A new week dawned, a new set of clients and a new course started.  This week I was working on the Technical Winter Climber course for Moran Mountain and I was blessed with two brilliant and psyched clients Jon and Davy.  They both brought their own levels of experience and back grounds and worked very well together.  A pleasure to work with them both.  And what a week we had.  Day one we went up to the local hill behind our lodge and climbed Right End Buttress (III,4), Fuar Tholl to get the week started.  The guys led a couple of snow pitches to get back in the zone before I took over and led the difficulties.  Again it ticked all the boxes for our first day and great for me as it was more on-sight guiding. Pretty windy and wild but still good fun.

Davy found ice on George

Jon leading the home pitch

Day two I went back to the local favourite of George (III,4) where Jon and Davy did the leading whilst I climbed next to them.  I led the crux pitches as they were a little thin giving us all two pitches of leading each before they led themselves down the knee busting descent.

Jon showing Davy that it only take 2 attempts to climb! ;)

After looking at the forecast, we knew that our last two days would be big so we opted for a crag training day where we did some improvised rescues and a good couple of hours of dry tooling.  Great for resting the legs and frazzling the brain with knots, ropes and carabiners.  It was a worth while rest.

Myself and Davy pretending we know what the mountains are called

Team red gears up

Big Wednesday dawned at 04.45.  Porridge, toast, tea and bacon butties in the van.  Drive for 1.10 hours.  Walk. Keep walking.  A beautiful day dawned and we were all excited to climb The Resurrection (III,4)****.  A Cold Climbs classic, a 3 hour walk in, a 350m face, a mini Alpine North Face, a route that finishes on the highest mountain in the NW Highlands, a summit cairn belay and perfect weather.  And a route none of us have done before, perfect!  A wise climber would bring a guidebook for an area they have never been before.  In the insomniac state I was in at 5am I picked up the wrong guidebook and brought it with me leaving us with no description.  Fortunately we worked out the line and had a great days climbing finishing on the summit of Sgurr Mor (1110m).  The route had everything we could hoped for.  The best part is that it never looked that hard but it certainly did pack a punch.  From the summit it was a long walk out and we opted to leave the neighbouring Munro for another time and returned to the van just as it got dark.  A fantastic 11 hour day, the perfect winter day out.

The 1st pitch of The Resurrection (photo:Jon)

High up on the route (Photo:Jon)

Team Red

Davy being a tool

Me looking for gear before i pull over the sugary cornice

Highest summit in the NW Highlands

Big Thurday dawned at 5am.  Porridge, eggs, tea.  Unfortunately Jon was feeling pretty tired after The Resurrection so opted for a day with his wife Anne, who was here for the week biking around the coast and mountains.  So myself and the legend that is Davy took our armoury of gear and a lightweight rope and went to Skye.  We had seen pictures of the Cuillin and they looked stunning.  We had to visit.  The icing on the cake was that Davy had never been to Skye before.  I wanted to give him a taste of this amazing playground, plant the seed, open his door to a lifetime of fantastic climbing and mountaineering.  I opted for the Clach-Glas Blabhein Traverse (IV,4) for 3 reason.  Firstly it is probably one of the best single days of mountaineering in the UK, secondly it provides the best view of the whole Cuillin Ridge, (ready for a winter traverse, I did it 3 years ago, go and do it) every peak, every 'nook and cranny' especially with its winter coat on.  And finally, it has been high up on my guiding 'to-do list' for a long time.  I have done it many times in summer, it was a pleasure to guide in winter.  A complex and serious ridge.  The best part, we put down fresh tracks all the way.  From the summit, the cloud rolled in so we made our way down which wrapped up a great and varied week of technical winter climbing.  A real pleasure to be out with Jon and Davy and I wish them all the best in their future adventures.  See you in the mountains.

The objective

The dream

Davy loving the route

Top of Clach Glas

Techy descent, stunning views

1st gearing up of the season for the team

Looking at this weeks forecast I knew it was going to be 'one of those weeks'.  Blowing a hoolie, temperatures up and down like yoyo, I was going to have to dig deep to make the week work for my group.  I have wrapped up the Introductory Winter Climber course for Moran Mountain where I was working with two John's and Matt.  Our first day, Sunday, the outlook was positive.  We knew we had to make the most of this day.  Instead of having a shorter skills based introduction, we had a good sized day on the brilliant A'Chioch Ridge on Beinn Bhan (II***).  With a mix of easy mountaineering followed by a brilliant grade two headwall it got the guys into the zone and we were able to make great progress and onto the summit.

