SPA Day 2

Today Rich and I took the team to Polldubh where we used different crags to look at planning, mamanging and organising group sessions. Showery but a little warmer in the sun.

A great week off into an SPA Training

Back in Scotland today at Kingussie Crag Drecting an SPA Training for UHI working alongside Rich- pics above.
I had a great spell off starting with 2 days CPD organised by AMI on mountaineering and short roping with clients. An evening session cragging at White Ghyll with Dan was followed by a top day climbing at Sergeant's Crag Slab and re-equipping the ab. point there. After a day's biing around Grizsdale I moved to Wales for a long snowy mountaineering route on Lliwedd with Scoob followed by some bouldering in the Pass and next day a great couple of routes at Castell Helen. Here is a wee video of my trip...

Castell Helen

Out to Anglesey today with a big team from PYB. Paul and I climbed Blanco (HVS 4c,5a,4a - steep but very positive) and Pel (VS4c, 4b) in a cold wind. Sal and Lou mixed and matched pitches from Rap, Pel and Atlantis whilst others were over on the main wall. Then we all went for a social bar-b at Dino's. Grand day oot.

Scottish conditions in Wales?

I came south to Wales in the hope of warm dry rock.... oops. Today Scoob and I went to Lliwedd and having walked in in the sun. Whilst we were gearing up at the base of a VS the first snow flakes hit and we could see big clouds approaching so it was plan B and a long, long mountain Diff. We were 9 pitches up and the snow really blasted us- it was hot aches and slippy feet again. 2 days climbing before I go back to Scotland- pray for sunshine.

This evening I went bouldering in the Pass and finally caught some sun!

Biking for a change...

Guy and I went to look at a crag today for a route he has his eye on but there is a bird ban in force so we went to Grizedale Forest for a couple of loops on the bikes.

Lakes Trad and bolting- oooh controversial

Well is it really controversial? The BMC Local Area Meeeting had decided in the past that a bolted ab point at the top of Sergeants Crag Slabs would be appropriate and twice one has been placed only to be chopped by someone taking a unilateral decision. This means that people have been abseiling off of 2 rusty pegs, some manky tat and a snapgate maillion combination that in my opinion left something to be desired. So today Dan and I went off to climb some of the excellent routes on this crag (I led the HVSs Lakeland Cragsman and Endurance and Dan did Terminator HVS, Apahasia E25b and Quicksilver E15b). Despite the odd snowflake and fairly numb fingers (fresh dustiong of snow on the Lakeland Fells this morning) we had a superb day on the sharp rough rock of these routes and climbed the drill and bolting kit up a route to replace the ab station. Will it last? Is it third time lucky? Who knows? For more information on the reasoning behind the decision to bolt this ab station see Dan's Blog or the Cumbria Bolt Fund Website.

CPD- Dow, climbing- White Ghyll

Day 2 of our CPD and we were short roping up and down Dow Crag's descent route and parts of Giant's Crawl- putting it all together and getting it to flow. Hope the chap I helped who had dislocated his shoulder climbing is feeling better :-(

Then I got dropped of in Langdale to meet Dan for some late evening cragging. I nipped up Middlefell Buttress waiting for him to finish work and we headed for White Ghyll. Here we climbed a couple of E1s an HVS and a VS - 5 very quick (so quick Dan the local didn't even give me their names) pitches of quality climbing before heading for some liquid refreshment! More Lakeland rock tomorrow...