Austria

It is quite cold out in the alps at the moment and the weather has been quite mixed with snow lying down to 2000m and staying on the ridges. It is clearing better from steep southern facing routes. I'm staying in Austria for the next few days but we may move if the temperatures don't go up. It could be an interesting time to do a big mixed face... but that's not on the agenda for this trip!

Skye Ridge, Munros, Rock and Sport Climbing and teaching leading

I have had the computers packed up in dust proof covers this past couple of weeks as i have been sanding and varnishing the floors in between work. A bit of a chore but worth doing in the end (I'm told).

Thus blog catch up time...

I have been guiding rock and sport climbing and teaching leading. I have been in the Cullin a lot recently and have just got back from doing a Munros course in very mixed weather.

I'm off to the Alps for a few weeks at the weekend and then North Wales before going back to Skye. I'll try and keep up the blog up to date but it will be intermittent.

It's tipping it down again outside so it's quite nice to be varnishing inside!

Success on the Skye Ridge

Saturday on the Cullin Ridge of Skye was very windy and cold. However the sun was out and it was often possible to stay out of the worst of the wind on the Glen Brittle side. David, Mark and I made good steady progress and only experienced a slight delay at the Inaccessible Pinnacle. The team opted to take in all the difficult variations and we enjoyed dry rock and great views.

We stopped to bivi early as many of the usual springs were dry (on the whole it has been unusually dry so far this season) and i descended off the ridge and trudged (slowly) back with 14l in my pack and we spent a fine evening in the sunshine eating and drinking like Kings.

Sunday morning greeted us with thick cloud and drizzle. The visibility was only 20m for most of the day and we didn't see (or hear) anyone until we got to Am Basteir where we tried to locate the owner of a mobile phone, camera and a pair of glasses that we had found on Bruach na Frithe. The weather cleared just in time for our ascent of Sgurr nan Gillean and our long walk out to the Sligachan Pub. We finally reunited the owner with their belongings but by the time they turned up last orders had been called at the bar and we weren't able to take them up on the offer of a round of drinks.

Inaccessible Pinnacle (In Pinn) and Munros

Back from Skye now. I'm still wondering where the crowds are; it still seems strangely quiet if you stay away from the Inaccessible Pinnacle area. Am i just going to the right places at the right times?

Saturday was a great day; the cloud burnt off in mid morning and the Southern end caught the sun first. The picture above taken on Saturday evening shows the first signs of the new weather front which caused heavy rain throughout Skye.

Fingers crossed for the weather at the end of the week and the coming weekend as i'm doing a traverse.

The Skye good weather continues

I'm just back from Skye and can report that the good weather has continued and is set to for several more days. The ground in the Cullins and in Glen brittle is very dry which is great for ascents of routes that usually have wet weeps on them but not good for finding water from springs for a ridge traverse.

I'm back over on Friday but currently have Sunday, Monday and Tuesday free for private guiding up Munros, rock climbing or an attempt at the ridge traverse if anyone would like a last minute break on Skye.

Skye Ridge and Munros

The weather on Skye has been mostly very good, with the odd morning of rain such as yesterday. The In Pinn has been very busy (it is the English school half term) but each of my 3 ascents were queue free by dint of luck and getting up early. Some mornings the ridge was damp but the breeze and some warmth from the day soon dried it off. We had the whole of the North end of the ridge to ourselves yesterday and didn't see another soul all day, which was amazing as the camp sites and the huts are all teeming with folk. I'm having a couple of days at home before i go over again at the weekend for another stint; hopefully the weather will remain kind.

The Lakes

I have been down in the Lakes during the mini heat wave and enjoyed some CPD time down there. I don't usually go to the lakes for work or play, but everytime i do i seem to have idle thoughts about how nice it would be to live there. Hoever then i see the house prices and the crowds and i scuttle back home to the Highlands where i can leave my car at a crag and not worry about break ins and have a few hundred routes to choose from on mountain crags. But then again the local ice cream was nice...
I'm starting a week on Skye but will try and get to a computer and report on the conditions whist i'm there.

Skye Ridge and Munros

The weather on Skye has been much better than expected. However, the pessimist in me still packed a water proof rather than sun cream. The rock was dry and the May crowds have not yet arrived. It was quite a contrast to last week where there was a couple of inches of snow about. The new SMC Skye guidebook is progressing, any of you that want to get a cheeky new route in you have a mere couple of weeks!

The forecast looks reasonable for the next few days with a possible 'weather event' at the weekend.

Creag Ghlas bird alert.

Folk might want to know that there IS a nesting Golden Eagle pair on Creag Ghlas (one of my local crags). I went there today and met a party from Glenmore lodge who had also read the MCofS's website and didn't gleam much from its ambiguous info (probably not their fault in any case). I believe that similar ambiguous info was published in CLIMBER mag also (possibly but not sure a i don't read it).

