Busy week and a lot of catching up

Sunday 16th was a hit and a miss of a day. Highs and lows with the weather being typically Scottish and unpredictable. Me and Alfie decide to take a punt and go up to project crag, which turned out to be worthwhile but also a little detrimental to my mind set. Alfie managed to lead his project route after one try on a top rope. This was amazing to watch and be part of as well as being a bit on the scary side. I also had a number of attempts on Top rope at the route I am trying but became rather disheartened with the damp holds and repeated falls. Left feeling torn between elation for Alfie and annoyance at myself.

       

Very happy at this moment! NOT!!!

Monday 17th, I spent the day in Coire an t-sneachda to brush up and practice skills in preparation for WML assessment. I was out with a number of friends and other WML candidates; Alfie, Steve, Zoe, John and Tom. The weather was warm, wet and windy. Snow was heavy and wet but still managed to get through a good deal of skills while on the slopes of the Fiacall Ridge.

Monday evening was a beasting training session with Alfie at Kimbers bouldering wall for 2 hours of pain.

Tuesday 18th was a day of indoor climbing and training at local facility, doing some strength, endurance and distance training along with lead climbing and bouldering.

Thursday 20th Alfie, Rich B and myself went up the very pleasant Corbett Beinn Bhan, 796m which is near Glen Loy. a very straight forward day on the hill with the aim of practising navigation techniques and stretching the legs. The weather forecast was interesting and gave us enough to think about while out on the hill. Rich B and Alfie are both well on there way with preparing themselves for Summer ML assessments at some point this year and showed good knowledge, skills and techniques for navigation. While on the hill we discussed varying scenarios, possibilities and ideas for group management and leadership. The hill time was very useful for my personal preparation as there was more than enough snow on the ground along with an extremely cold, strong wind, heavy fresh snow fall and lack of visibility for the time spent above 600m which required navigation around the plateau and of the summit.



Thursday afternoon the three of us went to local indoor climbing facility and climbed, trained and got psyched. I am really noticing the benefit of training and the climbing routine, felt strong and enjoyed the session.

Rich B on the plod.

Friday 21st Rich B and myself went for a hill day. I wished to go higher than we had done the previous day to spend more time in winter conditions. We decided to go into Glen Nevis then from lower falls head up Allt coire a Mhusgain to the lochan below Sgurr an Lubhair, from there we planned to traverse along the Devils ridge to Sgurr a Mhaim. With fresh snow fall over night and a lot more forecast throughout the day we plodded into the ankle to knee deep snow line at roughly 450/500 meters. A lot of snow had fallen and been blown around in 24 hours.

Moving up broken ground to reach the ridge line

On the Ridge

From the lochan onwards we were in very poor visibility, navigation was required to confirm our location and also for a safe ascent onto the Devils ridge. We moved up broken ground avoiding the normal ascent path from the lochan and reached the bealach at the start of the ridge where the wind really picked up. We put crampons on here and had a chat about whether to commit to the ridge or not. We decided to go for it and made along the ridge line, the wind was gusting at 50mph which was a little more than forecast but didn't impede our progress to much. The ridge was very entertaining and interesting all the way along and kept us both on our toes until reaching the summit of Sgurr a Mhaim. On the final pull up to the summit the winds increased even more and began to slow progress down.

After reaching the summit in high spirits we took a quick snap then descended back down into Glen Nevis taking the shoulder that drops steeply down to lower falls.

Saturday 22nd and snow was still falling in the morning, a couple of friends; Kev Woods and Kev Mckeown made the trip up from Glasgow to have an attempt at going round the CMD arête onto Ben Nevis. We also hooked up with Tom and Zoe who I had been out with on Monday. The fresh snow fall hampered progress up CMD and made for a very slow ascent at roughly 900m the decision was made to bail on the attempt. Some of the group continued and completed the day but Kev Mck, Zoe and myself descended back down to the path with lots of good chat and laughter.

                     

Battling up and down the slopes of Carn Mor Dearg




Sunday 23rd I worked for myself teaching 2 novices to climb indoors at a local climbing facility. The day was great fun and really good progress was made as both clients had not done anything before.

Now that brings me to today. I met up with Steve at Nevis Range. The sun was splitting the sky but it looked windy up top with a lot of snow being moved around.  We took the Gondola up onto Aonach Mor and made good speed up to the plateau. We battled the very strong winds and enjoyed the views all around while we marched to the summit. After enjoying the panoramic scenery for some time, we had a discussion about continuing on to Aonach Beag but decided to return to the ski area via Aoanch an Nid. A brilliant day to be out on the mountains of Scotland and a nice change of conditions on the hill.