A little ice with that?

Wind transporting snow

On the ice

A white board in the Coire

Day 2 of the MIC Training at Glenmore Lodge and today was all about the ice. Plan A was to head over to the Feith Buidhe but when the bus was rocking on it's springs in the Cas car park we reassessed the situation and headed into Coire an t Sneachda in search of ice.

After beating up against the wind we crept round the corner into the area near the flat ice and began by looking at improving the students ability to coach the use of crampons in a walking context. We worked through progressions on easy snow, firmer ice and turfy rocky ground before heading up to some ice bulges above the flat ice. Here we put a bottom rope up and used a short ice fall for the team to observe and give feedbaack on each others' movement. We finished with a session on placing screws on the lead and use of abalakovs (see George's article).

A great deal of wind blown snow and plenty of people making good decisions avoiding gully lines with firm windslab building on the exits. There is a mitre high crown wall high in Coire Cas but Bill had a good day on the well scoured Creagan Cha No after a bit of a battle against the wind to get there.

lots of good articles on the BMC winter meet at the Lodge on UKC and the BMC website. Some superb climbers sending in the last week.

And DMMs new range of tools looks very interesting... although the Scottish Trad winter climber in me wishes there was a spike on the base of the Switch.