Abseiling on the Forcan Ridge

This week I have been working a Intro to Mountaineering course in the North West Highlands for Moran Mountain with a team of 3 French chaps living in London.  The weather and conditions have taken a slight change here.  We climbed everyday but as the week went on it was clear that there was less and less snow to go around.  We spent a day refreshing skills at Fuar Tholl in quite wild conditions, we then climbed the A'Chioch Ridge on Beinn Bhan and the Forcan Ridge in Glen Shiel which were all showing lots of rock.  We had a crag sessions too involving all sorts of rope work and lead practice as well as a great session of dry tooling.  Not many photo's as we didn't get many views!

Spoilt for choice

What a brilliant two days out with Claire and Ian.  After our day out last year HERE, they were keen for some winter adventures.  As they have never worn crampons before, we started off with some basic skills and got hem both moving up the classic Ben Nevis route of Ledge Route (II) ****.  It was stunning weather and great conditions underfoot so we pressed onto the summit for stunning panoramic views.  Took plenty of photos today.  More Here.

Heading back down

Going down Number 4 Gully

Claire leading to the summit

Great place to be

Ready for action, first time in crampons

Day two was looking very promising also, clear skies greeted us as we drove through Glencoe to Buachaille Etive Mor.  Claire had Curved Ridge on her sights for years and was keen to put it to bed.  So with a stellar forecast, perfect conditions and the right team, it would have been rude not too.  We made good steady progress up Curved Ridge (III) and made our way onto the summit of Stob Dearg.  From here we thought it would be best to make the most of the day so we continued onto Stob na Broige for the full 'Buachaille' day out.  It had been a while since I had been on Stob na Broige and was a view you get.  Well worth the walk.  We back tracked to Coire na Tulaich and made our way down mostly on snow.  A great couple of days to round off a great week.  Thank you everyone.  More photos HERE from Curved Ridge and beyond.  Off to Torridon now!

Day two in crampons, heading for Curved Ridge

Lunch spot

Getting there..

Nordwand starts at the fat ice centre left

Great views as we walked off

The beauty exposed and the ugliness hidden by the clouds

Wow, what an amazing route!  Yesterday John and I climbed Vanishing gully so today I promised a longer but easier route.  I hadn't climbed this 420m route before so I went on what the guide book said.  So we did the direct start, grade 4.  Felt more like 5 but maybe it was because we were not warmed up.  I shouted to John 'thats the steepest pitch on the route'.  Oh dear!  I was so wrong!  We did 9 pitches of climbing, 7 of them had steep climbing on.  It was brilliant.  I honestly thought it was harder than Orion Direct, definitely more sustained.  The ice is fat and very good condition.  If you have a chance to climb it then go and do it!  Brilliant.

Like the Eiger but closer to home

One more pitch to go

Vanishing Gully

John happy to be up a grade 5 on his second day out this winter

Today I was back out with John and we headed into Ben Nevis to see what routes didn't have too much traffic on.  John did fancy the Curtain but as we spotted multiple team on the route and queuing for the route then we opted for Vanishing Gully (V,5) instead.  We only did the 2 pitches and abseiled off the side and headed down.  A nice easy day to rest the legs for a potentially longer day tomorrow.  Conditions are looking great on Ben Nevis.  Teams on Point 5, Zero, Hadrians, Gemini, Shield Direct, Curtain, Italian right-hand (I think), Tower Ridge, Ledge Route and Harrison's Climb Direct.

Cave belay!

Tim and Twid on the Shield Direct

Blair climbing up to my belay (Keith Ball)

Unfortunately John couldn't make his second day, but every cloud has a silver lining.  I knew Blair was looking for a partner and as the Shield Direct was in, I was happy I had a day off.  There was no discussion about what we would climb, we both were super keen to do this.  We opted for an early start and were almost pushed back to the car because of the winds.  We persevered and we were rewarded with 6 pitches of brilliant VII,7 climbing.  Blair won the rock, paper, scissor duel, so he went first and climbed the nice ice pitch, which is becoming thinner as climbers keep hacking away.  Above the ice pirch we were greeted with great icy mixed climbing up a fantastic feature on Ben Nevis.  Nice long pitches too.  This route has true classic status and is rightly deserved.  It was great to be out climbing today as it does feel like I haven't done a great deal of personal climbing this winter and to catch a rare day off on such an amazing route is the icing on the cake.  Sadly Blair and I didn't take a camera so have no pics but thanks to Keith who was on Gemini with Dave, he sent me some really poor quality shots.  (Its ok, he knows I'm grateful and he doesn't read this blog so he wont know I said this! ;)