Well yes there is a mating pair there for sure who put in an appearance for a while when we were half way up the crag. They scarpered and so did we. I'm unclear as to whether it would be ok to climb on the side of the crag (which is big) that doesn't have the nest as i have no idea how spooked they get, it would be a great shame if they abandoned it. Indeed, i'm not even sure i should be posting this?! Do eggers trawl the blogosphere? If there is an etiquette then please email me and let me know. I'll email the MCof S and update them and i have already contacted the local ranger and filled him in. What would be ideal would be a sign at the start of the track as climbers wouldn't have wasted any time on approaching and could just turn around and drive to another crag, but would this draw unwanted attention? Answers on a postcard.

Skye, Ben Nevis and Rock climbing

Nearly a month since the last blog. I am a bad man!

Iv'e been over Ben Nevis way, the NW and on Skye these last few weeks, oh and a final tour on the planks in the Cairngorms just so i can be in the May club! Indeed speaking of the May club, Point 5 has recieved at least 2 ascents in May this year, sadly not by me though. The other climbable ice ice route has been Good Friday climb which has seen several more ascents. The grade 1 gullies will still be there for a bit more if you are looking for some alpine lung busting preporation. Speaking of Alpine prep, Tower ridge has been very good lately also with dry rock till the little tower then crampons on for the rest.

However, this past week or so things have changed with precipitation at night falling as snow sometimes down to 300 - 400m and being a good inch or so up top. This has mostly burnt off each day but it has lingered in the shade. The MWIS forcast has showed its limitations in predicting this snow fall and plans for a Skye ridge traverse with two folk were curtailed when we realised that we were looking at pretty good winter conditions! We did in the end lighten the sacks and opt for a quasi winter ascent of the In Pinn.

Cragging at various NW locations has been a better option and venues such as Diabaig, Seana Mheallan, Ardheslaig etc have been good options if at times cold when the sun hasn't been on them.

The weather should improve next week and i'll blog again soon (ish)

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.

Cairngorm 4000ers ski tour

Well, the pieces in the puzzle finally slotted into place yesterday and we enjoyed our tour of the Cairngorm 4000ers but decided that we needed to add the walk up and down the Devils Point onto it as well. We found quite good snow and only had to walk for a few hundred metres from the bottom of Tailer's burn (and wade the river) to reach a gully of snow to skin up on the other side.

We changed our plan to ski down Corie Ruadh and boot up to the top of Lurchers Gully as we didn't fancy the look of the snow in Corie Ruadh and indeed when we continued to traverse round we saw a very fresh wind slab avalanche in part of it. Instead we skied down Sron na Lairige, down Corie Gorm and round into the Lairig Ghru (see picture of the intrepid getting the last few turns into the Lairig Ghru!). From there we had to walk through the Charlemagne gap which wasn't too bad and onto the good footpath to the sugar bowl car park.

I have spent today cycling with my son in shorts and t-shirt and it has been 16 deg in Conon Bridge, the snow on the lower slopes will go very quickly but the snow up on the plateau will still be there for many weeks yet and i'm sure i'll be going over to Macdui again before the month is out.

The pictures really speak for themselves; a lovely day

Piste, off piste and touring @ Cairngorm

Iv'e been on the planks the last few days with Tanya looking at her ski technique on and off piste and basic ski touring skills which we put together today in a tour up on the plateau. Ben Macdui was very popular today and the visibility was refreshingly good for a change (until the drizzle came on at 2pm).

The snow on the low to mid mountain is very heavy and slow and not fun to ski but it is good up high. It hasn't frozen for a couple of days now and won't for the next couple i think.

All this warm weather has caused the great slab in Corrie an Lochain to begin to slip. This usually happens every year and there are several sweep-stakes on when it will happen. There was heavy rain a few days ago which has lubricated the bottom of the snow pack on the smooth rock and it has moved last night. It may hang on for a while or it may go in the next few days with the very warm weather forecast.

I'm out on the classic 4 4000ft peaks of the Cairngorms tomorrow and aim to end up in Lurchers gully rather than the Charlemagne gap because of the snow level so i'll try and get another picture.

Torridon

There has been significant snow in the NW in the last snow event. This brought the mixed climbing back into condition quickly and has improved some of the easy gullies.

Today the weather has not been as good as yesterday (bright sun and cold in the shade on Friday) and there has been rain most of the way up the hill today.

The picture is taken looking at the back of Liathach on Friday (hence the sunshine)

Winter returns

Up to a week ago i was enjoying a well earned rest as the freezing level was way way above the tops and the rain was beating the window... however the vagaries of the North Atlantic weather systems have given us a bit of an Indian Winter (if that isn't a tautology!).

Iv'e been ice climbing on Ben Nevis this past few days re visiting some of the classics. Interestingly the upper sections of many routes such as those on the Orion face as more featured than normal, giving more interesting climbing rather than the usual bank out to the top. This is probably because of the sustained period of cold earlier in the season has resulted in the snow sluffing off these features and not sticking and filling them in.

