Thursday, April 28, 2011

Blog catch up; Ski touring and Skye





Winter ended all too suddenly for most people; it seemed like one day is was touring the Cairngorm 4000ers with clients car to car on skis to having to walk for 45mins to the snow line to baking hot temperatures calling for the rock boots to be dusted off and the skiing had became more a chore to link patches of shrinking snow.
However the silver linning is that the early spring has mean that the hills are clear of snow and climbing and scrambling at all altitudes has been a viable activity for nearly a month now.
I have got back from my first spell of the season on Skye, this time preparing for and attempting a one day traverse of the Cuillin Ridge. My client, Colin, was an Ultra Marathon runner and i don't mind saying that he was fitter than me! However he had very little scrambling experience and no rock climbing experience at all. Importantly had never been to the Cuillins before so my job really was to lead all the rock climbs and show the way on all the scrambling sections and route find (and try and keep up with him when the terrain occasionally kicked back to walking territory!)
We made excellent progress on the day of our traverse up to the point where a twisted ankle descending easy ground on the way to Bidean Dhruim nam Ramh forced us to hobble back to Glen Brittle.
The fine settled weather looks like it will be continuing for quite some time yet and the hills will probably remain very quite for some time yet; a great time to get out just now.

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