John blowing away the cobwebs

Funky ice formations

Its great to be back from Norway and find vast amounts of ice around.  Ben Nevis has plenty to go for as does Glencoe and the North West.  Even Skye has some nice ice too.  John was back for more winter climbing and we started our stint down at Beinn Udlaidh, the southern highlands premier ice climbing venue.  Most routes were in climbable condition so we started with two brilliant grave IV's.  First up was South Gully of the Black Wall which has a lovely grade III first pitch and a short step of grade 4 on the second.  Just a shame it didn't go on for 5 more pitches!  We then wandered back down to find the queues had gone on the crag classic, Quartzvein Scoop.  We climbed this on fantastic ice all the was up with amazing views and clarity to the local hills.  With a short and steep approach and lots of great climbs, its a fantastic venue for a spot of ice cragging.  Great to see Big Al and Steve out for a nice wee jollie.

Nice belay on QS

Al and Steve heading back in for another

Spot of footwork training to get started

Initial thoughts when I was flying out to Norway were that we would probably get more ice climbing done in Scotland than Norway as conditions out there haven't been great.  Fortunately, around Aurland, we did find ice to climb and had a great week training members of the team.  With 11 members out with me, we spent a couple of days at crags where I could keep an eye on everyone, answer questions they had and show them things they didn't know.  Then we all broke off and did our own thing.  We had to stay high to find the best ice which was always a battle with the vast amounts of snow out there but we felt we won most of the time.

Mark getting tuck in up at Vetlebotn

Easy top-roping at Vetlebotn

Team sessions at Vetlebotn

 Our first day was spent driving around looking for ice to climb.  The usual suspects were looking a little bare.  We ended up using our rest day on the first day of the trip as a recce around as many places we could.  Many of the large ice falls were incomplete and anything low was running with water.  Around Stondallen was good and above was also climbable ice.  The amounts of snow made it hard to move around to the crags but with a large team we put good tracks in.

Evening entertainment

Duncan doing his first winter lead.  2 pitches of WI3 (Eiger Ron Belaying)

Dunc having it

Dunc leading the second pitch.  Jenny and Eiger Ron belaying

Charlie enjoying steep ice

Mark doing laps

Mark leading, Greg abseiling

 Last year I made the first ascent of this great gully, which my clients Kitty and Suzanne called '2 bangs and a slap WI4.  We had 4 teams on the route over two days and had great climbing all the way up.  We had multiple teams in Stondallen and a team on a WI4 at Grimsete (just below the Stondallen tunnel) which had great ice.  As we left the weather went super cold so the next few weeks will be shaping up very well.  One of the team has stayed out for another week and I shall be back out at the end of Feb.

Greg and Arjan following me up on the 3rd ascent of '2 bangs and a slap'

Great gully climbing

Arjan abseiling

Scottish conditions in Stondallen

Greg doing more leading.

Ice axe arrest practice

I always look forward to winter and when it arrives I always look forward to working and climbing in the North West.  Why, because of its vast variety, lack of people and sheer beauty of the mountains.  I have been blessed with two healthy clients, one is an iron man competitor and the other is just young so a pretty good combination.  I have also had Mike shadowing for 4 days as he prepares for his Winter Mountain Leader award.  Day one was our skills day where we headed up to Fuar Tholl and did much slipping and sliding, digging and assessing, burying and tieing and then finished the day by climbing a grade II gully called Access Gully.

Martin's team heading up Access Gully ahead of us.

Windy but nice day

Wild topping out of Access Gully

Our second day was the nicest of the week so we thought we would get up high, put some of the skills into practice and grab some great views.  We headed up on to the Liathach Ridge with our high point of the day being Spidean.  A great Munro with stunning views.  We didnt traverse the ridge as this was the teams second day in crampons but it gave them a few things to aim for in the future.

A front coming in from the West.  Beinn Alligan looking great.

Team on the summit of Spidean

The pinnicles....one day

Heading down, we turned left here and went the long way down as it was such a nice day.

 Day 3 turned out a wee bit poor so as a wee rest day we went to a local training crag for some more skills before getting back to plan and pack for a overnight snow hole expedition.  The weather was ideal.  Super cold and with plenty of snow there were sure to be some good snow hole sites.  We climbed the Forcan Ridge, which was in stellar conditions.  We summited at 3ish and started digging just after.  We had a palace by 6pm and ate and drank all evening.  It was a great night, snow holing conditions were great.  Digging was easy so we made a comfy hole and made a nice large cold sump for the cold air to sit in whilst the warm air stayed tight.  The second day we exited early to get onto a nearby Munro at sunrise.  It would have been spectacular but unfortunately the clouds were rolling in but was still stunning non the less.

Plenty of Navigation

Plenty of mountaineering

A spot of abseiling

Alot of eating and drinking

Lovely morning views

The the cloud came in