All in weekend

A few photos from this weekend in and around Sneachtda, working with a group from Imperial College London mountaineering club. The weekend was originally booked as a winter skills course but that soon changed when they all turned up with full climbing kit, summer rock climbing experience and the plan to do some climbing with members from the club later in week.

Saturday was spent covering winter skills and moving around on steeper ground and the group ascended Alladins Couloir on Sunday. Conditions were icy which upd the grade to I/II.

Winter Mountaineering

Some pictures from the Cairngorms over the weekend just past. I was working on a Winter Mountaineering course at Glenmore Lodge. A nice weekend to be out working weather wise with lots of folks in climbing, i counted about 100 climbers on the Sneachtda crags on Saturday morning.

More snow fell on Sunday afternoon which will hopefully fill things in a bit and looking ahead for the rest of week, more snow on the way.

Ultimate Sports Day

A group of us from Mountain and Water Safety Specialists recently worked on a CBBC production called Ultimate Sports Day. I suppose the kids programme will be a bit like a combination of Its a Knock Out and the Superstars with a sporty vertical theme in the run up to the Olympics next year. Its very hard when your working on these jobs to get photos yourself but we ve managed to get some from the professional chap who was covering the production. Its due out in the New Year on Cbeebies and will be well worth a watch, theres not only the kids involved with past, present and future Olympians and World Champions taking part.

Winter 2011/12

Its that time of year again, we ve had snow lying here in Archiestown since Saturday and looks like we re in for alot more today and the next couple of days.

Compared to this time last year winter on the hills has been a bit slower to materialise but its getting there. I climbed Fluted Buttress Direct IV/5 with Giles on Sunday and we found really good thin but very icy conditions which made the rocky sections nice to climb. Hopefully the snow last night and today will be filling things in up the hill. The forecast looks interesting over the next couple of days with very strong winds and the wind eventually swinging round to the North, watch out for the occluded front, fingers crossed.