Farewell to winter....

And what a day to finish on! My last 3 days in Scotland were spent working for Jagged Globe. The last day was an absolute stunner so we headed up No. 4 Gully on the Ben and were lucky to have perfect visibility and gorgeous sunshine. Really nice team too.

On the whole this winter has been amazing, good weather, fab climbing and work has gone really well. Was like a going away present from Scotland to have such a lovely final day.
Disappointingly the drive home was miserable through snow, lashing rain and winds but made it eventually.
Now looking forward to a summer of some rock climbing adventures so I guess this is the end of the Winter Blog. Maybe next year there will be more???? Still got a MASSIVE tick list of routes to do.
Thanks for reading.

Polldubh Cragging

Well it looks as though winter may be over........well OK there is still loads of snow and conditions high up on the Ben are apparently pretty good, but there is sunshine and dry rock to be had so today Andy, Ian and I headed into Glen Nevis and the Polldubh crags. Above is a picture of Ian on the classic The Gutter (Diff) and below Andy trying out Jahu (E6 6a) we also all did Ressurection (VS 4c), Razor (VS 4c) and Diagonal Crack (VS 4c). Millions of stars and a very enjoyable afternoon down the glen.

Jahu E6 6a
Not too hard with a rope above your head but would be terrifying to actually lead, well solo as there isn't any gear.

Roger comes to Scotland....

As is normal Rog comes to Scotland and the weather takes a turn for the worse! After the weekend trip to Liathach I was pleased to see that the forecast for Tuesday was actually looking pretty good, just a bit of drizzle in the morning.

So we decided to head up the Ben with Andy and Ian and see what was looking good. Thankfully

the thawing over the last few days meant that the Ben track was passable so no need for the sit down start. Andy and Ian disapperared at a rate of knots with promises of kettles being put on, Rog and I took a more leisurely pace and arrived at the CIC hut to brews. The difference in conditions since my last visit was amazing the CIC cascades were looking much much thinnner and everything lower down the mountain was black. After much discussion Rog and I decided to go and do Slingsby's Chimney (II) as it would mean a relatively short walk and being able to abseil off form the top.

The photos above show me on the 1st pitch and Rog on the 2nd. Not without incident, Rog had a case of the butter-fingers and managed to drop one of my pink quickdraws and then one of my gloves that he was borrowing! The top pitch of the route was in pretty poor condition with very little snow so after setting off I found a lovely spike and decided to retreat. So we scuttled back to the hut for more tea and then headed down. Andy and Ian did Vanishing Gully (V, 5) which was apparently vanishing before their very picks!

The next day a rather exhausted Rog wasn't up with the larks so we had a gentle day and wandered into Steall Falls whcih was in a very different state to my last visit. For a start we had to use the bridge to cross the river and with temperatures of around 10 degrees none of it was frozen! The following day the forecast was miserable so we went to the wall and got pumped! Thanks for visiting Rog and hope you had at least some fun!

Not the best conditions......

Saturday dawned a bit damp and warm but as Libby had come up from Wales we had a plan to head to the North West and attempt Poacher's Fall (V, 5) on Liathach. Andy and Catrin were also in the team, so we left Lewis and headed up arriving in the car park to a light drizzle.
Walking in we went through several heavy showers interspersed with light rain - but for some reason none of us sounded the retreat and before we knew it we were all at the bottom of the route and geared up.
Andy and Catrin headed up first with Andy doing a super long first pitch. Libby headed up and did a shorter pitch which left me the second pitch and a very steep little ice fall. Luckily I hadn't set off when Andy dislodged a MASSIVE chunk from a bove which crashed down missing us as we were tucked under a handy roof. The warm wet weather meant the ice was amazing for getting brilliant placements and really easy to get screws into, not sure they were that brilliant but made us feel better!
Libby headed up the next fab ice fall, quite a long pitch with a couple of steeper sections. By the time I was seconding up Andy and Catrin were abseiling back down with less than great reviews of the next pitch. I was feeling pretty chilly and my gloves and hands, and in fact down to my elbows, were completely soaked so we decided that we could bail from where we were and promptly did!

Definitely an adventure and good climbing in a lovely place - but not exactly enjoyable for much of the time! No pictures today - way too wet to get as camera out!

No. 6 Gully - Aonach Dubh

Another day out with Catrin today and we opted for a short walk in and a Cold Climbs tick once more. We headed for No. 6 Gully hoping it would still be in condition after the warmer temperatures we've had in the last few days.
Pitch one was awesome, proper good axe placements. The second was rather wet and had some holes in it which was slightly disconcerting and meant there was no gear but was pretty easy.
Then came a very short steep section and then an easy slope up to the bottom of the crux icefall. Luckily this pitch was still quite fat if thawing, so up I scooted and managed to get a few screws and some rock gear in before topping out onto another snow slope and a split in the gully.
Catrin headed off and round to the right and out of sight. All a bit snow free but super frozen turf so we made it out the top of the route and then headed off and down into the bottom of Coire nam Beith. Probably wouldn't be wanting to do this route tomorrow so pretty happy to have snatched this one before it disappears for the winter.
The normal gorge that you walk down is COMPLETELY filled with avalanche debris snow, so no need to hop back and too across the stream at the moment just wander down nice soft snow.