High up on the final headwall on A'chioch

Summit team on Beinn Bhan

Unfortunately the weather had almost turned tropical by the time we returned to the car.  Winds on the summits were to be in excess of 90mph and raining at all levels.  The very little snow we did have would very quickly reduce to just enough for a snowball fight.  Day two we had to make use of the training crag on the Applecross peninsular.

Day 3, urghh!  Rain beating off the wind rocking mini bus as we drove down Glen Torridon, I mustered up some enthusiasm and coaxed everyone out the bus and we started the 2 hour walk along the Allt a' Choire Dhuibh Mhoir up into Coireag Dubh Mor.  Might I add, in 60 mph head winds driving rain through every opening and stitching leaving us all utterly soaked by the time we reached the corrie.  Again I dug deep and found some more enthusiasm as the rain slowly turned to stinging graupel.  We opted for the Way up (I) gully.  And for Matt and John to do the leading.  A great performance from them in these horrendous conditions but after half way it was getting a bit much, especially as Matt was getting very cold and his lips were changing colour.  From here I took over and we whizzed up to the top, still been blasted by constant graupel, so powerful that it would sting the back of my legs.  We all belly flopped over the gully rim like soldiers who have just completed the toughest assault course.  We rejoiced as we were out of the worst of the winds.  Today was no summit day.  No chance.  We got 'outta there'!  So grim but what everyone agreed as type two fun (fun afterwards, not so much during).

Walking round Beinn Eighe

Low on West Buttress

With a desire to climb a little harder, I took the team into the mind blowing Coire Mhic Fhearchair, on Beinn Eighe, a pleasant 3 hour walking before you start climbing.  After yesterdays suffering, today seemed very benign, it was cold, crisp and the mountains had a winter coat on.  To surge up some drained enthusiasm from the last couple of days we opted for West Buttress (IV,4****), a hard mountaineering route with plenty of interest throughout.  For me, this was perfect as I hadn't climbed the route and its days like this, on-sight guiding, which makes up for the tough days this week.  And what a route, very sustained, I think we did 12 pitches up the route which I think I had underestimated but we all worked hard and got up and down the south side before it got dark.  A top effort from the guys!  I was super pleased to complete the trilogy of the triple buttresses (East, Central and now West).

Dont worry lads, there is only a couple of tricky pitches...oops!

Our final day dawned and again we just about had good conditions.  We never touched freezing level, it was always one pitch above our head.  With this forecast we took the walk back into Coireag Dubh Mor and climbed George (III,4) which goes in pretty much any condition fortunately.  We made pretty swift progress up the route and this time went over the summit of Spidean a' Choire Leith before making our final descent off Liathach, our final knee destroying descent of the week.  All in all, it was one of those weeks, a week that looks suboptimal but actually it proved to be very productive and very enjoyable, albeit a little tiring.  Thanks to my clients for putting in all the hard work and the very generous tips at the end.  Hopefully see you all again soon.

Leaving the cave pitch on West Buttress

The week started during a strong thaw, it was a struggle to find some snow.  Glen Shiel delivered.

Night ascent team (Francis, Jamie, Tom, Mark and Dave)

Another week draws to the end today as I wrapped up the Technical Winter Climbing course for Moran Mountain.  I have to admit it has been a very difficult week to run as the conditions for technical winter climbing have been non existent.  Fortunately my clients Jamie and Mark were very understanding and soon realised that they had to lower their aspirations to fit in with the conditions.  As a result we had a fantastic week.

Making progress up Ben Nevis North face @10pm.  Summit at midnight, car at 2am.

Mark and Jamie on the summit at midnight, very wild night but best day (night) of the week.

