Last Saturday and Sunday

For the weekend I was working for Glasgow Academy who have an excellent outdoors programme of activities. Saturday saw myself and 3 students making a rapid ascent of Curved Ridge in, again rather wet conditions, before heading down to the hut at Lagangarbh for some excellent cake. Sunday saw torrential early morning downpours in Glencoe and 3 brave souls went off to the Zig zags on gear Aonach whilst the rest of us went to the Ice Factor for some indoor rock and ice.

Wet n wild

Last Friday Andy and I were on Curved Ridge. We climbed to the top in torrential rain and abseiled off Crowberry Tower. On the descent the paths were doing good impressions of streams but Andy's jacket got a chance to show how well water beaded off it. Even though I do this route many times a year doing it with different people and in different conditions keeps it fresh and interesting for me and of course its usually the first time for each client I'm out with. Andy is an ex miner so we chatted about Andy Cave's (another ex miner now climbing Guide) excellent book about his climbing and his background, 'Learning to Breathe'.

B to F Route, W Face of Aonach Dubh

Neil and I went to the Wst Face of Aonach Dubh to do B to F route on Saturday. This scramble ascends the buttress to the right of Dinnertime Buttress and traverses across the middle ledge (the fault line between the andesite and rhyolite layers) to No. 4 Gully. A shallow rib allows the gully to be climbed to the upper ledge where you can keep to the crest of F buttress or double back across towards Dinnertime to escape. From there we carried on over Stob Coire nan Lochain and Bidean before descending by Coire nam Beith. The exposure on middle ledge alone is worth doing this scramble for. Its never difficult but feels a really wild place to be. Its been a moslty dry week here in lochaber and has warmed up a little since last weeks dusting of snow so there's still plenty of mountaineering to be done before winter arrives!

Chilly on the Buachaille

Mike, Neil and John and I went out yeaterday. the original plan was Tower Ridge on the Ben but after sitting in a queue of traffic on the A82 north of Corran Ferry for half an hour (the road was blocked for several hours after another accident on this terrible section) we cut our losses and went to the Buachaille.

The guys are all competent scramblers and lead single pitch VS so we decided to use an ascent of D Gully Butress to practise a range of mountaineering skills. We looked at different types of direct and semi-indirect belays and moving together as ropes of 2 and 3 and carried on up Curved Ridge from the top of the route. After a quick ascent and abseil from the top of Crowberry Tower we passed over the summit in a snow flurry. The weather had been pretty kind to us - the sun being quite low in the sky to the south painted the Buachaille's shadow clearly on the moor below and we had the evidence of rainbows in the distance to show the many showers that were missing us! The guys had all bought matching jackets for the occasion- very fetching lads :-)

Dunkeld in the autumn sun.

Day off today and although it started damp the day turned into a scorcher for October. I went with Jamie B to meet a friend, Robin, at Craig Y Barns for a few climbs. We warmed up on Holly Tree Groove (VDiff) and the Creep (Severe) before Robin (who hasnt climbed for a while) reminded himself what its all about by leading Kesterl Crack (Severe). Jamie B took us up Springboard, a nice VS with barely adequate protection, which I hadnt done before. I finished the day with The Groove, one of the brace of VS 5as that all start off by pulling through a roof beside a (now aging) peg. The only problem with the day was the heat! We almost ran out of layers to remove!

Working in Glen Nevis

I was working with Jamie B and a party of students from Lochaber Colleges Outdoor HNC course. I spent some time with 4 of them looking at placing gear and belay building before having them climb and bring each other up the lower section of the Gutter. I took a pair up Styx Butress Rt Wall and another pair up Pinnacle Ridge in series to get them into the swing of how leading and seconding works whilst building their own belays at stances. A pleasant post midge season in the Glen.

Clean Sweep 7 Oct

Jane and I woke up in our tent to frost, mist and damp roads but took a chance on a good forecast and walked up the Goat Track and down Coire Domhain to the foot of Hells Lum. Inspired by Ron Walker of Talisman Mountaineering' s pics on his conditions site: Winternet, we had a particular route in mind. Although the water was pouring down some parts of the crag the warm sun and sight of plenty of dry rock meant we decided to give Clean Sweep, the classic VS a go. The first 4c pitch had a few wet streaks easily stepped over before climbing an awkward groove onto the dry 'whaleback ridge'. Jane led the next pitch which although technically the easiest on the route was disconcertingly wet (in fact thats an understatement!) but plenty of runners and perseverance soon saw us at the great block at the foot of the almost bone dry 'pink corner'. This pitch is a delight, well protected positive climbing with continual interest but never desperate for the grade. The last proper pitch is a bit steeper though easier at 4b, following a less disinct line up the ridge above. The belay is only a short scramble of 20m from the plateau. As the skies finally clouded over we grabbed our bags and headed back to the ski centre for a well earned brew pleased with another late season rock route in the bag and we hadnt seen a soul in the Loch Avon basin all day.