Winter weekend

Last weekend winter came back to the Cairngorms and I was working on the Mountain Training Association winter weekend at Glenmore Lodge running 2 day's of workshops looking at the teaching of basic winter skills. Each day we had a discussion about the scope of the Winter Mountain Leader Award, painting a perfect picture and choosing an appropriate journey and the difference between this and instructing a skills program to make people independent winter walkers. Then we hit the hill to talk about what to teach where and how to structure sessions and maximise the impact of our demonstrations.

Both days we travelled up the ridge beside Coire an Lochain to near spot height 1083. On the first day we took the opportunity to get on some steep ground dropping in near the Twin Burns. On the second day we decided that this was a pointless risk as we could see fresh wind blown snow on the steep slope below us creating a potential avalanche hazard so we retreated the way we came in.

Saturday it dumped snow and vis was poor, sunday the wind had been bowing redistributing the snow into often deep drifts but the sky was blue!

Mournes MRT Mountaineering

This week Bill Strachan and I were working at Glenmore Lodge with members of both the Mournes and Galway MRTs. Although the course began as a winter mountain week we were keen to both impart a few new hard skills but help the group look at how they plan and make decisions in some of the difficult environmental and stressful situations they work in. We spent a day mountaineering around the Cnap Coire na Spreidhe, a day looking at snow anchors in Coire Cas, a day on the Zig-zags in Glencoe a day at Kingussie Crag and a day at Cregan Coire Cha No. Thanks for the craic chaps! Even more images on the facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/climbwhenyoureready.mountaineering/media_set?set=a.1304568756252905.100000993792059&type=3

 Day 1

 Reminder of crampon techniques

 Serious ground

 Routefinding

 Back into the sun

 Rime

 Looking south

 Bill and his bucket seat

 Zigzags

 Lean snow conditions in Glencoe

 Pipkrakes or 'needle ice'

 Bill full of the joys of spring... or summer?

 A variety of rigging options

 Stretcher lower

 Another key place for decision making

 Going down

 Dry rock

 Going up

 Recovery Gully

Home time

Aonach Mor Inversion-spectacular day

Day 2 of our Association of Mountaineering Instructors workshop for Mountaineering Instructor Certificate Trainees and we headed to Aonach Mor and the Nevis Range gondola. The fog was very dense just below the gondola so it was a pleasure to pop out above it 100m higher. We enjoyed a stunning inversion and Brocken Spectres all day long. We looked at a method for descending Easy Gully with novice students before traversing the extensive avalanche debris in Coire Lochain towards the north. We did some short roping and investigated the seriousness of different angled terrain and snow types (snow was very variable underfoot, knee deep plunging and old hard neve), looking at what techniques we might use... or not in different situations.
3 routes were climbed in the Coire today but all might well be unclimbable by tomorrow and were lean with a lot of green visible. Someone tapped the ice at the bottom of Left Twin... and ran away... We crossed the climbers col looking at mountaineering rope work and found steep neve to climb for a pitch just to the north. But if you are looking for climbing in decent condition this is not the place to go.
The views were however so immaculate that I have taken far too many picture for here. To see them all go to: https://www.facebook.com/climbwhenyoureready.mountaineering/media_set?set=a.1296694510373663.100000993792059&type=3&uploaded=51

ALSO AS AN ADDENDUM TO YESTEDAY'S MENTION OF LOOSE BLOCKS IN NO.2 GULLY THERE IS NOW A LARGE LOOSE PILE OF CHOSS UNCOVERED AT THE TOP OF THIS GULLY.  ROCKFALL HERE WOULD BE CATASTROPHIC FOR ANYONE BELOW. THERE IS A LOT OF LOOSE ROCK AND MANY RATTLY BELAYS AROUND AT PRESENT. WE JUST DONT HAVE THE BUILDUP OF SNOW FOR THINGSTO BE SECURE AT PRESENT. PLEASE CONSIDER THIS IS YOU ARE THINKING OF CLIMBING... NO MATTER HOW FAR YOU HAVE TRAVELLED AND HOW DESPERATE YOU ARE TO GET SOMETHING DONE.