Wetter and milder

Raining up to 1000m today but that didnt stop Karsten and Andreas leading their way up Dorsal Arete (much quieter in the coire today). The low lying snow is thawing steadily but up in the coire there is still a deep snowpack getting steadily moister today. This could make for some nice firm climing conditions if it gets colder as promised on Friday.

Sunshine on Stob Ban

I enjoyed my day on Stob Ban last week so much I decided to go and see what its like with a lot more snow. Karsten, Andreas and I managed 8 pitches of II and III climbing on the East Ridge of the North Top today, the guys led 2 pitches each. The sun was smiling on us from a blue sky after a little early snow. The exisiting large amounts of powder were settling and thawing and there were plenty of sloughs and sun wheels around, especially on the West side of the north ridge.

Lots of fresh snow in Glencoe

Awoke to fresh snow down to sea level coveri ng the roads in Kinlochleven. Karsten and Andreas are on leave from the Danish army in Afghanistan and have chosen to spend their time getting to know a little about Scotland in winter. Yesterday Karl gave them and intro. to winter skills at White Corries ski centre in Glencoe. Today we headed up Stob Coire Nan Lochan and climbed 7 pitches in the area of Boomerang Arete and Ordinary Route at about III,4. It was a sociable day as we shared the summit butresses with 2 parties from Plas Y Brenin's MIC training course and the man I bought my house from(and climbing partner)! There is plenty of deep fresh snow on Easterly aspects and in gullies and hollows and a small loose snow slough carried someone down 20m or so from near the base of NC Gully. We saw other parties in Boomerang Gully, NC and on Ordinary Route (Central Butress). Where the slopes are more scoured there was some reasonable snow around which withstood good pulls from axes. We had some long sunny spells and some short snowy showers and watched large soft cornices growing around the rim of the coire on the way down.

Stob Ban 27 Feb 2008

Today Will and I climbed the East Ridge of the North top of Stob Ban on the Mamores. We were dropped off at the Lower Falls Car Park, in Glen Nevis, and walked up into the East coire before traversing to the base of our route. The lower half was lightly covered in snow and a bit soggy but was a fun scramble. The upper half merited axe and crampons and gave great climb up ledges and grooves to the upper pinnacle. It is possible to go around this and keep the route to II but we were enjoying ourselves enough to climb the slightly steeper fin directly to make it just a touch harder. The final arete looked amazing set against the deep green of the glen below. We carried on over Stob Ban watching soft slab and cornices building in gullys on the east face. We finally dropped down onto the West Highland Way to drop back into Kinlochleven in the sun.

Glencoe 25 Feb

Visibility was surprisingly good as Alan and I headed into Stob Coire Nan Lochan. We headed for an unusually quiet Dorsal Arete for Alan's 50th birthday present day of winter mountaineering as increasing amounts of fresh snow fell around us. We took the opportunity to look at assessing the stability of the layers in the snow pack on the approach and introduced Alan to a series of different mountaineering belays during the climb. There was still plenty of old refrozen snow around and we enjoyed taking the interesting route straight up the dorsal fin near the top.

We were able to stick on a lot of the firm hard old snow on one side of Broad gully in descent although the centre of the gully was filling with lots of fresh loose powder. Other parties were out on Boomerang Gully, Ordinary Route, NC Gully (Mike from Abacus) and good luck to the guys on their Winter Mountain Leader Assessment with Plas Y Brenin.

Another wild weekend but at least there is snow

On Friday with winds gusting up to 100 mph on the tops we decided on a low level day to prepare my clients for a trip to Cho Oyu. Indoors at The Ice Factor and on some of the slopes around Kinlochleven we looked at prussiking, jumaring and ascending and descending fixed ropes. Even near sea level the winds were strong enough to push us around! Respect to Jamie B for his ascent of NC and even more so to the guys who climbed Darth Vader! Saturday was a 'make and mend day'. Its amazing how much abuse kit takes in a winter season and by the end of this winter I'll need new waterproofs, boots, harness, picks, frontpoints and a replacement for my Montane Prism jacket - definitely one of my favourite ever bits of gear. None of these has seen more than 2 seasons (includi ng this one) except the harness!

Today was cold with plenty of fresh snow. Over the next few days the winds will stay hih and the temperatures will oscillate back and forward around freezing at the summits. Glencoe mountaineering tomorrow.

Boomerang Gully 20 Feb

Richard and I went to Glencoe todday to climb Boomerang Gully. It felt like a return to winter with a nice dusting of fresh snow on the still firm stuff thats been there for a while now. We walked in with 3 teams from Plas Y Brenin who variously did NC, Forked and NC and top pitch of Dorsal. Boomerang was great ein almost complete at the narrows. We took a line starting 10m lower or left which gave a nice mixed pitch with ice and some firm turf. Wild one tomorrow, the ice wall at work is booked solid.