Polldubh with MIA Trainees

Day 2 of the workshop for AMI today and we were looking at teaching climbing in Glen Nevis. The guys had a list of things to look at begining with the questioning process to establish the starting point for crafting a good day for their students. Then we went to Polldubh where the sun came out, the breeze increased and finally the midges departed as the guys got some hands on experience with a variety of teaching situations.

The west face of Aonach Dubh with MIA Trainees

After a week with sick kids followed by sick mum and dad it was nice to be back on the hill today working for AMI with Dan and Sam who are both trainee MIAs working towards Assessment. We were looking at mountaineering today and moving 1 or 2 students effectively up, across and down the UK mountain environment. Both of the guys got plenty of time to polish their short roping but there was also a lot of non rope management to talk through and plenty of top both environmental input to. To give both of them a variety of terrain to work on and some new ground we went to the West face of Aonach Dubh; up B Buttress, along the first terrace to the amphitheatre then back north along the upper terrace (part of Rhyolite Romp) until we could drop back down the south side of Dinnertime Buttress. Spectacular scenery and a real lost world feel and after initial rain it dried up nicely!

A debrief in Crafts and Things over brews and banoffee pie to finish the day. Always interesting to work these workshops as it lets me stretch my brain to really understand why I do things the way I do and find ways to coach this effectively to new MIs.

Preliminary Ben Nevis Botanical/Geological Survey Report

A few people asked to see this so I've put it online:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2DYDluDRV0AUzJiQi0tMG9LR1k/edit?usp=sharing

Aonach Eagach

Good time today as Martin and I were working for Steven Fallon Mountain Guides with 5 great folk on the Aonach Eagach, possibly Britain's best mainland ridge walk. We weren't alone as Max and Di were both out with parties too enjoying what turned out to be quite pleasant weather; after early mist it turned bright with clear, cool weather and just the odd shower. Its always great to be out with a wide variety of folk and the craic was great all the way to the Clachaig for a beer! Prepare for a plethora of happy people!

 Ian after the first step down- zoom in for the crowds mid-descent behind!

 125 Munros for Jen

 Climbing the chimney

 A little atmosphere as the mist recedes

 Coming down?

 Nigel after the pinnacles

 Girls on the move

 Martin and Ian past the Pinnacles

 Looking back over most of the Ridge

 Frank cruising

 Jen in the sun

 Technical bit over… lunchtime!

 The last pull...

 Second munro of the day

 We did that

 To the pub

Slainte! (especially to Ian who had to go!)

Transition Training

I spent the last 2 days at Transition Extreme in Aberdeen with a full keen team of staff covering some training in my role as Technical Advisor to the climbing wall.
We looked at the role of the floorwalker and how to approach customers without unnecessarily annoying or distracting them including conducting various scenarios that taxed the Instructors' acting skills as much as their soft and technical skills! A climbing wall's climbing experience is its key product. That means climbers need to feel welcome in the centre whilst at the same time the wall is comfortable that a good standard of climbing practise is on display and they are fulfilling their duty of care. Younger Instructors have a poor reputation being very rigid in what is acceptable but equally experienced climbers need to be aware of the picture they present to novices around them and that its the most experienced who are often the ones who relax, get distracted or just make a mistake and the wall staff need to strike a balance between caution and making climbers feel welcome rather than under strict scrutiny.
We also looked at the possible technical rescues a staff member might be called on to conduct. I have a list of incidents I know have happened at walls ranging from the common to the bizarre and like to give staff a toolbox of skills/experience to build up their judgement with so that they can deal with anything from a harness that isn't doubled back on a climber to a leader being lowered into space whose belayer has run out of rope or a climber detached at height. We spent a lot of time letting staff experiment with different ways of doing things and varying the situations they used tools in to let them get to grips with the limitations and advantages of techniques.
There was also some route setting rope work training to be done. For some staff this was limited to how to rescue an incapacitated setter whilst for others it was setting up an appropriate cordon, placing ropes, ascending, descending, use of bags for holds and bolts and stripping ropes afterwards.
Great to see a wall investing time and money in truing for staff. Its important not just in terms of safety of the wall but hugely beneficial for the psyche of the staff team too when they feel they are progressing and valued by the management.
I'm looking forwards to going back for more training and assessment of the staff at TE.