There have been many teams on Smiths, Point 5, Zero, Slav, Orion Direct, Tower ridge, Comb gully, etc. Basically all the classics. There are reports of ascents on the Indicator wall area but as i haven't seen this bit of the mountain i can't confirm anything. The climbing is very good for axe and crampons but not great for ice screws i.e. it is difficult to fall off and that is defiantly best avoided. Stating the bleeding obvious? Probably.

I left the CIC hut yesterday and as we got back to the car in the evening the weather was just beginning to deteriorate. Here in Conon Bridge (North of Inverness) it is snowing/sleeting heavily and has been all day on a very strong wind. No doubt this will give us an extension to the mixed climbing possibilities. Indeed, the Cairngorms whilst chocked with snow have had black buttresses for a while now.

I noted windslab on several different aspects on the Ben, including the crag aprons. This was often localised depositions due to regional winds but some of it slid and cracked very easily. This will most probably be something to be very aware of during and after the current weather event that is happening now.

Advanced Ski touring / off piste

Today with the promise of to the good visibility we chose the Cairgorms for our advanced ski touring day. However, the clag often hugs the cairngorm plateau and indeed it did today.

We went over to Ben Macdui via Corrie an Lochain and had to point to point navigate on compass bearings as the clous was down. From the summit we skied initially very hard icy snow then hero snow down to the Larig Ghru and booted up Lurchers crag and skied Lurchers gully back to the car park. We looked at snow stability, kick turning, choosing safe lines and off piste ski technique (and the use of essential off piste catch phases such as 'dude', 'awesome' and not forgetting 'radical')

The snow stability was very good, there is evidence of old avalanche activity on all aspects but there was only a very small amount of very localised new slab built up from cross winds in the sides of SW facing gullies. There was still a layer about 6 inches down on a pit dug at about 800m on a south facing slopes which did fail on a strong pull which i was surprised had survived the recent thaw, but the pack was not too worrying on the whole.

Creag Meagaidh

I was on Meagaidh (meggy) today after the ice has all been washed away in the NW in recent days but the freezing level was more like 2000m rather than 900m and the day started with heavy rain on the walk in soaking us to skin. It was warm enough even in the wind to strip down to the chest and put dry thermals on. Wand and Diadem were our intended lines but after a spontainious avalanche came down Diadem (possibly from a cornice colapse) we walked over to Pumpkin and were rewarded with a volley of falling ice from above and the sides which made us think the better of climbing so we went for a walk.

Lots of recent avalanche activity, slab release as well as sluffs all spontainious and some from the last 48hrs.

It is supposed to freeze this night but im not convinced. I'm out again tomorrow so we will see. I'll post pictures later (more camera problems)

Torridon

Well, it had to end sometime; the fantastic weather has come to an end and the past few days have been typified by warm wet weather.

Poachers etc is looking much thinner (as it has a small river running down it) and the snow is totally water saturated all the way up the hill all over the NW. I've been on Liathach and Beinn Alligin in the past few days and the snow less has been quite substantial in this last few days and will probably continue in that vein. Temp on the tops is at least +4 and there is very little lapse rate due to the cloudy moist air.

NW conditions - Liathach and Edinburgh lecture

The great weather and conditions continue in the NW. We are getting a hard frost each night and clear blue sunny skies each day. This is helping build the ice. Poachers received at least two ascents yesterday and White Tiger had a party ascend it. Both route suffered from brittle ice i'm told.
I did George and found it in fantastic condition (you have to breath in when threading the cave due to the ice build up though!)
This week i'm journeying down to Edinburgh on Thursday to present a lecture about Adventure climbing. I'll look at climbing in Scotland, the Alps, NZ anf the Himalaya. I'll talk a lot about new routes and the mentality that goes with them but the theme linking all the adventures will be that you don't have to be a superhero to do it.
It is being given as a part of the EUMC / Tiso series and is at Theatre 183 Old Collage, South Bridge at 8.30 on Thursday. Tickets £6 or £5 if you have a good excuse.

NW and Cairngorms

The thaw has been on for a few days now and the freezing level has gone up to the tops of the hills, or above, most days and down to the valley at night. This is helping destroy and consolidate some of the weaknesses in the snow pack, which was saturated in a pit dug on Ben Wyvis on a southern aspect at about 700m today.
The snow level has retreated up the hill so it is not possible to ski car to summit any more on Ben Wyvis, we carried for about 2km.
There has been heavy rain on the coastal NW hills (Applecross) and this has been very detrimental to many of the ice routes there. The ice is still hanging on further inland though such as on Liathach.
Conditions this w/e in the Cairngorms were great with hero neve forming in the gullies; the rise in freeing level has done great work there stabilising the snow pack and refreezing the snow to make climbing much more pleasant.
Sorry, no pictures; my rechargeable battery isn't behaving. Will try and fix this asap.
Coda...Also forgot to add lots of avalanche activity in the past 3 days all over the place, saw lots of old avalanches on West and Sw slopes on Wyvis and lots in the Corries, and there may be more if the cornices fail. Y gully area in Lochain i often pretty bad for this