A little snowy steep ground

Day 2 of the Glenmore Lodge Winter ML Assessment and I was out with the other half of the team on a journey looking at how they managed various aspects of steep ground. A very cheery and relaxed bunch of candidates today.
Blowy and bright at first and a little milder later.

 Fi talking about the significance of the wind transported snow

 Leading the way up the ridge

 Still sunny

 Charlie using a stomper to get Fi over a short drop

 And abseiling down

 Fi swimming up a short steepening

 Bucket seat and body belay

 The mug on the move and the emergency shelters

 Lou taking advantage of some ice in Coire an t Sneachda

 More bucket seat antics

 Come on up!

Steve heading down

Stunning in the sun

Day 1 of a Winter Mountain Leader Assessment in the Cairngorms working for Glenmore Lodge today and the weather was immaculate! Candidates were demonstrating the simple skills that might be necessary to take a group on a winter mountain journey.

 Coire Laogh Mor

 Do you know your hoar from your rime?

 Step cutting in ice snow beneath soft powder

 Self arrest with a view

 The other way round

 Turning

 More turning

 The best place to observe from?

 More steps

 Spray of snow

 Heading out

 Happy skier

Too nice, normal service will soon be resumed!

Would you like ice with that?

Final day of the Plas Y Brenin MIC Training and we went to Ben Nevis today. the focus was on how to turn a climbing day into a teaching day and on finding some ice. Most of the teams started on the CIC icefalls with mixed success the right hand groove that often gives a good III/IV was wet and detached with holes but the deep gully to the left of the main falls was in great condition. The main ice fall was a dripping chandeliery sett of ice daggers but Matt found the set of II/III steps at the extreme left climbable if a little wet and boomy. A team also climbed the Curtain Rail and something on Moonlight Gully Buttress. We watched others queueing for the Curtain, throwing laps on Waterfall Gully until a bit of it fell down and high on Orion Direct and Observatory Ridge. Sunshine, climbable ice, no wind and lots of good learning going on. After a few pitches we abseiled down above the main cascade to look at making ice screw threads which we then committed to to complete our abseil down the steep ice. Well done to  8 keen students, I look forwards to seeing you all out on the hill working towards becoming MICs!

 Morning light

 Walking in

 The gully on the left

 Boomy wet steps

 Mugonthemove gets some ice today

 Think thin thoughts

 Past the narrows

 Above the ice, below the mixed

 Not bad, eh?

 Abseiling the cascade

End of the course

The full Scottish

After a pleasant start to the morning we had a burly day on Stob Coire nan Lochan. The Plas Y Brenin MIC Training team went in en masse and Matt's team did Raeburns, Ollie's did Boomerang Arete and we took the right hand variation of Langsam whilst Tim's team did the left. It kicked off a little and there were big sluff's coming down from Summit Buttress and the team on Twisting Grooves got plastered by some noisy dumps of snow too. Pretty wild on descent but nice to bump into my mate Sam on the summit!

 Walking in

 Raven seek thy brother

 Langsam

 Andy in the groove

 Mandy in the maelstrom

 Mug on the move

 Are we having fun yet

 Andy on belly

Me and Sam on the summit of Stob Coire nan Lochan

Brain training

With a high avalanche forecast, a large team and some rope work to work on today we opted to take the PYB MIC Training to Polldubh where despite the rain I climbed on at least 6 dry handholds! I was working on parallel rope work with Dan and Mick and how we could use this setup to teach, how to make anchors simple to take down in winter and how to avoid fankles!

 Oldest recorded route at Polldubh

 Mick on the lead

 Cross 3

 Protecting the traverse

 Mug on the move goes rock climbing!

 Following

 Abseiling

Ollie embracing the weather