The first week of winter?

It felt like the first proper week of winter and I was mountaineering with Ross, Mikaela and Jade working for Glenmore Lodge.
Day 1 is always a shakedown day and it was wild! We beat our way into the Ciste Gully reviewing basic walking skills, avalanche awareness and went up Gully No.2. Then to get out of the notch we had to link arms and stagger sideways against gusts of over 80mph (it was 97mph on top of Cairngorm at the time).
Day 2 we went into Coire an t Sneachda to introduce snow anchors and bit of travelling through steeper ground up to windy col. Avalanche awareness was again a theme and we did some navigation over Cairngorma and down windy Ridge to the Cas Car Park.
Day 3 and my experienced mountaineers wanted a route so we took the whole mountaineering course to the East Ridge of Beinn a Chaorainn which helped us dodge the worst of the wind, let the team use some mountaineering rope work and more navigation to descend. Great light on the way down too.
Day 4 and it was of to Creagan Cha No. A windy walk meant that we lowered 2 of the team in to get the ropes down for the other pair of us to abseil. Then the guys did a stirling job leading a pitch each with one axe out of the easiest variation of Duke's Rib.
Day5 and it was my 31st day of 'winter' this year and my first sunny, windless but snowy one. The guys took themselves up Fiacaill ridge using a variety of rope techniques and negotiated the crowds! There was just time to look at a last snow anchor on the way down.
Half Term holiday weeks approach and we have a mixture of soft powder on steep ground and windslab in terrain traps and on lee slopes. Ridges and buttresses may be a good idea for the non 'wads' seeking super steep ground. Take care out there folks.

Wild Monday

 Digging Tuesday

 A route for wednesday

 Abseiling thursday

 Fiacaill friday

A Mixed week

Steve and Mark joined me for the last week in search of winter climbing... the weather of course has been having other ideas this winter (?).
We managed to climb a lean North Gully in strong winds on monday, tuesday was damp mountaineering on the East Ridge of Beinn a' Chaorainn and wednesday was in the same vein on Golden Oldy. Thursday was damp and grim so we did some rope work training and talked gear based at Three Wise Monkeys. Finally today poor Steve had niggles in both and ankle and a hand so had to forego a damp walk round to the Brenva Face where Mark and I managed 30m of ice before retreating from some ice screw threads... Mark then built his own abseil station for us to use abseiling down the steep apron.

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!