Scottish Winter Mountaineering & Climbing courses

Learning to lead on Golden Oldie (II) on the West Face of Aonach Mor

A few photos to whet the appetite for the forthcoming Scottish winter season. I'll be working my 9th season running winter mountaineering and climbing courses from Fort William and Aviemore. Please get in touch if you fancy a wee adventure...

Enjoying the delights of a bucket seat belay!

Bad weather arriving on the Cairngorm plateau

The 4 star Curved Ridge (II) in Glencoe

Digging snow holes on a character building day!

Steep mixed climbing on Fingers Ridge (IV 4) in Coire an t-Sneachda

Ski mountaineering on Ben Nevis prior to a 1300m descent

 Topping out on Green Gable in the Lake District

Enjoying the sunshine on a classic mountaineering day

Curved Ridge (II) under heavy snow conditions and a blue sky

The stunning Smith's Route (V 5) on Ben Nevis

Descending to Fort William after a big day on the Ben

RIP Marty Schmidt

I had the pleasure of sharing two mountains with Marty, Cho Oyu and Ama Dablam. In 2009 as a first time guide on an 8000m peak he was incredibly generous with his advice and support. He summited just a couple of hours after our successful ascent.
In 2010 we shared our base camp with him on Ama Dablam and I spent many hours listening to his stories and thoughts on life. A truly unique individual who lived his life to the max.

Invernookie & Twin Ribs

 Large avalanche in Coire an s-Sneachda, Off the slabs to the right of Jacobs Ladder

For the final day of Chris' MIC assessment preparation we walked into Coire an t-Sneachda to look at teaching leading. The crag aprons were covered in deep snow and a large avalanche had come off the slabs to the right of Jacobs Ladder. A few teams had managed to get to the buttresses and were evacuating plenty of snow as they climbed upwards. However the easy gullies were out of the question so we retreated to the Twin Ribs area on the Fiacaill Ridge to look at short roping, ghost roping, soloing and stance management. late afternoon and with Chris as ready as he'll ever be the decision was made to make a speedy ascent of Invernookie III 4 to finish the week on a high. We'd already seen a team on the route who'd been doing plenty of clearing and there was a safe approach so we solo'd to the start of the difficulties and made a very snowy ascent in 2 pitches before a comfortable walk down by headtorch. Best of luck next week Chris and thanks to Jon Gupta for being a willing guinea pig

 Chris running through his ropework on the Twin Ribs

 The approach slopes to Invernookie III 4

Chris & Jon swimming up the first pitch

Jon enjoying the top pitch

Avoiding the weather...

 An atmospheric Rothiemurchus Forest on Wednesday

This week I'm working with Chris and Jon Gupta to help prepare the former for his MIC assessment. The weather, high winds and avalanche conditions have forced us stay low for the last couple of days. Wednesday was snowing heavily with gale force winds. We walked up the ski road to have a look at the snowpack and check out a bit of navigation but failed to even get to the ski area. The snowplows had given up and we had a fun battle with the elements before opting for the sensible option and returning to the valley to drink tea! The forecast for Thursday was deteriorating with the freezing level rising to over the summits and the winds increasing but we awoke to sunshine. We spent the morning on the banks of the River Spey perfecting Chris' ropework and the belay transitions from series to parallel and back. After lunch we drove up to Glenmore Lodge to try and find a steep snow bank to put everything into context. The thaw had made dramatic inroads into the previous days snow and we ended up on a steep slope of heather looking in detail at ropework. 

Tree belay

Sadly we later learned that all the helicopter activity above us today was due to a significant avalanche incident in the Chalamain Gap, just over a mile away, which unfortunately resulted in the deaths of three climbers. (Daily Record and SAIS reports)

 Chalamain Gap avalanche (picture from Scottish Avalanche Information Service)

Clachaig Winter Safety Lectures

Advanced winter skills captured on film!

Some more footage from the team at GCUMC and their Advanced Winter Skills course in January.

Mountain Rescue Training

 Stunning conditions in the Cairngorms

This weekend I've been running some winter training for members of Langdale & Ambleside Mountain Rescue Team. They braved the journey north to the Cairngorms leaving behind a very snowy Lake District!

However by the time they got home on Sunday night a major thaw meant that a water rescue capability was probably more use! Saturday gave us blue skies but a strong wind that was moving plenty of fresh snow around. We spent a considerable amount of time looking at avalanche avoidance and rescue strategies. There was multiple layers of windslab in sheltered locations and we were able to trigger a number of small slides. We were also able to look at winter belays and emeregncy snow shelters

Saturday evening was the Association of Mountaineering Instructors AGM at Glenmore Lodge which proved very successful with 100% support for a number of measures to increase our professionalism.

The snow pack was much reduced on Sunday with the temperature having risen above the summits during the night but the remaining snow had refrozen giving us a very fast paced ice axe arrest session. A wee bit of winter navigation and goggles were donned for a trip to the top of Cairngorm in pleasantly full on conditions!

Working an avalanche probe line

 Plenty of snow being moved around

Your stereotypical Mountain Rescuer!!