SPA Assessment Day 2

A much better weather today. We took advantage of the cold but sunny weather to visit Rosyth Quarry. Despite being a graffitied quarry in an urban setting this can be a pleasant climbing venue. The candidates worked through a variety of scenarios and demonstrated their awareness of the issues surrounding supervising groups being in troduced to climbing. Congratulations to the new SPA holders!

SPA Assessment

Today was day 1 of a Glasgow Climbing Centre Based SPA Assessment. The weather was awful and no amount of driving was going to help us find better weather so after a session at the Wall we went to Neilston to look at some very soggy rock climbs. Full marks for effort to the 4 candidates for their climbing today. At least the foreacast for tomorrow is for much drier weather.

MCofS Student Safety Seminar

At the weekend I joined a couple of dozen other volunteers who were helping the Mountaineering Council of Scotland by providing free instruction at the Student Safety Seminar they organise and run at Glenmore Lodge. On the Saturday as well as a number of indoor workshops Mark and I delivered a beginners navigation session. On the Sunday it was back to Duntelchaig with a group of beginner rock climbers. We had dry, sunny conditions almost describable as warm!

Lochaber College at Duntelchaig

On Friday I was working for Lochaber College's Outdoor Education degree course running a rock climbing assessment at the crags above Loch Duntelchaig. Despite a damp and windy day the gang were able to demonstrate what they had learned over the last year.

Today I took 2 of the lads from Glasgow Academy up the Zig Zags in Glencoe. Last night they all stayed at Lagangarbh and we had a great deal of snow fall. Today we had to wade up through it past a successful stag and his harem of does. The scramble was pouring with water under the coating of wet snow making it challenging and slippery but a good option for a quick day befoe the weather turned worse with hail and heavy rain (still falling as wet snow higher up).

Aonach Eagach

Today I was working for Glasgow Academy. Teacher Neal (a Mountaineering Insructor in his own right) and I took 4 pupils along the Aonach Eagach. The autumn colours were clear and vivid as we walked onto the east end but, as forecast, by the end of the afternoon the weather had closed in a bit. The students coped really well with the increasingly greasy rock given their lack of scrambling experience. We were treated with a brocken spectre early in the day. Its funny, thats about the 5th I've seen on that section of the Ridge - more than anywhere else in the mountains.

Autumn Rocks

Paul is a Kiwi with plenty of experience of climbing on bolts but none of trad. climbing. This afternoon we went to Glen Nevis to have a look at the basics of placing gear. We did this by climbing Pinnacle Ridge and the Right Wall on Styx Buttress. We managed 5 pitches where first Paul was moving and replacing my gear and building his own belays next to mine and finally on the 5th, easier pitch, he led whilst I coached him from the belay. We abseiled off as the light failed pleased with our afternoon.

The rock was dry and clean out from under the trees and the weather mild enough that even out of the sun I felt overdressed with a hat and 2 layers on my upper body. Looking across at the Mamores the snow was almost entirely absent - winter has left for a few days at least and the forecast is wilder for the weekend.