Blog Posts in Category: Locations

With the weather forecast to be better today, and the best day for the forceable future, we decided to head up Ben Nevis and see if we could find something to climb. Due to not knowing what we were doing we ended up taking in a full rack, of which we used very little… However, as there were three of us the weight was distributed well. The weather in the morning was horrible, for almost the entire walk up to the CIC hut we were in the wind and fairly heavy rain, which meant that by the time were were there we were feeling pretty miserable and seriously considered bailing on the whole idea. After some motivation from me once my hands warmed up we decided to carry on up into Coire na Ciste, this was very hard going for the person breaking the trail, with drifts up to waist deep in places! Once we got near to the base of number 5 gully we made the decision that we didn’t want to continue any higher into the coire due to it being very hard going and the avalanche risk. Read the full article…

Having arrived in Scotland late last night after a very long drive up, we were determined to do something today despite the forecast of a high freezing level, strong winds and constant precipitation for a few hours.We decided to head up the Zig Zags on Gearr Aonach in order to head into Stob Corrie nan Lochan in order to get an idea of what the snowpack was looking like.After a short walk up we soon arrived at the snowline which was at around 350m. The route was fun, with a good cover of soft snow which meant that winter kit wasn’t needed until near the top. It was a bit of a slog up from the top of the Zigzags to the summit of Gearr Aonach, however the views up Glencoe were fantastic! Once we got to the summit, it was pretty hard going all the way along the ridge due to the soft snow. However once we approached Corrie nan Lochan a crust started to appear on the snow. We had planned on heading to the other side of the corrie and looking at the snow there, however once. Read the full article…

Having had a brilliant winter season I was quite content with staying down south for an extended period and getting back on rock, in fact I was supposed to be rock climbing in Cornwall last weekend. However, the weather had other ideas and with rain, wind and cold weather forecast down south I decided to make the most of the extended winter season in Scotland for another weekend. After exchanging emails with Mike Lates of Skye Guides I decided to head up to attempt a winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge on the Isle of Skye due to the ridge being in full on winter conditions and having a weather window where the forecast was cold weather, no wind and lots of sun. A winter traverse of the Cuillin Ridge is a route which is not often in good conditions due to being close to the sea and due to its nature is regarded as one of the finest mountaineering expeditions in the UK. We planned on taking three days on the ridge moving from north to south as is common in winter due to most of the difficulties being abseiled and having. Read the full article…

Another week finished at work, in fact my first full week since January due to all my Scotland trips in February and instead of enjoying a nice relaxing weekend it was back in the car for another eight hour drive up to Fort William for a weekends winter climbing. This trip was with James and was a fairly last minute trip due to the weather down south being to wet and cold to go rock climbing.We rolled into the North Face car park at 1:30am, set the alarm for 4:30 and headed to bed. Very tired after three hours sleep we woke up, had some breakfast and coffee before starting the now very familiar walk up to the CIC hut. Despite being pretty tired it was the most enjoyable walk in I have done so far due to the weather being so Alpine with a clear sky, the Ben looking like an iced christmas cake and a fantastic view of the mountains behind us. We were soon at the CIC hut after 1h15mins and started the hard walk in up the fresh powder towards the minus face. Despite being at. Read the full article…

After yet another brilliant day on the Ben I still wasn’t going to give myself a rest day so on Sunday me, David and Rich for up for an alpine start and headed up to the North Face of Ben Nevis yet again with the plan to climb Hadrian’s Wall Direct, another classic *** V,5 ice climb. I was coming down with a cold and found the walk in really touch, it has been a long time since I have struggled so much in the hills and pretty much collapsed on my bag when we stopped to gear up. Looking up towards Hadrian’s Wall and Point Five I remembered how tiring the initial snow slope was last time and with my current state of body was really not looking forward to it, thankfully half a packet of Jelly Babies helped significantly and we arrived at the bottom of the route without anyone in front of us. Looking up from the bottom the ice looked absolutely fantastic, a long, very sustained but not too steep section of ice. There was a ledge around 7m up what looked like easy ground so. Read the full article…