Sometimes, leaving the vehicle can be quite hard when its warm and rainng and we know conditions wont be perfect but this week had a silver lining.  As we had to 'think outside the box', I ended up on the summit of 3 Munros I have never done, climbed 2 routes I have never climbed, did a night ascent under the glow of our head torches and discovered probably the most stunning corrie I have ever seen in Scotland.  Truly a very memorable week for everyone involved.  An outstanding effort from Jamie and Mark who displayed constant enthusiasm even in the heaviest of down pours.  Cheers chaps, see you in the mountains soon.

Great fun

Brilliant mountaineering on the Northern Pinnacles on Liathach

Another summit, another munro after a great climb.

Tom and his beard

Doing the shuttle to get the van.

Team ascent on Beinn Eighe

Picking out some tricky steps to make this brilliant grade 2 a little harder.

More pictures HERE

With it being mid January and not a great deal of winter climbing under my belt, I was fully prepared to drive up to the North West for some climbing with Murdoch knowing full well that it would be a quite hard day of climbing.  To my surprise Murdoch was very flexible with what we did and seemed to be happy to lower his grade to something amenable as I am essentially off the couch.  

Abseiling down West Central Wall (Photo credit Murdoch)

The plan was hatched to climb on West Central Wall on Beinn Eighe, a crag I have never done a route on.  Martin Moran was keen to join the ascent but after a bad nights sleep he decided against it.  So Murdoch loaded up our packs and headed off from the car at 5.30am chatting away as we had lots to catch up on.  We arrived at the abseil down the route Blood, Sweat and Frozen Tears (high on the to do list) and abseiled down to the ledge at the start of the routes.  We hummed and hawed about our two routes and eventually settled on the 2nd ascent of the winter line of Bruised Violet (hard VIII,8). It was to work out perfect for me, two grade 7 pitches and two grade 8 pitches.  I was keen for the 7's and Murdoch was more than happy to climb both the grade 8 pitches.  Everyone was happy.  I think we made pretty efficient progress up the route, the two hard pitches were really tenuous and fairly strenuous, certainly a shock to the system for me.  A stunning route and a great find by Andy Turner and Ian Parnell in a beautiful setting.  Cant wait to go back and climb some of the other routes there.

Uisdean and tom climbed Sundance which sounds amazing, another classic Beinn Eighe route that I would love to climb.

The tricky crux pitch

Great location

 I left my camera behind so unfortunately no photos from me.  All from Murdoch's camera.

Alan on Left Twin

Today I was out with Alan for his first winter day this season.  We have had a few days out this summer but his last winter route was Two Step Corner (V,5) on Ben Nevis back in March 2015.
The forecast was very benign, low winds with a little cloud cover and cold enough temperatures.  Alan has been suffering from a  chest infection for the last 3 weeks so a short walk in was best suited.

Despite having a chest infection I still made him coil the ropes

Alan emerging from the crux

Abseiling back down Left Twin

So we took the gondola up and the Quad chair lift leaving us with a 40 minute walk to reach the corrie rim where we would abseil in.  It was nice and sociable whilst we were gearing up with Al, Ian and Dave all heading in for a bit of personal climbing as well as two other chaps.  The best part was that Alan and I got to do Left Twin (III,4)  first the abseiled back down and climbed Right Twin (II).  So we did two routes, 6 abseils, 6 pitches, 6 stars and Alan got a nice big shower of snow on his head...I can imagine who or where it came from!?

In Right Twin

The snow could have come from anywhere! ;)

 MORE PICTURES HERE on my Facebook page

Heading for the corner (photo: Steve)

Today I finally got to go climbing on some winter routes.  It was brilliant!  Very wintery conditions with barely a breath of wind.  This meant Steve and I enjoyed winter climbing in mellow temperatures and absolutely no suffering.  We went up to Aonach Mor, nothing like a bit of mechanical uplift to help blow out my cold I picked up in the Alps, and made our way down Easy Gully. 

I think I had a knee bar in there (Photo: Steve)

A few more moves to go (Photo: Steve)

 We started off on Sterling Bridge (VI,7) which was a great pitch of climbing.  Short but very entertaining and a nice route to get things going this winter.  We made it to the top at 11.30am so with plenty of time left we opted for another route.  Given that Steve hadn't done a route on the crag I showed him the abb points and he led us up Left Twin (III,4).  

