Slippery when wet on the Aonach Eagach

Today I was working for Steve Fallon on the Aonach Eagach. Ron, Dave, Carl and I drove through Glencoe with a low cloud base and high humidity and near the top of Am Bodach we met Heather's team who had decided to save the Ridge for a drier day. we pressed on in hope of the forecast coming true and brighter weather. The rock was greasy but the guys coped well and not long after the pinnacles the cloud began to lift to give us some views. A good day out with 3 great guys… and the pint in the Clachaig was as welcome as ever at the end (cheers Ron)!

 Carl in the squeeze

 Passing the pinnacles

 Views behind

 Pressing on

 Last big pull uphill

A lone figure looking out over Glencoe

A last meeting and Stanage

Very productive meeting with our southern colleagues on the future of the FUNdamentals awards. Longer blog post on all that but thanks to Dave Binney, Katherine Schirmacher, Jon Garside of the BMC, Dave Evans from PYB, Guy Jarvis from Undercover Rock and of course Jon Jones from Glenmore Lodge who I was representing the MCofS with. It was great to spend a couple of days at the (relatively) new Awesome Walls in Sheffield a great facility with a very friendly, helpful staff team.
AND we managed to grab 3 very quick routes for me at Stanage. It was about 24 Degrees and I was feeling baked so we grabbed April Crack, Trinity Right Hand and Flying Buttress from amongst the crowds. Definitely all a bit easier than Millstone yesterday. Then it was off to Kendal for an overnight with friends and now back to Scotland. Mountaineering and climbing work to come from Sunday!

 Stanage

Flying Buttress 

FUNdamentals 3 and Gritting my teeth

A great day on the second pilot of the FUNdamentals 3 'Advanced' Technique pilot. Not just because I think it'll be a great day but because it challenged me mentally to make sure I have a solid enough grasp of the components to coach them to others. More on FUNdas and its future in another blog post….
And then we went to Millstone. JJ and I headed out yesterday evening for me to get another humbling on the grit. We climbed Embankment 2 (I should have kept my approach shoe on my left foot) and I furthered my jamming education. Embankment 3 was my Waterloo however- with screaming toes and wracked shoulder I abandoned ship at the tat. Then we went to Great North Road… finally a climb I can understand straight away! Bridging, lay backing, holds that aren't just the same crack my feet was in. A superb soaring corner of good length for a single pitch route and the roof isn't as bad as looks because there are footholds on the wall! After a second evening's spanking we retired to the excellent Fox House Inn for food (served until 10- good on you!).
1 last day of meetings and climbing in Sheffield today.

 Getting a little more dynamic...

 Lets talk about heel hooks

 Joby on his bicycle

 And clamping it on the wall

 Jon getting lost in the LH crack of Embankment 2

Great North Road

Grit

I met Jon in Glasgow at lunchtime today and we headed down through some heavy thunder showers to Sheffield where we have some work/meetings for the next couple of days. We met up with Paul for a brew to give it time to dry and headed for Burbage North for me to break my gritstone cherry ('What? Never climbed on grit before?'- No. I live somewhere with multi pitch rhyolite, gabbro, granite, mica schist, sandstone, gneiss. conglomerate and basalt all within a couple of hours drive so I've never felt the need to come south just for a grit trip- but I knew I'd get on it eventually).
So we soloed and climbed a selection of routes from Mod to HVS 5b. On the latter I got my ass handed to me by a fierce overhung, jamming crack into a heel hook rock over beast of a thing called Wednesday Climb. Great fun even if it did take hauling from above and power screaming through 10 tries for me to get up it. Schooled by the grit :-)

Coaching, climbing walls and Assessments

Yesterday it was a pleasure to assess my first 2 candidates for the  Mountain Training Foundation Coach Award. Well done Rob and Euan on your passes and keep striving to improve and leaner more as you have been. I finished off the day with a Climbing Wall Award Reassessment.
Today was a full CWA Assessment of 8 folk. Mark and I both enjoyed a day with a good varied team from The Scouts, Ardmay House, Glasgow Climbing Centre and Climbzone Braehead. And its always a pleasure when you can pass everyone!!

 Andrew's warmup for the group

 Caluym getting intense over 'bell ringing'

 Christie's big foot

 Creative coaching from Christie

Hannah and the fun bags!

Tower Ridge, snow in the coires and lest we forget

Out with Martin today for a quick jaunt up Tower Ridge followed by a beer in the sun at the Ben Nevis Inn. It was clear as we began the route but misty until we were well down the zigzags. The MCofS have been publicising the amount of snow on the plateau but there is also a huge amount in the coires for June. In Observatory Gully its still all the way down to the start of Tower Ridge.
Big day today with the anniversary of D-Day. Please spare a moment to all those who overcame their fears to do a grim job in an awful war. Whether you agree with the principal of war as a justifiable response to the actions of a fascist dictator like Hitler or not you must respect the actions of those who stood up to be counted when asked to do so often paying the ultimate price.

Kitting up

Plenty white stuff

Snow and debris in Observatory Gully

 Spot the winter abseil anchor

Nearing the Great Tower

 Misty coming off the end of the Eastern Traverse

Workshops for AMI Trainees on Teaching Climbing

There's nothing to stop anyone teaching climbing. There is no legal requirement to hold a qualification to do it and there are plenty of unqualified people who are competent to do it. But the MIA Trainees I had today are great examples of guys who are working hard at being good at it and going through a process where someone will assess them and give them solid feedback on how they do it. As a friend of mine tweeted the other day 'I haven't worked through qualifications because i need them. I've done it because my clients deserve them'.
The Association of mountaineering Instructors takes CPD seriously and for some years now they've been providing workshops for Trainees working towards Assessment. Today I was out with Dave, Dave and Andy looking at ways of structuring sessions to teach climbing. We started with some paper exercises creating a list of all the things someone needs to master to become a competent lead climber and then I gave them some sample pairs of students and asked them to plan a day's climbing to help these fictional climbers progress. Then it was out to Glen Nevis where each of the 3 took a turn going through the physical motions of organising the rope work and stances and choosing what to teach, when and how, right down to working on some of their verbal 'scripts' for common things they'll have to coach.
It stayed dry and the midges although present weren't too bad (an occasional breeze and a bit of Smidge helped enormously!). Can't complain about that!

 Dave on Pinnacle Ridge

 Andy, Dave (the other one) and Dave

 Dave on 3 Pines

 Repton's Right Hand and a challenging stance