Northern Corries - winter wonderland

No photo's I'm afraid - and I'm not sure if photo's can do the scenery justice - unbelievable beauty at present, with pale blue northern skies, endless arctic mountains !!!

Glencoe 30th,31st Jan

Excellent conditions on Sat & Sun. for practising some grade II climbing with Cameron and David , Dorsal Arete in Stob Coire nan Lochan and Broken Gully on Stob Coire Nam Beith.

The conditions stayed pretty good for a refresher course I attended on Mon. & Tues , gaining very valuable experience from spending time with Carlo Forte and Spike Sellers,

thanks again to both!

Winter Climbing - West Coast

What a week to be in Scotland - excellent weather and ice climbing conditions allowed us the freedom to pick and choose routes; with trips to Glencoe for Squaddies Climb, The Screen, No.6 Gully, Broad Gully and Curved ridge - Sgurr A'Finnisaig and The East Face at Aonach Mor - and Steall Falls in Glen Nevis. There was some very hard windslab about and a lot of powder snow, but the low temperatures combined with a lot of water seepage has meant that there is a lot of ice forming - even Elliotts's Downfall had touched down by Monday, although still a bit thin for my liking.

For some, new to Scottish winter climbing, this week might have given a false impression - it's not always this good - so I hope you enjoyed it !!

Thanks to Matt, Martin, Frank, Lorcan, Rob, John and Trish for a great week - and commiserations to Iuan, Pete, Will and Si who couldn't make it.

Cairngorms

Wintry in the Cairngorms at the moment - with low temps. and a lot of snow - good skiing conditions attracting a lot of mountain visitors over the festive season, and very pretty to look at.

Climbing conditions were not so good with recent powder snow burying everything and making getting to the climbs hard work, however, we managed to get out on Monday and Tuesday but were caught up in the huge traffic jam leading up to the Coire Cas on Wed. and decided to call it a day, especially with another windy day forecast suggesting an increased avalanche risk - fingers crossed for next week though as I'm back up to the West Coast for some more of the white stuff.

Thanks to Anish and Raksha for their company and enthusiasm in the poor conditions.

Brecon Ice Climbing

The cold snap has brought some limited roadside icefall cragging to S.Wales, with a number of short routes just about in condition, the truck was reluctant to brave the icy roads up to Torpantau Falls, so Craig -y-Fro was visited, with some ice bouldering right out of the layby, and the main falls within 200mtrs of the road, we weren't surprised to find at least three teams chipping away at the brittle ice - all good fun at this time of the year; however, the trip home became a bit of an epic with roads blocked and very slow traffic after a couple of hours heavy snowfall took everyone by surprise - hopefully the climbers from Somerset made it home O.K

Northern Corries Climbing

A visit to the Cairngorms this week for the start of the winter season - and as last year, it has been pretty good - snow pack and ice have built up to give some good climbing conditions as the week progressed, and although blue skies were limited, and the buttresses were black at the start of the week, by Thursday things were pretty good, with ascents of The Runnel, Spiral Gully, Red Gully, Goat Track Gully , Crotched Gully and Alladin's Mirror providing a good warm up for the season ahead . Thanks to Mark, Don, Stuart and Ian for their enthusiasm and company.

Autumn mountains

After the fantastic weather in October, November's rains have been a bit of a shock, a trip to Skye had to be postponed with 80 mph winds and horizontal rain and rock climbing days, few and far between, however, it has been good practice for poor weather navigation, with courses in N.Wales and the Brecon Beacons - and I certainly need the practice with my MIC assessment due Feb. next year, off for more practice in Scotland this week, with hopefully some winter snow and ice climbing in the Cairngorms.