 Different ways of doing the same thing when things get 

technical at the end of a long process of problem solving

 Going up

 Old school works too

 Heading for the top

Darren recovering after a particularly physical problem

Outdoor Climbing Workshop for MCofS Club members

Over the last 2 days I've been working with Andrew and Jodie 2 members of MCofS affiliated clubs each keen to sure their knowledge with less experienced climbers. The MCofS created this workshop to allow members to access a range of advice on introducing people to the sport. The weekend was not designed to replace or heavily overlap the CWA/SPA/CWLA/MIA syllabuses although we did drift into some common ground. The emphasis was more on discussing good practise and its importance when working with beginners. Legal and safety issues and potential problems. In particular we looked at pathways into outdoor trad climbing and helping novices further along, mostly by just going climbing with them!

Saturday was a drench day and we started at Glasgow Climbing Centre talking about routes people come to climbing by, individualising progressions and the basics of good climbing practise (e.g. tying on, belaying, choosing and utilising equipment the guys were so keen to chat and do that we soon found it too late to go out to the crag in the rain!

Today we got a 7am start to head east to dodge the rain. We went to Andrew's home crag of Traprain which has one of the most pleasant outlooks of any Central Belt crag (I know, shame its a bit polished). We did a lot of translating terminology and systems with Jody as she is from the States. Its always interesting to chat through international preferences and I dislike painting these as right or wrong- its more important to discuss the pros and cons of ways and doing things to gain an understanding of them. Such systems are usually the product of the environment they are developed in and the history of climbing in a particular place. As such they may well be reasonably transferable to other environments especially if you have a good grasp of their limitations.

Nice to be out on dry rock with 2 keen climbers and we had it almost completely dry if a little windy!

 The view from Traprain

 An American climber in East Lothian

 Going up

 Stemming (that's bridging to you and me)

 Jody in the breeze

 Andrew on home turf

Jody explaining her first runner, how to remove it and what to do with it to Andrew

The North Face Survey Week

For the last week I've been part of a team of mountaineers, mostly members of the MTA, AMI assisting with a major survey of Ben Nevis.
The North Face Survey is a three year project led by The Nevis Partnership, sponsored by Mammut, Scottish Natural Heritage and The Highland Council.

The key objectives of the project are to:

• Access and survey unrecorded and explored areas\
• Increase data and knowledge of rare arctic-alpine species\
• Increase geological data and knowledge
• Strengthen relations and knowledge transfer between geologists, ecologists and mountaineering communities
• Inspire the public and increase awareness and appreciation of mountain environments and some of the issues they face such as climate change

I live at the foot of Ben Nevis possibly the grandest mountain in the UK. Its big, rugged, impressive and has a wild northern side with the perfect viewing gallery in the shape of the Carn Mor Dearg arete. It attracts enormous numbers of people seeking to reach the highest point in the UK and mountaineers seeking to test themselves in summer and winter. I'm lucky to get to work and play there.

Part of my work includes educating and enthusing those I go to the mountains with and when I was asked to be part of a team responding to the Survey tender process for mountaineers to work alongside botanists and geologists I was keen to be involved to learn more about 'The Ben' and its natural history both to pass on the knowledge to others and for the purely selfish reason of wanting to know more.

Last week we got to grips with the actual work of the survey despite 4 days of classic west Highland weather. Following on from the 4 days training it was great to feel the infectious enthusiasm within the team to get to places no mountaineer in their right mind would visit in summer just to see what's there!
My week:

On Monday 3 of us went to the broken ground right of No.3 Gully and hunted for botanical finds across to and up North Gully- wanting to compare this ground with No.4 Gully the home of 3 (and after our discovery last week of Alpine Saxifrage now 4) types of rare Saxifrage. We found a very different habitat from No.4 with some interesting types of Mousear and cleared a lot of manly abseil tat and old climbing hard wear from the base of the crags.