We even made it down to Fort William in time for hot chocolate and cake - after which I felt a bit sick - way too much sugar!!!
Thanks Catrin for the photos.

More Cold Climbs ticks......

Back from the spring-like south Andy and I headed straight for the Big Bad Ben - my first visit this year. Unfortunately the track is competely impassable so it meant a walk from the sit-down start in the North Face carpark.

Another beautiful day and the snow conditions are perfect so Andy decided we should go and do Minus 2 Gully (V,5). It was a busy day on the Ben but we arrived at the bottom to find a team about to leave the belay at the top of the first pitch. 4 good long pictches up very cool narrow gullies with mostly very good neve. Getting a little bit used in places which did mean a bit of a footless pull on pitch one. We topped out onto North East Buttress and decided to head down (tired, cold and grumpy on my part!) so did a couple of abseils down the ridge and then followed the ramp off the back. A weary walk back to the car but a good day out.

Today I was out with Catrin and we decided to head south to Beinn an Dothaidh. Weather forecast was for more wind than of late, a whole lot of cloud and some drizzle. We bumbled up into the coire and managed to find the route we were looking for - Taxus (III). In fab condition with some good ice and some gentle snow slopes in between. We opted for the IceFall Finish (IV,4) and very glad we did too - was brilliant! Then we sauntered back down out of the cloud and into some drizzle to welcome us back to the car.

Couple of grand days out and more planned for the next few days........... watch this space!

Wales Mini-Break

Just back from a trip back to Wales. Andy was summoned to the film festival as a sponsored hero so thought I'd tag along. There was WAY too much sunshine to sit around indoors watching film so once Turner had been released from hero duties we high-tailed it with Catrin (see above) and Naomi, up to the Slate on Saturday afternoon for a couple of pitches around Never Never Land and Seamstress - Fresh Air and Seams the Same.

A gorgeous morning at Tremadog followed - not a phrase you would expect me to associate with the usually cursed place but actually enjoyed it! We did Pretzl Logic followed by Grim Wall Direct/Meshach combo and then scooted back to Llanberis for Ste McClures lecture and then jsut to be greedy we bombed up the Pass for a lap of Little Groover just near the Grochan.

Monday once again dawned fair and so we again headed for the Pass with our chauffeur - Catrin in the Yellow Peril. The Wastad was the crag of choice and a couple of esoteric gems, Trilon and Goldcrest.

Phew a whistle-stop tour! I LOVE rock-climbing! Almost seems a shame to be heading back for winter.

No Leashes, No Ropes - just Fun!

This is the next installment of adventure, bit delayed due to a big dump of snow and hence very scary snow conditions.

A tragic week in the West Highlands left us all shocked and very sad - we will miss Chris Walker as someone who always made us laugh and was a caring and loyal friend. Unbelievable that he's gone and that it happened somewhere we all would have thought the safe option for descending off Buchaille Etive Mor in the snow conditions.

Things have started to settle down a little bit after some frankly MASSIVE avalanches, check out the SAIS blogs for photos.

This week everyone and their dogs have been doing Steall Falls, I have however been working whilst the sun was shining and the sky was blue and the temperatures were chilly. Andy in the meantime had been getting strapped to some new routes in the NW Highlands, firstly with Rich Cross and then with Blair Fyffe.
Fortunately I managed to get the friday off work so that we could drive south to attend the Llanberis Mountain Film Festival (LLAMFF), which is sponsored by Mountain Equipment and so Andy had been summoned. This meant that we could get a quick lap of Steall Falls in before driving south - result!!
A route I've wanted to climb since walking into the falls the first winter I was in Scotland and realising that sometimes it freezes. Andy was suffering lethargy from new routing but agreed to come with me anyway.
We arrived by about 9:30am in a bit of drizzle to find the Falls still frozen and only one other team gearing up at the bottom. Now our cunning plan was to set off soloing and see what happenend, so with a few screws on my harness and Andy with a rope tied onto his back we set off and before I knew it we were way the hell up there and having a brilliant time. Nice ice - not at all brittle, a few holes on the right side with water running behind, very pretty. There were a couple of chunks came down but they missed us and we made it all the way to the top. One abseil and we were on a path down through the trees and skipping back out to the car to drive back to Wales. The round route trip took us just over 2 hours and I was beaming!! Check out the video clip below for some fine climbing technique!