Snow On Beinn a' Chaorainn

Ray with a snowy backdrop of the middle East ridge of Beinn a' Chaorainn

Today I was at the College with the Second Year students on their Hill Skills Module assessment. We wanted a good place for navigation mixed with steep ground. In the last 24 hours the colour of the hills changed from autumnal to decidedly wintry - the high tops above 700m have turned white. We headed for Beinn a' Chaorainn, not knowing how much snow we would encounter. The East ridge scramble in summer conditions would have been a great venue choice for today, but it was too wintery for the equipment we had with us so we headed up the southerly East ridge aiming for the 1049m top. The day seemed to be all about navigation, until we hit the snow at 700m, when the focus seems to shift towards throwing snowballs!

Lewis sporting his new bobble hat !

The snow line was at about 700m today

Lewis - where's that snowball going? Chris keeps out of the way.

The snow was soft and wet - perfect for a quality snowball. The ground was however also soft and decidedly unfrozen. The group did well today with their nav and are set up well to move onto their Summer ML course. Now the group are looking forward to their winter mountain biking and paddling. The most impressive lunch of the day goes again to Ray - Pepper Pasta and Chicken Kievs. The most inappropriate lunch item goes to Lewis for his Gobstoppers (although we all had one). Well done guys on a successful assessment - keep safe on those bikes and kayaks! How about taking up winter hill walking, or winter climbing?

A good day - Ray, Lewis, Lewis, Chris and Holly walking back

Beinn a Chaorainn, East Ridge

On the approach to the East Ridge

Chris climbing - his clients look on - they know they've got to follow !

Myself with Nial and Shaun

We followed the knife edged ridge as much as we could

Chris at the front checking out the route - check out the shades!

Wish every day was like this. We all have sunburn now !

On the way down

Working with Zac and Chris again. We decided to finish our mountaineering course with an ascent of the East Ridge of Beinn a Chaorainn. We all had our shades packed. But nobody had suncream - error ! I think I've got panda eyes..

How long can this weather carry on for - I don't want to jinx it. Fingers crossed.

Beinn a' Chaorainn, East Ridge

East Ridge of Beinn a' Chaorainn

Half way up the ridge

Nearing the top


Terrific scenery from the summit. Can you spot Ben Nevis?

Lena navigating off from the southern summit

Today the avalanche hazard was category 3 on all aspects in Glencoe and Lochaber high in the hills. Wanting to avoid all prone slopes and work within a 9-4pm door to door window, I decided that the perfect venue for Lena's day 2 would be the East Ridge of Beinn a' Chaorainn. The route takes a ridge up and later a ridge down, in theory a good way to avoid loosely bonded windslab on avalanche prone slopes. At the summits we had great visibility and were able to see over to Ben Nevis. With the visibility we could see the large cornices that have built up on the Eastern aspects. On our ridge down we found pockets of poorly bonded slab, which was releasing easily. Tomorrow will be another day to choose venues wisely to keep safe..

Gowers Great Tor

The heat wave continues. Sun and a weekend equals a busy busy Gower, with parking hard to find. Tesco full of people buying barbecue stuff, and beaches full of people carrying inflatable stuff.

Strangely not many people climbing the classics. Alex, Trevor and I headed for Great Tor. We got sandbagged by a poor description in the guide book, putting our biceps to the test. We did all the aretes, edges, slabs and steep walls on the upper tier, before moving to the lower tier.
We had an ace day, and even saw the sun set..


Maybe a BBQ tomorrow night..

Back In The Saddle

At last I'm back in the saddle.

In the background of the photo you can see Three Cliffs in Three Cliff Bay, with Pobbles Bay and Shirecombe beyond. Three Cliffs and Great Tor are 2 of the jewels in the Gower Crown. You can also see the clouds brewing - shortly after the photo was taken it started to rain.

After a long lay off of 8 weeks, I'm starting to get fit again. Today I cycled to Great Tor on Gower to climb one of my favourites - the 'East Ridge' (S, 4 pitches, 73m ***) - this is fantastic and a must for everybody.

I managed to climb one of my favourites and cycle 32km - so a good day. I'm well on the road to a full recovery..