Back With The Army - Kayaking

Capsize !! - Is he about to roll up?
Every warm up session involves a set of push ups !

I did 3 days of kayaking this week with the Army. We developed a lot of kayak skills, and developed the Army core values too. We tested the courage of all the SUT's and developed their loyalty and selfless commitment.

Back With The Army

A climb at TYG in South Wales

The Abseil

This week I was back working with the Army at Sennybridge. On Thursday we took the SUT's out for their day of climbing to TYG. We gave them a set of hard (up to E1) climbs to bottom rope. We gave them an abseil and they all had over come their fears to get over the edge.

Exposure Explosion

1st of seven pitches. I led DOWN this pitch to the hidden mini cave belay. This is Alex seconding down !!

Alex leading off on pitch 2 off to the distant arete

Ogmore has some spectacular positions

Alex 'loving' the pitch !

Alex at the end of pitch 4

Alex seconding pitch 5

Sunday - a day to enjoy Ogmore... The route had to be Exposure Explosion. 7 pitches. The first leads down! The next 5 are traversing, then pitch 7 up (finally). Awesome route... Go do it..

Better weather in Glencoe

Doing a practice abseil

Lena enjoying the Aonach Eagach ridge

Stunning scenery, warm weather, an awesome ridge - enjoy the views

Lena finding every climbing opportunity

Yet again the weather turned out to be stunning. The forecast however was a little dubious and indicated that there could be rain, so we opted to do the Aonach Eagach Ridge. It is awesome after all. It was going to be Lena's first time, so I was glad that the weather gave great views - in fact the views were amazing.

I've done the route lots of times before, and I've always had to get to the road, and walk all the way down Glencoe to the car - so why today did Lena manage to stop a car within 1 minute, to give us a lift back to the car lol?

Awseome...

A Day In Glencoe

Misty, misty, misty

Great vis, no ! But I had it to myself :)


A little bit of damp fun. It was actually cold, I ended up wearing full waterproofs for most of the day

Better views on the way down - can't quite see the car park

Onto curved ridge now. The weather a little better, but still chilly. At last, other people. Here's a couple on the ridge. The leader was telling me about her abseil retreat back in Jan this year !

The descent down Coire na Tulaich still had a ribbon of snow. I could see this from the road before I started, so I got my axe out, and glissaded for half of the descent !! Awesome.

The weather was meant to be rainy, windy and cloudy, awesome!
You know youre on holiday when you can get up late and go and do what you like, so I got up extra late to prove a point, and didnt leave the car in Glencoe till 11am ! I did the Aonach Eagach Ridge, in summer conditions, wet windy summer ! Getting back to the car, I thought why not, so I went to do Curved ridge as well, summer conditions. Back to the car at 7.30pm. The crux of my whole day was definitely getting out of bed!
I met a team on Curved ridge. The leader has soloed the winter ridge up and down 20 years ago, but this Jan she did it, and on that particular day, about 9 teams ended up abseiling off apparently, due to getting caught in the dark on the ridge. She told me they all did 6 60m abseils! She only had a single rope today so that wouldnt happen again! They were both moving fast today.

Being on Hol, I may even lay in again tom !

A Day On The Ben

Eastern Traverse on Tower Ridge

That was it - Eastern Traverse in May

Stunning scenery at the top

Looking down Glover's Chimney from Tower Gap - can you spot the climbing team low on the route?

Loch Linnhe and Loch Eil in the distance

The North face was very quiet. I had the route to myself and then summiting to find a croud at the top

The initial ice pitch on North Gully

Number 3 Gully

The weather looked like it was going to be amazing today, light winds, sunny, freezing levels below the summits, so I obviously had to go on the Ben to do as much as possibe. So somehow I had a late start and didn't get out of the car in the North Face Car Park until 10am ! But conditions were great. As I walked in I saw a team starting on the Comb, and Glovers Chimney. Alan Kimber and Spike were eyeing up Smiths Route, but settled for Point 5, which looked awesome.
I liked the look of Tower Ridge, so made a start. I had the whole ridge to myself, and it was in fine form. There was a layer of fresh snow from yesterday, but still the neve underneath was awesome. I enjoyed every minute, but bizarrely found myself thinking about paddling at one point! I got to the summit at 2pm, so I had time to do North Gully and Number 3 Gully, because, why not !! On my third time down Number 4 I wondered if I had the energy to do another. No ! Back to the car by 6pm. Awesome.

Back To Fort William

On Sunday the weather was uncertain, wet, dry, wet, dry. We managed to find a couple of dry hours for some climbing in Glen Nevis. Lena from Outward Bound is mega keen, and on STORM, she completed her first 4c, awesome.