Snowdonia snow

Last week's thaw stripped the mountains of its wintry coat, leaving only a few snow patches in sheltered gullies, thankfully the weather has been dry and cold,  allowing some limited winter skills training this week, and although we had a bit of a walk to get to the best areas, the pleasant spring like conditions made up for it. Cwm Cneifion was very popular with several teams out making the most of the only complete line in the area - Easy Gully. There were some areas of ice building up, and the paths were very icy - giving us the chance to practise our cramponing skills before getting onto the steeper snow slopes - which were in excellent condition. Day two took us up to the Trinity face of Snowdon, and although the big gully lines were not complete, we were able to try out some ice axe braking and looked at snow anchors - we found a  4m ice step to play on, and even placed an ice screw !
A very pleasant day in the sunshine !

Winter Scotland

Plenty of snow and ice in Scotland to play on this week with heavy snow showers mixing with some beautiful days to give some enjoyable climbing and skiing conditions - I even had a go at skiing on a rest day ! We also found a little bit of ice to play on in Ben Udlaith ( the only place we could get to after one particularly heavy snowfall left everywhere else in knee deep powder ) The thaw which started in mid week will help to consolidate the new snow and hopefully improve conditions for the next Scottish courses. Unfortunately the thaw has removed a lot of snow from the Welsh mountains this week, so it looks as though we'll miss out again on good conditions for the weekend climbing course in Snowdonia - at the moment the Cairngorms seem the best bet ! - looks like I'm going to have to either going to have to buy a private jet or move to Norway !

Scotland's winter

The weather and conditions have continued to be better than forecast,  allowing courses to progress without too many changes of plan. So far this week we have been able to progress some basic winter skills up to multi-pitch climbing and enjoyed some fantastic Scottish mountain scenery - as well as some very Scottish spindrift thanks to a strong Northerly wind !
Thanks to Helen and Michael for their determination to get as much as they could from the last few days.

Scottish winter climbing

It has been a good start to the New Year winter courses so far, with excellent conditions and reasonable weather, we have made the most of the last few days,
with training covering a lot of the different skills needed for climbing in winter - navigation, route choice, avalanche awareness, ice axe and crampon technique, ropework and anchors. Ed and John managed to progress through to leading a grade I route ( Jacob's Ladder ) as per their aim - not a particularly steep climb, but quite a steep learning curve - topping out into sunshine, good views and a well earned lunch !