Skye Munros

Well, i think that the summit photo on the top of Sgurr Alasdair says it all! The rain has been torrential these past couple of days on the Cullins and the high winds today made us realise the futility of a ridge traverse attempt so we've bailed and will have some fun on dry rock in the Inverness area.

The story of the panorama picture of the South end of the ridge from the glen brittle campsite is revealed in the detail: have a look at the bundled up tent by the side of the bin and various other broken and sodden camping equipment in the bins as many camping holidays were abandoned this week!

Gogarth Main Wall

A late-ish start today was made to allow low tide at 2pm to give James Thacker and I access to the left hand side of main wall. However there was quite a swell on and as i needed to make my 7pm flight at Manchester we stayed on the right hand side. A party was on the E1 Gogarth and the E2 to its right. Thanks to James T for 1. Telling me how to put inks in blogs, 2. Getting me to the airport and most importantly, 3. Taking over when i couldn't find the line through the enchanted broccoli madness!

I'm off back to the Highlands now to train hard for a Gogarth re-match in September.

Navigation and climbing on the slate

The weather has been a little less wet and wild in the second half of the week but the animals in Llannberis pass have still been lining up two by two searching for an ark. The rivers have been extremely high and i'm told that the local rescue team had 11 calls out last week.

I have been out working on navigation skills and have been on the slate a but for the odd cheeky after work route. The filming of the Hollywood film Clash of the Titans continues in the state quarries but access into Vivian and Bus-stop seems to be fine.

I've not been using the new Lx3 lumix camera too much as i'm still treating it with kid gloves and hiding it from the weather. However, the shot of the North side of the Llanberis pass was taken with it on Thursday when the weather was better.

Sunday is my last day down here and then i'm back home to the Highlands for a month before coming back down to North wales for September.

Scrambling in the Ogwen valley

Last night the rain was monumentally heavy. Very high winds in the valley didn't bode well for today so we wonderd what the day would bring. As it tured out the secnd weather front seemed to have caught up with the first, hence the spectacular results last night. We went round to the Ogwen valley and went up and down various scrambles including the excellent Cneifon Arete.

Who knows what the weather will do in the next rew days but it was nice today.

Wet (again) Tremadog and Great at Gogarth

The rain was very heavy at Tremadog today so we lowered our aspirations and kept the big boots on.

Yesterday at Gogarth was very windy. A big swell was on and high tide at 2pm encouraged us to go to Holyhead mountain where we enjoyed ourselves on a host of single pitch routes.

The weather looks to continue being wet and wild for the next few days.

Wet at Tremadog, Windy at Gogarth, Wild at Idwal

I though i better update this as i am running out of adjectives beginning with W and am having a day off so i don't need to use weary!

Iv'e been down in North Wales this last week but the weather has been similar to the Highlands, wet and windy. Ive been searching out dry rock at Tremadog and big boot climbing in the wet. We have been looking at advanced problem solving and crag rescue with scenarios such as an unconscious leader fall hanging in space on a traverse 5 pitches up and the more exciting leader triggers a landmine in a crack and must have his second come and de-activate it and then rescue them (we got a bit creative).

Gogarth has been damp but dried out well in the strong winds and gave good sport. Well done to the Scottish ream on Positron; good effort. As is the way, Gogarth has seen much better weather than Llanberris and where there has been an inch of standing water in the pass there has been sunshine on Anglesey.

Idwal has seen a few teams on the slabs, we have been using this as a venue for teaching scrambling and the efficient use of a short rope.

I've been shooting on a new camera this last week, a Panasonic LX3. The 24mm to 60mm lens is very nice and early results are promising. It is a compact that allows you full manual control of aperture and shutter in the way of an SLR and can work with filters which is a real bonus when you are shooting at altitude or in snowy conditions. it is obviously not as weather proof as the Pentax Optio range so i will have to take a bit of care with this one. I'm hoping for some good shots next week as we go on a few journeys around the Snowdonia classics and i actually read the instructions this weekend.

Long distance walking in the lake district

I'm now back in Scotland watching the rain lash the window after returning yesterday from the lakes. We walked over several peaks and passes each day and looked at detailed navigation work as we went.

The high crags were all dry last week but the rain sweeping the country will have changed that drastically. The picture shows Pavey Ark above Langdale.