A day about not getting avalanched and what to do if someone else is!

Ben Nevis today. Pretty wild and wintery. On the hill practical element of the Avalanche Course for UHI students today. Trams on NE Buttress, Castle Ridge, SW Ridge of the Douglas Boulder, Curtain Rail, Waterfall Gully, someone headed to the Minus Face but came back down. Snow still deep and unconsolidated.

 Ptarmigan

 What are these

 Here they are again

 The 'Pit Boss' shovel

 Digging a hole to bury someone in

 Check that snow out!

Boy in a hole

 Girl buried in a hole

 Probe strike

 Digging at the second site

 First casualty found

Digging them out

 14 minutes for probing around clues and digging 2 casualties out from 1.5m down in hard debris… guys are gasping with reason!

 Rescued!

 The ribena test shows the icey layer clearly

 …and the graupel layer above too

 Ben Nevis still buried

But a successful day for us!

Avalanche awareness theory

Delivering some theory sessions on Avalanche Awareness at UHI today prior to a day on the hill tomorrow.
We based everything on the AAP and looked at weather forecast options, the SAIS site, terrain issues and human factors. We had human avalanches down the stairs, some scary videos and some Oscar winning dramatic sketches to illustrate heuristic traps.
This afternoon we discussed and looked at some videos of different stability and propagation tests and some 'what if scenarios' before planning a good route based on a forecast.
Team are raring to go do it for real tomorrow now!

 Dramatic scenes illustrating heuristic traps

Checking the slope angle with the scale on the AAP Leaflet

A day on the wall

A mixed bag of things to cover for students from UHI at The Ice Factor. For  change it looked grim outside.

 Fast paced warmup

 A bit slower… and dafter

 A sailor goes climbing

Learning about leading

A rarity… trad leading indoors!

Day trip to Torridon

12 hours door to door… 6 and a half hours car to car… less than 2 hours climbing… Might not seem a very good ratio but it was worth it.
Rich and I had a rare thing in common today. A day free to go climbing in February! A quick forecast check said 'Torridon' to us. Not the shortest drive and a shrinking weather window meant we needed a quick route. Neither of us had done George before so at 0 dark o'clock we left Corpach for the sunny NW.
Lots of impressive full depth avalanche stains/scars passing through Glen Shiel and then the promised sunshine in Torridon. We had a chat with Gary in the car park who described great snow conditions in Coire an t Sneachda yesterday then headed off.

Glen Shiel avalanches

High above though the wind was howling and as we hit the watershed below our Coire we were knocked down by gusts sounding like express trains as they approached. Then there was the snow… soft and deep through the boulder fields until we hit footprints refrozen in the Coire floor (yours from yesterday PJ? Cheers).

A good start

Looking great

:-)

What's not to like?

Heading into George

The sun was still shining as we soloed our way up to a belay below the new chockstone and although there was not a lot of gear I was just happy to be leading a winter climb again! (Soloing II or following others up routes is never the same)

Our first belay after a wee solo

The new chockstone pitch- not much gear but enough ice to climb today

Rich dwarfed by the view

Pulling over the steepening

The snow was still a little soft and occasional spindrift avalanches had swept away any trace of previous passage but there was plenty enough reasonable ice today. Rich set off on the regular Crux pitch just as the weather turned. By the time it was time for me to climb I was waist deep in spindrift and unable to look upwards- a nice contrast to my pitch! I made sure every zip and tab was closed and climbed. After  spluttering out a few mouthfuls of snow and spending most of my time looking down at my feet and feeling blindly with axes I emerged just below the top at a belay.

Rich's pitch before the weather turned

Great climbing

A shot taken between spindrift waves following Rich's pitch

Belay just below the top, weather improving again

Snowy Rich

Soon we were coiling ropes and hustling down the N Ridge to wade out of the Coire.

Is that a deep bit Rich?

Soggy thrash back to the car

I made my date for dinner and a bed time story for Sandy!

Masses of debris, mentoring and LMRT busy again

Today I was up Ben Nevis giving a friend some advice on his work with students whilst working towards his MIC Assessment. There is no formal mentoring scheme in place for MIC Trainees and many find themselves working for businesses before they have passed to gain experience. I used to try to just give friends advice but have now formalised things a bit as the only way I can guarantee that I can create time to really focus attention on any 'mentees' is to make it a professional relationship where I'm paid for my time and expertise and book days out with them like other work in my diary.
Today we took Tim and Giles round to the west side of the Douglas Boulder where Tim led the West Gully with Jamie close by and Giles got to grips with seconding. We then abseiled down the east side of the Gap.
Davie was there checking out Fawlty Towers (hollow and very cruddy) so he swam up the SW Ridge of the Douglas Boulder instead. We saw or spoke to parties heading for Waterfall Gully, Observatory Ridge, The Curtain, Tower Ridge, Boomer's Requiem and Ledge Route. But its all pretty soft and horrid guys… still well buried all over Ben Nevis. And the debris!
The number and sizes of avalanches that have kicked off over the weekend is frighteningly impressive. There are enormous trails of debris below Observatory Gully, No.2 Gully, No. 4 Gully, No. 5 Gully and the Castle Coire and Ridge. As well as many small sloughs we saw more substantial avalanche activity today on the Trident Buttress and the east and west flanks of Tower Ridge and of course a party got avalanched in Coire Leis going a very long way and resulting in serious head injuries for an unfortunate lady- best of luck and good wishes to those involved. Again Lochaber MRT were on the case handling this and a simultaneous job. We saw Rescue 177 drop them off and the team streaming up to the rescue. Well done all involved.
Feel free to support them… whether its your change in a local pub in a collection box, the webpage: http://www.lochabermrt.co.uk/support-us/ or by buying some merchandise to show your support http://www.lochabermrt.co.uk/merchandise/ . As you may have seen on some of the online news sources at the weekend Rescue Team funding compares unfavourably with the weekly salary of some sporting 'stars'- beggars belief really...

Debris below Observatory Gully

Digging out a runner

Davie off for a swim

Tim on the sharp end

Is that butterfly stroke Davie?

SW Ridge under deep snow

 Giles topping out

 Debris everywhere

 R177 

 Tim heading down

Debris under Observatory Gully LMRT on the way in in the background