Mess of Pottage

Campbell and i had a good winters day in the corries today climbing The Opening Break. Poor viz and lots of snow underfoot made moving around and finding your way entertaining. There is about 1 to 2ft of snow in the bottom of the corrie in places, snow shoes or skis would be a good shout. It took us 2hrs to get to the bottom of the route.

Climbing wise, cracks not that icy, turf.... well covered and frozen, lots of hoar/rime. Alot of consolidated snow in scoured areas, not far off neve which is a good sign for the rest of the season.

Winter Courses

I still have availability for Winter Courses over the New Year period and into January 2010.

All courses are based in the Cairngorms, Winter Skills, Winter Mountaineering and Winter Climbing. Also available, Norway Ice which is based in Rjukan.

For further details use the link above to access the main site.

Bookings received before 1 December will receive a 15% discount!

Killer Toads at Cummingston!

Thanks to Liz for this photo!

Skye

I spent most of last week on Skye with Liz, a returning client from Ireland. We were surprised to get 3 dry but cool days on Skye, staying at the Glen Brittle hut. Our first day was spent single pitch climbing at Neist Point, day 2 on the ridge traversing from Bannadich to Mhadaigh and then our last day was spent on Pinnacle Ridge. We then escapsed back East as the usual Skye weather returned, gale force winds and rain. Our final day was spent at Cummingston single pitch climbing.

The first snows have arrived and a believe winter routes have been climbed!

Chamonix

Just back from a recent trip to Chamonix. We had a week of good settled weather and managed to get up a few new tops. Aiguille de la Floria in the Aiguille Rouge, The Petit Forouche at the col du tour, an aborted attempt on the Midi Plan due to black ice and finished the week on Mont Blanc via the normal route. I have been up the 3 M,s route before which seemed straight forward, bit of a shock on the "normal" route which seemed anything but..... a dash across the grand couloir dodging missiles and a full on scramble to the Goutier Hut where we spent the night on benches. The route above the Goutier hut made up for the melee below.

A Wet Month

Well hopefully September and the Autumn will be a bit drier than August!? I have just had to postpone a trip to Orkney and The Old Man of Hoy due to the wet weather, hopefully more settled weather will appear over the next few weeks.

The other side to the wet weather is that the local fishing on the Spey has been good with high water levels. I caught this 5lb Salmon Grilse last week, not the biggest salmon in the world but a start.

SPA Training

I finished the week working with Richard Bentley and the 2nd year trainees at Castle Toward. Their SPA training weekend had a mixture of indoor and outdoor workshops looking and personal climbing, group climbing and abseils and lots more. Saturday was spent at Neilston quarry looking at personal climbing, abseiling and an intro to group anchor set ups. Sunday was spent at Glen Crow finishing off the group work and scenarios, a wet day!