Avalanche Seminar

SAFOS is the Snow and Avalanche Foundation of Scotland, and they organised this Avalanche Seminar in Edinburgh, at EICA Ratho. There were educational, informative, sometimes mindblowing, and current thinking presentations from Mark Diggins (SAIS Co-ordinator), Ed Chard (Jagged Globe), John Allen (MBE, Scottish Mountain Rescue), Mark Williams (Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Science) , Dave Mcleod (Professional Climber) and Stefan Harvey (WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche research).

It was a great weekend and I learnt a great deal. Make sure you look at the SAIS website and keep safe with all your snow sports this winter. Make sure you've considered the avalanche risk, and done all you can to minimise any risk to you and others, before you step on snow this winter...

Buachaille Etive Mor on my way home last night. (Can you spot the rescue helicopter in the sky, after just leaving Curved Ridge - on it's way to Fort William).

Ben And Torch

Ben Nevis from a distance on Friday 8th June

Today I was working for Jagged Globe as one of the marshalls on Ben Nevis, along with Keith, Rachel, Graham, Dave and Jamie. There were over 200 people starting their 3 Peaks challenge this morning at 4am. This will be a crazy 24 hours for them all. We got an early start and got into our marshalling positions on the hill before they arrived. This gave us a really early start, but with the benefit of seeing Ben Nevis in all it's glory just after dawn with nobody else around.

At 5.40am there are only the few of us marshalls on the hill

Before 8am this morning towards 300 people had visited the summit of the Ben - by the end of the day, how many I wonder! We passed at least 5 people on their way down after seeing the sun rise from the top - and I thought I had an early start.

Not long after this photo was taken, this path had hundreds of people moving up and down - mostly raising money for charity. A normal day on the Ben

I wasn't expecting to get such stunning views this morning

Before 6am. A rare moment of quiet on the summit today

So after a couple of hours of marshalling at the top, we made our way down - to the sad news that one of our group had a suspected fractured ankle, so Mountain Rescue was in full swing - sweeping him down to have an x-ray - probably at the Belford.

Unfortunately a broken ankle neccessitates a lift in the Big Bird down to the Belford

My day continued swiftly in Fort William to celebrate the Olympic Torch passing through town. With some chance positioning, we saw 3 people carry the torch therough town, to the tunes of Bagpipes and travelling Coca Cola party music. I've never seen so many people in the middle of town.

A very busy Fort William at lunchtime celebrating the Olympic Torch running through town

The Torch had lunch in town, so we managed to see 3 runners carrying the Torch

A busy day, and it's only lunchtime!

Ben Nevis - Three Peaks

So today I was working for Jagged Globe on the Ben Nevis start of the Three Peaks Challenge for 188 charity fund raisers. I was working with Ken, Isi, Jamie, Spike and David. We had to get out of bed at 2am and start walking with headtorches at 3am. I used my headtorch for about 10 minutes, the dark nights are so short at the moment. There were 36 teams for us to marshall and they started walking without the need for headtorches at 4am. On our way up we met some people already coming down, including 3 mountain bikers - now that was an early start! I got to the top at about 5.20am. Ken and I had it to ourselves for about an hour before the teams started to stream up. So we spent our time checking out the cliffs and crags for the winter routes making our hit list for 2012!

The weather was fantastic, we were treated to a cloud inversion for most of the morning. Much better than being in bed .. There's always time to sleep later (I did).

The top of Gardyloo Gully. There's still a little snow on the path to the top, and a lot in Observatory Gully as usual.

The clouds did finally roll in over the summit, but there was no rain.. Basically we were blessed with this weather after more than 4 weeks of rain....

Down to the car park with everybody packed off to England for stage 2, by 11.30am.

No. 4

Day 5 with the team and we headed off for the Ben. It's windy and wet. Looking up into Coire na Ciste, Central Gully right hand seems to still be there, perhaps left hand and South too?North Gully looked quite good.

Green looks in poor shape unfortunately. No. 3 G buttress looks okay.

We get into No. 4 and head up wondering what the wind would be like at the top.. Here Barrie is at the front, then James (always with a great smile) then Roger..

Well, yes it was windy on the top with poor vis, all very exciting..

James. My camera decides to go give poor photos - nothing to do with me!

Barrie.

So finishes another Jagged Globe winter season in Scotland. It was excellent. Thank you to Barrie, James and Roger for making this week a laugh and successful... Good luck to Barrie on his Himalayan Expedition.

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...

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? ...

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...

Number 4 Gully

The team heading up to the snow

The Jagged Globe Mountaineering team had their last day on Friday and it was their first day on the North Side of the Ben. We headed for a grade 1 gully - Number 4. This would be a good test for the team - they only put crampons on for the first time on Monday.

Getting geared up in Coire na Ciste

Again we were lucky to have the great weather, and so we spent the day enjoying the views. There were a lot of other teams about, but mostly high on the ice.

Dave, Freya and Sharon on their way up

The team looked a lot more relaxed on the steeper slopes, compared to their first steep slope on Monday. It didn't take long for them to improve.

Number 4 Gully in the distance

Some big cornice cracks at the top of Number 4 gully

Dave

Dave was loving it as he battled through the calf pain on the way to the top. His knee held out well this week, and he managed a quick walk back to the van.

Freya

Freya is now ready for the intermediate course next year - Winter Mountaineering - where she can get into the grade II's and III's.

Sharon

After 2 weeks, Sharon is finding it a breeze and she intends to walk up the tourist path on Saturday to make best use of the fine weather - not even a day off after 2 weeks.

The end of a great week

Thank you to the team for a great week, and a good way to finish the season. However there is still lots to do on the Ben, so what'll it be for me next week - rock shoes or winter boots?