Summer rock and ... a winter coda

Ive been out on the rock this past week and it feels strange to not have tools in my hands but i did enjoy the 'newness' of it all.

However just as i was putting most of the winter kit in storage the freezing level come down and i head over to (a very quiet) Ben Nevis. The rain in the valley turned to sleet at the hut and eventually to snow fall up high. We looked at snow craft, snow belays and ice axe breaking. I always like putting skills into context so we headed up into the gloom and went up No 2 gully on great snow and took a slightly stepper icy exit on the left wall. We made the most off the pea souper on the mountain and navigated up to the summit and the guys controlled the nav down with me taking a back seat and just keeping an eye on things.

I think that i'm heading over to the Cairngorms on Sunday for a family ski tour with my 2 year old (he tells me he prefers the off piste) but we will have to see what the weather brings.