Meall Cumhann

Today was supposed to be the first day of 2 for Richard and Richard doing some winter mountaineering with me. A cancelled flight last night meant a late arrival at lunchtime today and with the lack of time and the strong winds we headed up Glen Nevis to Meall Cumhann to get on some steep and rocky ground. we did some ropework in ascent before abseiling off. The lower part of the ridge gave us some shelter from the wind and a little ice to go with large amounts of blown snow.

Favourite kit of the winter #3. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Fav kit item(s) #3. My Scarpa Phantom Guides. I had went through 2 pairs of the old version and had no reason not to replace them with a third pair- the newer orange version.
Simply the warmest, most dextrous, comfortable winter boots for weight I've ever had. Stiff enough for ice, soft enough for long Scottish walk ins, precise enough for mixed and fit my feet really well. I'm not sure what they did between the red and the orange versions but the newer ones are substnatially more waterproof than the old.
I've taken them up to 6438m on a bitterly cold day with a neoprene gaiter on top in Bolivia and used them for climbing on their own to 5500m in Afghanistan.

If I had one criticism its that the toe box is narrow and protrudes far enough forwards that when teamed with Grivel G12s or G14s that have seen moderate wear the frontpoints don't stick out very far.

Other than that I'll be getting a fourth pair when this pair wears out.


Yesterday we were overstaffed at West Highland College so I was happy to take a half day in stores sorting and checking climbing kit and reviewing SOPs.

Today its wild out there. 90mph on Aonach Mor and a Glenmore Lodge party came down from the CIC Hut wearing 'full metal jacket' (i.e. full foul weather gear, goggles, gloves and all) and bing tossed around by the winds. Glad I have a day off to sort as it looks like I'm on the hill for the next week!
Winter is a long way from over yet.

CWA Training at Bunkhouse Bouldering

Second day of a CWA Training today for students from West Highland College. We were at the College and Bunkhouse Bouldering  looking at equipment, knots, games, bouldering, risk assessment and designing sessions appropriate to students' needs.

CWA Assessment at GCC

 Personal lead climbing

 One handed climbing

Ho strong is this rope? A bit of further training.

Today I was directing a CWA Assessment at Glasgow Climbing Centre which was a lot warmer than Ben Nevis has been recently! Congratulations to the candidates who were all successful on the basic and abseil modules.

When I was younger I was a real bothy aficionado, have a look at this nice wee piece of writing on the topic of mountain bothies. And on another note Alex Roddie has a good interview with local Artist Jamie Hageman on his blog.

Alone but not lonely on Tower Ridge

After another night of snow on Ben Nevis I was hoping that a tactically late start would see a few teams digging ahead of Jakub and I on Tower Ridge today. No such luck- the weather had teams retreating in their droves (although Italian, Vanishing, Orion Direct and 2 of the Minus Gullies all saw action today). As we waded in the knee deep powder up Observatory Gully to traverse onto Tower Ridge someone was coming down from the crest having been soloing around on Vanishing and 1934 Route. That gave us 40m of trail broken on the Crest. We waded on and next bumped into 2 lads downclimbing from where Italian breaks onto the ridge.... that gave us a little more trail.
My phone was turned off so I missed a message from Mike (who'd obviously seen my tweet about heading for TR) warning me of a team who had spent the night higher on the ridge (brrrr!). Lochaber MRT were on the case and after an icey ascent (take a couple of short screws) punctuated with some deep drifts (easy climbing, hard for gear) I popped over the Great Tower in time to see Kenny retreating from the far side of the Gap as LMRT cleared the Ridge after the rescue.

 Initial snow arete

 Break in the weather

 Getting higher

 Eastern Traverse

At the Gap

This meant the last bit of the Ridge was well trenched and we were on top by 2.15 to nav down the Red Burn. 3 days on the Ben on the trot. Jakub's legs have earned a rest at home!
The team who let us climb through past them on Green Gully yesterday dropped and axe on the final pitch. If you find a tool in the top of Green Gully then the owner can be contacted here: http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?n=542516

With friendly grockles on Green

Watery sunshine on the walk in

 Queueing up for Vanishing

 Pitch 3

 Jakub

 Almost at the last belay

After chopping thru the cornice in the wind

It was another lovely morning walk in to Ben Nevis this morning for Jakub, Neil and myself. The North Face car park was overflowing merrily and this was reflected by the crocodile of pilgrims heading up to find a climb to do. There was fresh avalanche debris visible at the foot of Boomer's Requiem and a the huge queue at the base of Vanishing were being treated to some good waves of spindrift.

We headed in to Coire na Ciste hoping to do Green Gully. There was a team at the base and another just arriving as we came round the corner above the Hut. 'Good' I thought. They'll be be well on their way by the time we get there. So I was a little surprised that the first leader had only just left the first stance by the time we had walked in to the Ciste, geared up, plodded up a bit and I'd run 2 ropes together up to the base of the route. 'Oh well. we are here now and everyone seems friendly'. The 2 teams were having an adventure and climbing near their limit and good for them. Some of them hadn't climbed much in winter or were lapsed climbers but they were out there getting on it. They missed the odd obvious belay but were happy to listen to advice and let us climb through past them (thank you) and I ended up helping the leader of the front team chop through the cornice as we topped out together. We then gave him back the deadman he'd dropped on the first pitch! 

The 4th pitch was where the weather turned and we topped out into the white room with gusty winds, snow squalls and poor vis. We headed down the Red Burn chatting with Spike and his team who had come up Ledge Route as the wet snow plastered our rucksacks to end the day.

Spindrift floods on Waterfall Gully

 Jakub building the first belay in the Gulch

The other team on the start of Gemini

Jakub on Waterfall Gully P1 

 That's a lot of snow!

' Ok, go for it'

 Approaching the belay

 Waterfall Gully

Where the snow was coming from. Waves of spindrift from high above funnelled into our Gully

Today Jakub came back for 3 days winter climbing with me. Last night's heavy snowfall made the hill feel a far less friendly place than of late. There were those making good decisions (not happy with the snow around Fawlty Towers, and another team walking away from Vanishing) and those questing on bravely (?) into Observatory Gully. I told the team from Fawlty Towers that its possible to Ab the first pitch of Waterfall Gully and they headed that way (this wasn't entirely altruistic as I planned to go there later and hoped they'd have dug some of the snow off!).
We started at the Gulch and after some digging found the ice still present and Jakub got 3 pitches of increasing difficulty before we headed round the corner. The 2 lads had cleaned Waterfall Gully's first pitch nicely and were now playing on the bottom of Gemini. As they finished and abseiled off we cracked on with Waterfall. It's had a lot of attention and was hooked and stepped but it has been so chopped up that in places the bulges were overhanging but positive making for good sport. I reached the in situ belay and brought Jakub up. Then the snow began... a torrent of snow pouring down the Gully from above. It wasn't touching either of us- I was clear on the belay on one side and Jakub was tucked in on the other- but it was a few minutes before he could cross to me. We retreated between these mini avalanches.
Walking out we could see the cause. Waves of spindrift were blowing from the crest of Ledge Route into the funnel above our pitch and pouring down it. A similar thing was happening all down the west side of Tower Ridge with the snow completely obscuring Garadh Gully from the Hut.

There is a lot of snow sitting in places out there. Its not last week any more folks so have a safe weekend!