Lurchers Crag, fat ice and big screws

Fat ice in Central Gully

 Walking in to Lurcher's Gully

 Spot the wind blown icicles

The team waiting patiently

 Solid belay

 Matt hanging in there

 

 Joe happy as ever

 Last ice pitch

 Come on up

Topping out

It was a slightly earlier start today as Phil and I both wanted to take our teams to Lurchers Crag. We were able to drive part way to Rothiemurcus Lodge to take a couple of Km off of the walk in but it was still a very sweaty plouter! JC and Ferdia headed for K9, Phil and Rocio both took teams to North Gully and that left us to head further over towards Central. Another team followed us up the route but were extremely sensible in avoiding being anywhere we could bomb them (thanks guys). We had a few great, fat ice pitches (22cm screws in the belay, carrying rock gear was a waste of time) and quite a bit of soft snow plodding in between. Despite being a bit weary from yesterday Matt kept on going and Joe just kept pointing out how amazing it all was!

We topped out into poor vis. and wandered along the rim of the Lairig Ghru until we could drop down below the Chalamain Gap and back round the corner to the minibus. Well done to Joe and especially Matt for toughing it out on a long and tiring day.

Sounds icey on the west too: Gemini, Waterfall Gully, Carn Dearg Cascades, the Curtain and Vanishing getting atention.





Putting a little winter back in climbing. Hidden Chimney.

Rime time

Traversing across the base of the Pottage



 The team above heading up the Chimney

Joe having it

 Matt at the crux

 Nice look Matt!

Topped out! 

Day 3 of our Intro. to Winter Climbing at Glenmore Lodge and things looked reasonable to get into Coire an t Sneachda (and the road was open to the Cas Car Park).

The guys hadn’t done any walking yet this week so their first Scottish Winter walk in with a full rope each (even just to Coire an t Sneachda) was a bit of a wake up call. The vis was poor but the winds weren’t too bad. Not paying attention meant a bit of a detour on the way to the Mess of Pottage (my bad… for following Phil ;-). We got there and there was some nice sensible, polite positioning (well done everyone) so that three teams could all get onto the Slant and we ended up on Hidden Chimney behind one other team.

The Chimney was good; cracks were icey and so was the climbing but some good patches of neve just where you needed it. As we climbed the third and fourth pitches the wind picked up and jackets, gloves, krabs, axes and eyebrows all rimed up rapidly (I can cancel my trip to the spa for exfoliation that’s for sure). The guys got a thorough introduction to very ‘Scottish’ conditions as we headed round to 1141 and down through the ski area.

Snow was a bit spooky today in places even below the Mess of Pottage and just above the ‘flat ice’ (below Fiacaill Buttress) slabs were releasing on very low angled slopes.

Brighter weather tomorrow!

Monday and Tuesday, tooling and climbing

Shifting centre of gravity and using crampons

Tooling on the towers

 Bridgeing the corner

 Matt on top

 Mixing it up on the Ciste Crag

A solid corner with great hooks and gear!

 Joe following the corner

Yesterday's training pays off



Matt's turn

So this week I’m at Glenmore Lodge working an Introduction to Winter Climbing week with Matt and Joe. The weather yesterday was pretty horrific so we talked kit, refreshed some ropework in the wall and went on the towers. We looked at efficient use of the crampons on rocky mixed ground before introducing the tools to.

 

Yesterday paid off! Although the forecast today was grim again and we could only drive as far as the Ciste Car Park (and then after a bit of a wait) we managed to get some good climbing done. The weather didn’t turn out to be particularly bad in the Ciste Gully so we headed up to the crag on the left. This spot can be quite loose and most of the lines are a bit harder than they first appear but we managed 3 short pitches of III up the right side and the top corner (which was solid and well protected probably merited III,4- not bad for the guys first time out). The guys swapped positions in the rope system to practise building their own belay, bringing each other up and lead belaying.

We finished with a quick trip back down down to the base of the crag for Joe and I to squeeze one more pitch out of the day.

If you haven’t already seen it Lucy’s Blog gives a great insight into the mental pressures of a Winter ML Assessment- not just useful for candidates but also to those Assessing other people.

 

Whistle Stop Weekend

After Fawlty Towers on Friday I headed down to Glasgow for the night. Then on Saturday morning I heded down to Plas Y Brenin for the NICAS seminar.

For anyone not familiar with it NICAS is a scheme that introduces young people to indoor climbing and lets them record their progress it has become hugely popular in the UK and has been so successful that it has attracted a lot of a international interest at the UIAA too.

