Today I was marshalling for a large group of 59 fund raisers walk up Ben Nevis.  The event was organised by Marie Curie and every participant had done their part and raised lots of money.  Today was one of the busiest days I've seen despite the conditions.  It was mild and very wet with visibility very poor.  Cloud base even touched down to the Ben Nevis Inn around mid morning.  There was never a point today where I couldn't see another person, it was a constant train of people both up and down, more miserable looking faces than happy ones.  There were lots of  'panda eye's' wandering around as well as many people who had clearly forgot their waterproofs who wet obviously soaked to the skin.  The John Muir Trust were out doing a summit litter pick, good on them to be out in this weather!  Anyway, back up to Skye tomorrow so hopefully the weather is a little more favourable.

Today looked like it was going to be a suffer-fest on the hill with heavy rain and strong winds forecast.  Nigel, Diane and Mark knew what they were letting themselves in for and were still keen to get involved.  The weather actually turned out pretty good.  Our ascent went very well and stayed dry most of the way.  After getting the team into the Gap, I climbed down and I was just bridged across the gap and the heavens opened and they opened well!  The raindrops were huge, mixed with a few hail stones for good measure.  We stepped it up a gear and pressed onto the top and then onto the summit of Ben Nevis.  They guys loved that fact that the weather changed, made them feel good for having to wear waterproofs all day!  A quick descent saw us passing many walkers coming up the tourist route, mostly involved with some 3 peaks challenge.

Day off today so Kenny and I headed back into Glencoe and up to the East Face of Aonach Dubh.  I hadn't done any of the harder route's up here except following Kenny up Crocodile (E3 5c) about 6 years ago.  We warmed up on Lady Jane (E2 5c) which is a great single pitch route which Kenny dispatched.  We then abseiled down Sir Chancelot (E2 5b) and as the rope was there we had a quick top rope to get a little more warmed up.  After this we headed over to the base of Freak Out (E4 6a).  Kenny sent the first pitch which ends up at a nice hanging belay.  I then took over for the main pitch and headed up a brilliant crack, through some steep moves to a pumpy finale on some blocks.  Its a route that I have wanted to do for a long time and really chuffed to have got it done in fantastic Scottish weather.  We then darted over to Weeping Wall and Kenny shot up Spider (HVS 5a), we scrambled off and ran back to the car in 15 minutes.  Scotland is clearly the place to be!

Today I was back out with Ange and Mick and we headed back into Glencoe as the sun was shining and the weather was sweet.  He headed for the uber classic Agag's Groove (VD) on Buachaille Etive Mor.  We had the route to ourselves, only a couple of teams passing on Curved ridge.  The rock was nice and dry and the climbing is just fantastic.  As Ange and Mick have never summitied a Munro, we continued on up to the summit of Stob Dearg and descended Coire na Tulaich for a great end of two brilliant days of rock climbing.

Today I was out working for Alan Kimber and I took out Mick and Ange for some sun kissed rock climbing!  The weather was fantastic in Glencoe so we wandered up to the East Face of Aonach Dubh.  We started off on Eve's Arête (VD) which is a great route, I had never done it before and it had a brilliant exposed traverse pitch.  After topping out on this we headed up higher and climbed Archer Ridge (Severe), a route I haven't done for a while and it is still brilliant.  These two routes filled the day for us and we made our way back down to the backs and onto the car.  Talking about our plan for tomorrow.

Today I was back out with the walking club from yesterday and today we went for more of a journey day.  This gave the group the opportunity to focus on marco-navigation, as this is what we all do most of the time whilst walking in the hills.  We focused specifically on leadership skills and party management on varying terrain both in ascent and descent.  The weather wasn't fantastic which was great for the group to get first hand experience of looking after others in the foul weather.

Today I was working with Rich Bentley from Mountain Motion down in Ardlui.  We had a group of 12 members from 'Our Lady of Lourdes' walking club and the idea was to introduce leadership and group management skills to the participants.  Along the way we covered alot of navigation, mainly micro navigation which the team lapped up very well.  We also spent a little bit of time looking at emergency procedures and what to do if somebody has become immobile, a potential outcome for anyone in the hills.  We didn't cover a huge distance as we wanted to get really hands on with the navigation and get back for some classroom sessions.

Today I took Ben back to Ogwen as it gave us an opportunity to cover lots of technical terrain and link up lots of scrambles.  In fact we hardly did any uphill walking, only scrambling and climbing!  Ben was keen to look at moving efficiently over technical terrain and learn about the transition between rock climbing and scrambling and how to use the rope appropriately.  We started off on North-West Face Route (Grade 2 *) and then moved onto the continuation wall on Idwal Staircase (Grade 2 **).  To move over this terrain we were mainly moving together, sometime pitching short tricky moves but reached Seniors Ridge quite quickly.  From here we moved over to Cneifion Arête (Grade 3 ***) where I led two pitches to start and then we moved together to the top with Ben leading all the way.  Still with plenty of time left we picked up the False Gribin ridge (Grade 1 *) and then dropped of the side to pick up the bottom of Dolmain Ridge (Grade 3 ***).  I led the whole of the route taking Ben through some interesting terrain and looking at different ways of protecting ourselves whilst keeping movement efficient.  We topped out in good time so we finished off by soloing down Bristly Ridge (Grade 1 ***).  A great day with lots of mileage.  Finished off the day with 3 routes in the slate quarries with Dave Evans before running away from the midges.