Steve approaching the belay on SB

Unfortunately the idiot in the group (me) left the ice screws in the back at the top so Steve was faced with a lonely lead with a head of useless metal work as everything was choked with ice.  He did sling a couple of pretty useless ice columns but it was not a problem as the route was well within Steve's climbing grade, there was a good ice pillar right at the crux more fortunately.  So all in all, a great day out to blow away the skiing legs, a mixed route, an ice route and a nice finish back to the van at 2.30pm.  Happy days.  Back to work tomorrow...I think I will go back up there, great conditions.

Steve leading to the top of SB

Steve setting off without ice screws

Ice screw would be useful here...

And here!

Damn right it is!  Just looking out the window is enough evidence to suggest we are fully embraced in my favourite season of them all.  It seems like a silly question for mid January but as I have no winter routes under my belt so far it feels like winter hasn't even started yet.  A result of poor weather and condition's have meant I haven't been out climbing but also because I have been focussing on the next phase of inductions for the British Mountain Guides scheme.  Over the last two week I have been in the Alps working on improving my skiing technique, proving that I can ski at the required standard and then followed up with a 5 day avalanche course.

Guess the mountain game

We started of at a brilliant resort in Leysin in Switzerland for a 3 day ski technique course ran by Alex and Ivan.  These two guys are something else on ski's.  Its hard to describe how good they are but imagine skiing down as fast as you can, then look ahead and you will see Alex skiing backwards giving you tips on your technique as he weaves through the crowds on the piste...one one ski as well!  That is what 30+ years on skis will do for you.  He is also a coach for the Swiss ski teams.  We were in good hands.

Ivan strapping his boot up for an intense warm up!

Our group has 12 members, all of different abilities and backgrounds, some climbers, some instructors and some pro skiers.  Everyone was picking up good tips and knowledge off Alex and Ivan no matter what their ability.

After the 3 days in Leysin, I went to Samoens in France with Calum for two days skiing.  Unfortunately it was raining at all levels so we just did one day skiing and then had a late start and headed over to La Grave for the rest of the trip.

Who knows how to ski?

Our first day in La Grave was the Ski Induction.  A one day assessment of our skiing ability to make sure we haven't falsified our logbooks and that we are a suitable standard for the scheme.  Phew, we all passed and can continue onto the next stage of the scheme.

Misty conditions at La Grave

After we all passed our assessment we then went on and started a 5 day EAS avalanche course run by Mark Diggins (Top Man at SAIS), Bruce Goodlad (BMG Training officer), Nick Parks (BMG) and Peirre (Local Guide).  A collected wealth of experience and expertise meant we had a very informative course and we all took a great deal away from it.  I always believe it is worth doing as many avalanche courses as possible.

Digging snow profiles

Its getting cold, lets go!

Not only were we digging snow profiles and writing avalanche reports, we were also looking at safe travel through the mountains with groups and on skis.  So during the week we went on two mini ski tours looking at route choice, hazard identification and group management amongst many other topics.

Hands up for breaking trail?

A safe place to be

A bit Scottish today

Le Meije.  A beautiful summit.  Cant wait to come back and climb it,

 So all in all, a great couple of weeks in the Alps but to be honest I am really glad to be back in Scotland.  The snow is here, routes are in conditions and I have a few days off before work really kicks in.  More pics HERE. 

One another note, I am very sad to hear two local climbers who I knew lost their lives in the mountains of Glencoe yesterday.  Thoughts and prayers go out to their families at this very tough time.  Rest in peace Simon and Joe, two very enthusiastic young lads.

Is the crag that way?

2016 rolled in with a day climbing on Beinn Eighe this year with Henry and Craig on the New Year Technical Climbing course for Moran Mountain. Not exactly superb conditions but we had a good 4 days climbing Pinnacle Ridge on Sgurr nan Gillean on Skye, dry tooling at Loch Carron, the Runnel in the Cairngorms and had our final day on Beinn Eighe trying a spot of mixed climbing on East Buttress. Craig and Henry put a great effort in pretty poor conditions but our final two days were far more 'wintery'. It has been a slow start to the winter season, I haven't done any personal winter climbing so far but hope to when I return from the Alps in two weeks.