, and lots of fun for everybody.

Connor rescuing his boot from a tree - an unusual problem that Al set Connor