Tremadog

A couple of Fridays ago I teamed up with David Bukett and went on a mini road trip away from Scotland down to North Wales. We got there and found it drizzling, great! On the Saturday due to the rain we started at Tremadog. After a couple of hours it stopped so the climbing started. We were trying to complete David's MIA registration climb list - so we set off on a VS fest, how many could we do in a week? We started with 'One Step in the Clouds' VS 4c (above).

We moved onto 'Grim Wall' VS 4c , then 'The Brothers' VS 4c , 'Shadrach' VS 4c and finally 'Christmas Curry Micah Elim' HS. A good start to try to complete Dave's list. David's Blog

Meall Cumhann - Just Below The Snow Line

The Grade 2 scramble up Meall Cumhann and Steall Falls in the background

WHC, UHI

Today I was working with Gillian Culshaw and the First Year ATM Degree Course students - on their assessment of  Leadership on the hill. We wanted to keep below the low snow line, and yet still have a simple scramble to a summit with a little nav back to the van, so we headed to Glen Nevis and Meall Cumhann, which was just below the snow line, even though it's only at 698m. The students had to plan the route, manage the safety and the group and demonstate different effective leadership styles and communication. Well done to the whole team. We had some wintery showers low down, which would have been a little more snow higher up. On the higher hills winter is still here...

One of the steeper slippery sections of the ridge

Walking off from the summit of Meall Cumhann (698m)

Reading The Landscape

Amidst the poor, misty and wet weather; Sam and I travelled up to Glenmore Lodge for a day course run by the Cairngorm National Park. 

The course titled 'Reading the Landscape'  covered a lot of ground (excuse the pun) with regards to the formation of the land from millions of years ago to the more recent ice ages and even today's changes.  The archaeological impact of human interaction with the landscape highlighted key indicators to look out for when you're out in the countryside.
I found the ties of personal experience, emotion and purpose in this environment a great reminder that we all have different reasons for being in the outdoors and that our past experiences and even the perception of going somewhere new; all impact on how we react to the environment.

The course was a great tool for leaders, instructors and guides in the outdoors using the Cainrgorm National Park.  In association with the Lodge, MLTA and AMI this was the first of five days organised for this year.  The first and certainly not the last for me as I would give it a 10 out of 10 for providing in depth knowledge and understanding for users of the local area.

Next week I'm heading down to Glen Coe for a couple days climbing with Ben.  Dry climbing I hope...

Staff training at ISA

Today I've been upskilling the staff involved with teaching on the wall down at the International School of Aberdeen.

Our focus today was to look at personal climbing skills, the fundamentals of climbing movement and basic group safety and management.

No pics unfortunately as I was do busy trying to cram so much into such into four hours!

Now into Transition to get the ropes course ready for action.

Consolidation and improvement

With a day off work Ross was out for more action again yesterday at Ballater.

Ross looking for the gear on Ping Pong (Severe).

We were looking at building on the anchor selection and stance construction that we had covered the other week.  Ross was also keen to get on some harder ground.

Tying in to the stance.

After some climbing we looked at multiple point anchor systems and the different considerations when setting them up to belay a seconding climber.

Mantle shelf on Lucky Strike (VS 4c***).

Ross was leading again amidst the harder routes I was throwing at him and consolidating his experience and leading capability.  There's not many pictures today as we were hard at it and a number of the climbs we were on such as Medium Cool (VS***) did not offer great photo opportunities.

Summer ML work

I have been working for Pete Hill on a Summer Mountain Leader Course on Thursday to Saturday.  With a group of five we spent Thursday near Castle hill and the Chalamain Gap consolidating navigation and security on steep ground techniques.

Eek, mind the gap!

Working on an plan...

Friday and Saturday was spent on expedition in the most snow free zone we could find.  Starting at the road end at Glenmore we made for the Ryvoan path and then onto Bynack More where we camped after working on some navigation and group management.

On the slopes of Bynack More (excuse the thumb).

A small patch of dry ground (Bynack More in the background).

Well... night nav doesn't make for great photos!

Intro to Rock

I spent Saturday working for Transition Extreme on an Intro to Rock day at the local Aberdeen sea cliffs.  The rain and bad weather didn't emerge until the evening so we had a nice day out with the sun shining and a calm sea glistening.

More info on the Transition Climbing Blog.