Blog Posts in Category: Scotland

Remote Winter Walking up Fraoch Bheinn

Alastair BegleyMountaineering, Scotland, Walking Short Link

For the first day of our Scotland trip no one wanted to have a long day so I was going to go ice climbing on Aonach Mor with Stephen and Simon due to being able to get ski lifts up to circa 900m while the others were going to do a grade I gully on the west face of Aonach Mor, however this plan was changed as when we arrived at the gondola station at 9am the lift was on hold due to the wind being much stronger than forecast.Due to not wanting to waste the day we headed back to where we were staying to head NW where there was supposed to be better weather, after a quick look at the map we decided to head up Fraoch Bheinn via the South Ridge and Descend down the North. The drive down the side of Loch Arkaig was fantastic but much longer than expected and I have never driven on a road like it, however eventually we did arrive at the end and start walking. We arrived at the snow line fairly quickly however all the way up the south. Read the full article…

Mountaineering in the Caingorms

Alastair BegleyLandscape, Scotland, Walking Short Link

Following on from my previous post about Winter Climbing on Ben Nevis I have just spent the week mountaineering in the Caingorms where we had a fantastic time. Other than the day we did Ben Nevis we managed two other walks, a day trip over to Glen Coe in order to visit Ice Factor, a visit to some waterfalls where we went for a rather cold swim and a trip to Dalwhinnie distillary. On the day we arrived there was hardly a cloud in the sky and it was really warm so we had a BBQ outside, but with the crazy Scottish weather 3 days later we woke up to large amounts of snow on the ground! On the first day we went for a local walk which I tried to do at New Year but had to turn back on that attempt due to being unable to stand up in the wind. It was a horseshoe walk up to  Sgor Gaoith and along the ridge to do a few other tops as well, it was a fantastic walk which we were able to relax nicely on to enjoy the summit views. On Monday. Read the full article…

Gardyloo Gully

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Last week I was up in Scotland for a week, the intention was to go winter climbing but after stunning and really hot weather the two weeks before we headed up there was very little ice left so the prospect of doing any winter climbing was looking very unlikely. However due to a sudden change of weather over two days, from having a BBQ on the first evening then on Tuesday morning we woke up to several inches of fresh snow and freezing temperatures, this mixed with a northerly wind quickly sent Ben Nevis back to great winter conditions on the easier routes such as Gardyloo Gully. Armed with a positive weather & avalanche report from SAIS stating that on the northern aspects there was a low avalanche risk due to the northerly wind scouring the faces we made the decision to get up early and head up the north face of Ben Nevis. We  headed up to the CIC hut very early leaving the car at 7am and got to the CIC hut less than two hours later where we had to hide from the bitter wind as the weather forecast was not. Read the full article…

Mountaineering in Scotland

Alastair BegleyScotland, Scrambling, Walking Short Link

In my previous blog post I described the first half of the week I spent in Scotland (click here) and this is how the rest of the week went now I am back at home after a long drive back from Fort William. Wednesday was a wash out due to heavy rain all day causing severe weather warnings to be issued for the western highlands so we stayed at the house for most of the day apart from half an hour when we headed out to the loch near the house we were staying in and in the process of doing that got soaked! The weather did however improve on Thursday so we headed out for another attempt at Aonach Mor but this time via a gully on the western side of the ridge but due to a lack of snow in the gullies from the warm conditions we ended up just doing an improvised scramble up to the top which was great fun and challenging in a few places but not before we practised some glissading on a small patch of snow we found in the valley.  When we got to the top we were greeted by our first view of. Read the full article…

Winter Mountaineering in Scotland

Alastair BegleyScotland, Walking, Winter Climbing Short Link

This week I am up in Scotland with my university’s expedition society to do winter mountaineering. We have however been plagued with poor weather and lack of snow since we have been here but thankfully that has not stopped us! On the first day we went up to Stob Ban to teach winter techniques to the unexperienced people in the group showing them how to use ice axes and crampons and do important techniques such as ice axe arrests. Due to the ridge to the summit being on cloud for most of the day we did not head up to the summit and ended up just teaching in an area of snow we found near the coll. On the second day gale forces were forecast but we decided to give walking a try and headed up to Aonach Mor but it turned out the forecast was correct and when we got to the gondola station we were in the cloud with horizontal rain and winds that seriously impeded motion. Due to this we just headed back down the downhill track which looked like an amazing track to bike on which I plan. Read the full article…