Today is the first day of the Climb Harder course I'm directing at Plas Y Brenin and unfortunately it was quite damp.  We managed to get 3 routes in early on in the day and then we headed back to the centre for some coaching in the bouldering wall and on some routes.  After tea and cakes we went out and went over belay construction.  Hope its dryer tomorrow!

Today I took the Group into Ogwen and the aim of the day was to refresh the rope work side of things.  We started off with anchor selection and then introduced the rope and how to attach it to the anchors and create a safe system for ascending or descending walkers.  We looked at confidence roping as well as moving a group over steep ground looking at spotting and group management.  We covered descents with and with out the rope and chatted about river crossings, their hazards and effective ways of approaching them.  Unfortunately it rained on Murdoch and I as we were gearing up at the bottom of SS Special so we bailed and I went for a little explore around the slate quarries.

Today was my first day back at Plas Y Brenin and I was working on a Mountain Leader Refresher course.  With my group of 4 we walked out from the centre and over the tops into Ogwen covering many aspects of navigation that the group need to be able to navigate well in varying conditions.  We looked at micro and macro navigation, use of different scales of maps, relocation and basic leadership skills.  It was a nice dry day with a nice breeze.  After work I went up to Dinas Cromlech with Keith and Murdoch as Keith wanted to climb Right Wall (E5 6a).  I didn't want to second it as I want to lead it soon so I climbed Left Wall (E2 5c) and Cemetry Gates (E1 5b).  Thanks for letting me on your ropes random climbers!  I was able to get some great shots of Keith!

Today I was back to work and on Ben Nevis with Alan, Austin and Rhuraidh.  The consensus was observatory ridge as none of them had done it before.  It was generally pretty good on the route, a few damp spots but it was nice and dry where we needed it to be.  Vary busy on the summit and on the descent. Austin dropped his camera on the path up to the CIC hut so if anyone finds it can you please get in touch.  I'm off to North Wales for a month's work at Plas y Brenin and hopefully fit in lots of climbing after work and on my days off.

Monster day, amazing fun. 30+ Abseils. Amazing rock climbing.  Gnarly glacier in the dark!  Slept well!

After a bit of a rest morning/day, Kenny, Paul and I got one of the afternoon Midi lift up to Aiguille du Midi and went over to Aiguille du Plan.  This is a great link up with plenty of interest and some stunning scenery.  A must do for anyone and also a great acclimatisation route.  We bivied just below the summit of Aiguille du Plan on a 4 star location (the photo above was location number one, we relocated to a rocky bivi which was much drier).  Well worth it.  This set us up nicely for our big day tomorrow.

Gutted....The ice hadn't frozen and was still like mush.  Unfortunately we weren't able to climb up as it most likely would have ended in disaster.  Instead we abseiled and down climbed the whole route.... it took a good day, sideways abseils, ropes getting stuck, prusiking up ropes, chopping tat, getting sun burnt.....

Today Kenny, Paul and I got the first lift up and walked down onto the Argentier Glacier to the base of this massive route.  Rock climbing was on the cards for our first day, ice climbing for the second.  Our third day would probably be spent getting back to Chamonix.  The climbing was great, we all had rock shoes on with our big boots, crampons, axes and bivi kit tucked away in our bags.  We had an ace days climbing on varied terrain which got us up to the ice around 5/6pm. Unfortuntely the ice was thin and mushy so we were unable to climb a couple of pitches so instead we bivied so it would freeze up over night......