I pitched up at lunch time and observed a couple of the workshops put on for providers (I was at John Kettle’s climbing movement workshop and Leo Nathan from the Beacon’s Routesetting workshop other sessions included Coaching from Martin Chester of PYB, Psychology of climbing by Smart Climbing, Equipment by DMM, child protection, providing NICAS level 1 and 2 and skill acquisition and the list goes on).

I was invited as a speaker at an debate entitled “The Technical Advisor: Fit For Purpose?” The discussion addressed the issues of who makes a good TA for Indoor Climbing Centres. There were those questioning the relevance of the MIA as a minimum award for TAs given the specialised nature of Indoor Climbing these days. There was a general acceptance that ‘competence’ was more important that just ‘qualification’ and that this could be reached through several routes but should include extensive knowledge and experience of the climbing wall environment. Also it was pointed out that whilst TAs would be wise to only act in areas where they have genuine expertise that employers should ensure that they hire an appropriate person. This of course is harder where the employer has little experience of climbing (e.g. many leisure centre walls / school walls). There were some people in favour of a new bolt on to an NGB or workshop to assist in demonstrating/improving competence whilst others were interested in someone (NICAS? ABC? MT?) creating a list of TAs with such experience.

After dinner NICAS Ambassadors Kenton Cool discussed his climbing pathway from an indoor wall to Guiding Everest and then Hazel Findlay did an excellent, honest talk on what her pursuit of hard trad has taught her about herself linking it well to the opportunities the NICAS scheme provides.

NICAS Poster

 Pete from The Peak in motion

 Leo from The Beacon on Routesetting

John Kettle Climbing Coach

Thanks to PYB for the hospitality… now I’ve a bit of a journey ahead to make it back to Glenmore Lodge tonight!

Video of Fawlty Towers Yesterday

Fawlty Towers from Alan Halewood on Vimeo.

Fun on Fawlty Towers

Today Brad and I went to Ben Nevis. After yesterday's dump of snow we could see lots of sloughs and spindrift on the move as we passed below the Castle Coire and Carn Dearg despite poor visibilty and the strong wind on the walk in. So we headed for the Douglas Boulder. Mike and Abib were off to do The SW Ridge and then onto Tower Ridge and I toyed with following him up the former (knowing it would be nicely cleaned) but Brad had a hankering for snow and ice if any was to be found and there were some obvious bulges in Fawlty Towers..... Now I've done this before and when the ice is mediocre and its a great challenge at III with some steep pulls so we went for it. A few heavy sloughs of snow had us ducking and holding our breath on the first pitch which had some good snow and some rotten ice (and not a lot of gear). The second pitch was a bit more amenable giving a nice mixed challenge over a steepening with an excellent chockstone runner/hook. A third pitch taken quite direct through the rocks to the crest of Tower Ridge. 

We had seen a massive caterpillar of folk heading to Ledge Route and teams bailing from somewhere left of the Comb. A party started up Vanishing and seemed to cope well with pitch 1. There is still a lot of fresh snow on the move up there and the lines in Observatory Gully all looked plastered in useless white stuff. Folk made good time on Tower Ridge despite some digging and wading to get on it. There is climbing to be had but heed the SAIS Forecast and be aware that there is unpleasant snow on a wide variety of aspects.

We carefully made our way into Observatory Gully the mouth of which was scoured and found some more ice to look at placing screws on and drilling threads. The sun was bright on the hills to the west as we walked out.

Walking in below the Douglas Boulder

Coire na Ciste

 Slough

 Pulling over the Chockstone

 Nearing the crest of Tower Ridge

 Learning about ice

 Observatory Gully

 Bright hills in the west

 Coire na Ciste from the CIC

Ben Nevis

CWA Day 2 and a few conditions

Day 2 of this week's CWA Training for the Higher Outdoor Learning course from West Highland College and today we hit the Ice Factor to look at various items from the syllabus. I was working with fellow MIC and Paddlesports Coach Andy Spink. We had the centre almost to ourselves for much of the day but I noticed some heavy precipitation and increasing winds outside and even some sea level wet snow for a while.

Andy demonstrates how we get from here...

 ...to here... in one move statically and dynamically?

 Students on the sharp end

So it was no surprise when Adele and Sam from Jagged Globe turned up to tell us about how unpleasant it hat turned on Ben Nevis today with tales of snow building rapidly and big sloughs. Other friends also fled the Ben empty-handed and a party climbed part of Aquafresh on good ice on Aonach Mor until the ice ran out. Abseiling back to the apron they had an unpleasant time of it finding that the scoured firm slopes in the morning were covering rapidly with snow that was inclined to slide with very little additional loading. Sounds like there was a bit of ice climbed on Creag Meaghaidh today too.