Arqiva changeovers

Last morning with our first Arqiva group and a new team arrived at Glenmore Lodge at lunchtime. Team 1 went to a mast and after some interesting driving up snowy roads we used snow shoes and pulks to move equipment around and tested their emergency procedures using their pdas. Team 2 arrived for their intro. and day and night nav. Sneachda was thawing fast and very windy. Teams abseiled into the Seam which was quite white, the first pitch of the Genie was climbed before it thawed away and a party had a wee incident with an injured ankle after a fall from the crux of Patey's Route.

Arqiva Day 2

Well after me managing to talk far too long during last nights avalanche talk today the Arqiva team were keen to play with some toys. After a chat about weather and forecasting resources we went out around The Lodge to look at the use of ski poles, snow shoes and pulks- they are often carrying heavy loads of tools and spares into masts. In the afternoon we headed up to the Ciste car park for a walk in the sun on the hill to use them in a slightly more adventurous environment and discuss shelter and insulation. The day finished with Jas giving a talk on cold injuries.

Derek climbed Central Gully... and was slightly surprised buy the number of people that decided soloing past him was a good idea when there were so many other routes to chose from... James and Mike found ice to climb on Lurchers crag.

A change of pace

This week I'm at Glenmore Lodge working on a winter awareness course for mast engineers working for Arqiva. These are the guys who ensure that those masts on top of hills and moorland are working so that we get a phone signal and BBC2, Channel 4 etc. They take their job seriously and often (particularly the last couple of winters) face horrible weather conditions wading through drifts carrying 25kg of spares and equipment to ensure we can watch the Queen's Speech! Their company has decided that they all would be better for some training on the sort of equipment that is available and skills they can use to make travel in winter safer/indeed possible at all.

AMI Workshop day 2

Day 2 of the workshop I was running for the Association of Mountaineering Instructors and we woke to several inches of fresh snow. We chose to go back to Aonach Mor to maximise teaching time and minimise walking time and worked on the Nid Ridge. It was a breezy day as the Trainees worked through transitions from short roping into climbing, changing from series ropework to parallel and the issues involved in teaching lead climbing on winter ground. Tonight I'm sitting in the Glenmore Lodge bar. I have my first week's work of the season over here and on friday I'm off to Rjukan for a week's work- it's a grand life if you don't weaken.

AMI Workshop Day 2 from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

AMI Workshop

Today I was running a workshop for Trainee MICs for the Association of Mountaineering Instructors. The 4 students I had today let me know what their priorities were for the weekend and we headed up on the Gondola and round to the west face of Aonach Mor to look at mountaineering ropework. One of the most difficult set of judgments that an MIC has to make are those involved with short-roping; the planned movement of students around terrain where the consequences of a slip would be serious. We used some excellent Grade I/II ground well to the north of the Summit Ribs to explore the decision making involved and the techniques of 'taking the rope for a walk', body belays, direct belays on boulders etc. and making it all flow into efficient movement up the rocky ground we found. The weather was began and finished fine and we topped out on a shoulder a few hundred metres above the top of the quad chair where we also looked at protecting students in descent on steep snowy ground.

AMI Mountaineering Workshop from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

By special request...

Jen saw pictures of the ice at base of Compression Crack on my blog one morning and got in touch asking if we could go out and do it. So today she, Sal and I walked in to a very white and snowy Ben Nevis to see what things were like. Rosie's blog post from 2 January showed bare grass and rock in the basin below the route but some old snow. This was all buried by the recent powder and we chose a line carefully assessing things as we went. In the event today where we were there was only a little poorly consolidated soft slab with a slightly firmer layer about 2cm thick on top. I led the route whilst the other 2 gossiped (and shouted encouragement -or maybe they were just taking the p**s- when they remembered I was there!).

We had a little fresh snow and temperatures were cold throughout the day. From the top of the main ice pitch we built an ice screw thread and abseiled off. A second ab from the in situ tat placed by Rich, Dot and I in December was only just buried and a little excavation allowed us to use that to get back to our bags. We saw a party on the Carn Dearg Casacades and a team who had backed off of Castle Ridge after losing a battle against huge amounts of powder.

Compression Crack 6 Jan 2011 from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Lots of fresh white stuff

The volume of snow that fell to sea level in Lochaber was enough to put us off climbing for another day (there is plenty of winter left yet) so today's 'rest' day was a 20k run with Sal around Leanachan forest! Camera slowly drying out, might be usable tomorrow!