Vote for my Geeky Adventure!

Vote for my geeky adventure! 4 of us are going on an exploratory ski mountaineering trip to the Geikie Plateau of Volkaarts Boons coast (gotta be worth a trip just for that name). PLEASE take 2 minutes to vote for us on the Berghaus Adventure Challenge website. I promise to put up a video of me on planks falling over lots!
Al

A hard rain falling...

A wild and wet start at Glenmore Lodge this morning saw many groups starting their day around the centre. Tom, David and I made use of a couple of hours on the drytooling wall to look at mixed climbing techniques and the big tree to simulate ice climbing. We finished up with a couple of things I'd promised to show Tom about belay building before heading up the hill.

Walking in to Coire an t Sneachda it was raining but not as windy as we had expected- funnily enough there were few teams around today. Colin and I both took our teams for a quick look at Aladdin's Mirror Direct. It's still fat but at the very top there is a hole allowing the water streaming down the base of the gully above to pour over the route. My team found some ice to look at ice screw placement and abalakov threads. Meanwhile with Colin at his first runner and unable to look up into the downpour his 2 students decided that a quick trip up the Mirror itself was more appealing- very sensible. When I reached the same position David expressed a desire to give it a go and Tom just nodded apprehensively. I zipped up my hood (and, as a friend would say 'my man suit') and prepared for a short, steep soaking. The ice was chewy and accepted screws well and soon I was on top at the fixed anchor. First David and then Tom made short work of the falls and after lowering them I abseiled off retrieving my screws on the way. Conveniently Colin and co. were just abseiling out of the Mirror so together we decided we were wet enough and beat a retreat for tea and medals (and a change of underwear- mine was a bit soggy, and cake- scone day at the Lodge today, mmmmmmm). Snowing and blowing again on the way out.

Hard Rain from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Goat Track Gully

Woke to more winds but walking in things were more pleasant than yesterday. We wanted a shorter route to take our time over today and ended up climbing a lean but icey Goat Track Gully at a pace where David and Tom could build belays and bring each other up. We had a few snow squalls during the day but all in all a lot more pleasant a day than it might have been. We saw little windslab around gully mouths where we were and much of the snow was iron hard. It was also icey enough to make Goat Track and Red Gullys secure as they are notoriously loose after a thaw.

Goat Track Gully from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Spiral Gully

Day one of an Introduction toe Winter Climbing course for Glenmore Lodge today and I'm teamed up with Tom and David. We were on Spiral Gully today (we did the LH finish- straight up the couloir from just beyond the bend- nice pitch of III). The freezing level was above the summits and there were strong gusts getting worse in the afternoon. Buttresses went black during the day but easier gullys are all still very full. the surface snow was softening but there was still firm stuff beneath and ice in places (Mirror Direct was fat and busy as usual).

We rescued a sleeping bag blowing across the coire and returned it to the clutch of bags it had blown from and watched at least 3 stuff sacks and various contents whirling around in different places.
The next few days look to be set to be quite wild with a series of rapid freezes and thaws with some precipitation. It will just be a matter of timing as to when it is mild and wild, when it is snowy and blowy and when it is bomber neve!

Spiral Gully LH from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Weekend off...

No work this weekend. It was the AMI AGM at Glenmore Lodge but I decided to skip the workshops to go climbing with friends. Ewen, Sal and I planned to head to Hell's Lum but we topped out at the head of the Goat Track in light rain to meet Gary heading in the opposite direction with the news that things over there were a bit slush puppy and busy.
So we're coming down the Goat Track and it's pretty busy in Sneachda (surprise, surprise) so I pulled a 'Plan Z' out of my back pocket and the other two enthusiastically (foolishly?) agreed to my cunning plan. Every time I've been around Fiacaill Couloir/Invernookie/The Seam I've wondered what the broad left hand side of the Couloir is like. Fiacaill Buttress IV,5 gets no stars and I haven't spoke to anyone who has done it. We started by soling the first pitch of Fiacaill Couloir before breaking out left on some interesting mixed ground. Funny word that... 'interesting'. Any time a climber uses it with emphasis alarm bells should start ringing. In this case a footless heave over a bulge on pretty good neve led to a number of innocuous looking but downright awkward high steps. Ewen took a pitch of good positive climbing alongside and over a chimney to the top of a thinly iced ramp descending left. I had a bash at climbing cracks half way down this but didn't want to commit to a big rockover without seeing what was over the lip above me (good job- more blank thinly rimed rock it turned out). So it was back to the guidebook description and into a thoroughly thrutchy chimney to finish.
Nick Bullock entertained us with tales of his climbing year after all of the AGM stuff was out of the way and I think the revelry continued for me until well after 2am. A late start today and a bit of a mountain bike around the forests blew the cobwebs away. Next week i'm at the Lodge working an Intro. to Winter Climbing Course. Weather looks wild!

Fiacaill Buttress from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Winter ML Exped.

The Winter ML Training course at Glenmore Lodge wound up with the expedition phase. The weather was amazing- clear blue skies and a cloud inversion (but not to good for challenging night navigation). After some fairly easy digging near 'all the zeros' and a few hours night nav. we settled down in our holes before waking to a perfect sunrise above the cloud sea. We made the most of things with a trip out to Derry Cairngorm before making our way home to end the course.

Winter ML TYraining snowhole expedition from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Day 4- the mountain journey.

Today we split the Glenmore Lodge Winter ML Trainees into 3 teams and took them on a journey to apply some of the skills we have been looking at in isolation. We looked at a number of scenarios ranging from simple leadership issues to more complex steep ground management problems. My team navigated in poor visibilty round the base of the Fiacaill of Sneachda into the wee sub coire just east of Coire an Lochain. here we moved onto steeper ground up onto the plateau. more navigation took us to the lip of the Goat Track for more ropework in descent and in a strong wind.

The snowpack has firmed up nicely with the drop in temperature, some ice has formed and the buttresses were well rimed. The open snow slopes are firm and unforgiving- a slip will result in a fast descent often onto boulders exposed below. Invernookie was reported as having good snow on it today but a very icey top pitch making gear hard to come by. I expect these conditions may be repeated on other routes as cracks have iced up.

Off out on our little mini-break tomorrow night so no blog. Nice forecast so I suspect i'll be looking forwards to plenty of night navigation from the snowhole.

Over in Glencoe tells me that Boomerang Gully was in good condition today, but the buttresses were pretty black and routes like SC and Twisting Gully were thin looking.

New Project from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.