On Tuesday I was round below NE Buttress and was joined by Chris Sleight from BBC Radio Scotland Out of Doors (his interviews were broadcast on Good Morning Scotland on 15 Aug and Out of Doors on 16 Aug - minute 44.42 secs). We trawled the grassy ledges below the traverse to the first platform on the Buttress and then headed round onto the lower flanks of the Brenva face finding similar habitat as the day before.

On Wednesday whilst Landward were filming teams abseiling down the end and Tower Face of the Comb 3 of us were carefully moving around the top of No.5 Gully and were successful in finding a large colony of Highland Saxifrage. Then we headed to the top of No.4 Gully to make a final count of individual plants of the Saxifrages there.

On Thursday my team was one of 2 that went back to The Comb to derig the abseils from the day before and strip the ropes. We abseiled down the face of No. 3 Gully Buttress taking most of the equipment back to the hut.

On Friday I again abseiled No.3 Gully Buttress to remove the last of the ropes and made a quick survey of the base of Green Gully finding more Highland Saxifrage before helping a family who had come a little too high into Coire na Ciste and misplaced Ledge Route get back on track.

During the week the teams surveyed a large number of areas finding many new colonies of nationally scarce plant species in particular saxifrages, grasses and mousears. They were often busy helping botanists to visit and explore areas previously unsurveyed in summer. On the geology front we all made use of Midland Valley's FieldMove Clino App to record both botanical and geological data points and Roddy the geologist found plenty of evidence to be mapped onto a 3d model of Ben Nevis to give a clearer geological picture of the mountain. This evidence may well challenge the accepted model of the Ben's formation. The well known caldera collapse theory does not fit with some of the data recorded at contact points between rock types and orientation of lava flows. Along with a better understanding today of how caldera's form the 'old' model may need revision and It will be interesting to hear the geologists conclusions. The Beeb end away happy and the Landward episode will screen on 3 October with Dougie Vipond pushing hi comfort zone in some exposed spots!

Dave Macleod was to be found shadowing the teams or dangling on a rope nearby making a film short about this year and gathering footage for a larger work on the 3 year project.

The Instructors were having a field day competing for the best finds, working like demons transporting enormous quantities of ropes around the mountain, guiding the experts to tricky spots and always learning, learning more about the plants, the geology and how the two interelate. At the end of each day we'd gather to discuss what we'd seen, plan the next day and download data from the app. You would see local instructors and leaders poring over botanical textbooks, taking personal notes or showing the experts photos to get confirmation of finds. All of us are better informed about the natural history of the mountain and can't wait to spread the word about what lurks on and below the North Face of Ben Nevis.

Role on next year when hopefully I'll be involved in the second year of the project!

Enormous thanks to Mammut for sponsoring the project and providing equipment. Also essential were support and funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Scottish Natural Heritage and Highland Council. On a personal note thanks to all those I've worked with over the week and to those with the vision to mix mountaineers and scientists for a really successful survey.

Finally thanks to the SMC for the use of the CIC Hut as a base and office and the understanding of those who shared it with us. 

Planning

 Old climbing kit found by 1 person on 1 day- destined for the bin

 Dave filming the team contemplating the Allt a Mhuillin on Tuesday morning

 Chris and Will on NE Buttress

 Traversing back from the first platform

 Team Landward

 Heading for the 'Ledge Route Commute'

 Donald's team off to work

 Dave and Jim using the hand lens to examine plant life

 Highland Saxifrage

 Tufted Saxifrage

An awkward scramble to see...

 … the first Alpine Saxifrage found on Ben Nevis

 Walking in on the last day

 1 last time up Ledge Route

 Examining the fault that the geologists fear may shear sooner rather than later!

 A long way down...

 STILL not down yet!

 At the base of a dank and misty abseil

 Looking up No. 3 Gully

 A moss patch below Green Gully worth investigating

Common Scurvygrass, a good indicator plant

 Another population of Highland Saxifrage, 

easy to spot once your 'eye is in' and you know where to look

A last team photo then a huge load carry to strip the hill