Diedro – Penon de Ifach

Alastair BegleyCosta Blanca, Rock Climbing Short Link

Staying near Calpe the obvious climb to do is up the Penon de Ifach which is a surprisingly large mountain which overlooks Calpe. We chose to climb the top 50 5+ of Diedro UBSA which is a 9 pitch route which is mostly equipped with bolts. Walking under the face in the morning was very impressive, as we walked around the harbour path the cliff was towering impressively above us, our line was an obvious groove line up the middle of the face.   The first pitch was amazingly chossy, but thankfully this did not continue! The rock quality immediately improved on the second pitch, unfortunately the awful rock was replaced by polish! After the polish on the first few moves the rest of the pitch was fantastic, but it felt much harder than the given grade. The third pitch was incredibly polished for the first few moves which made it feel very tenuous before the thrutch up the chimney after the polish. Thankfully the polish vanished after this pitch and just left fantastic rock and excellent climbing. The next pitch was an excellent sustained corner climb with brilliant gear and excellent. Read the full article…

Mascarat Gorge Multi Pitch

Alastair BegleyCosta Blanca, Rock Climbing Short Link

Unfortunately we didn’t arrive in the Costa Blanca to be greeted by the expected sunshine, instead we arrived to a slightly damp day. We bailed on Sella due to heavy rain and instead we managed to climb a short multi pitch sport route and another uninspiring single pitch route at Sierra de Toix. Thankfully the second morning was significantly better and we woke up to a cloudless sky. We decided to head to the impressive Mascarat gorge to climb a classic multi pitch pseudo-sport route called Llobet/Bertomeu. The guidebook said that you needed to take a small rack and graded it at HVS, it turns out that a small rack really meant a single set of nuts and a few cams as the climb was fairly well bolted for the most part. Walking up the gorge in the morning was impressive with the steep walls of the gorge towering above you with the spectacular bridges high above. After a bit of a slog up to the road level we were soon on the old bridge and at the start of our climb. As you start off a bridge it is a. Read the full article…

Glovers Chimney

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Armed with a good weather forecast we set off for Ben Nevis again with the aim of climbing Glovers Chimney, a route which I have been wanting to climb for a while. The walk in was beautiful with crystal clear skies, no wind and stunning views of the north face of Ben Nevis.Thankfully there was a path up into Coire na Ciste which saved a significant amount of energy, as trailbreaking up the approach slopes to Glovers Chimney was fairly tiring. Eventually we made it to the base of the route, unfortunately by this time the weather was starting to break as hill fog was starting to form. The first pitch was an ice pitch was fairly buried so it was unfortunately short, the ice wasn’t in brilliant condition. It was then time for the long snow slope in the middle of the two technical pitches, we completed this in two very long pitches and were soon at the base of the main chimney.From below it was looking very rimed up and icy. Once in the chimney I was not disappointed, the climbing was interesting and certainly wasn’t a walk. Read the full article…

Minus Three Gully

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Another early start this morning to head back to Ben Nevis in order to make the most of the brilliant ice conditions. I was pretty unhappy this morning with yet another early start, and when it was raining as we were in the car park my psyche levels were pretty low. By the time we were at the hut the weather had cleared but it was very cold in the wind. We headed up into Observatory Gully with an open mind, but having seen the minus gullies looking great we decided to go and have a look at Minus One Gully. I lead up the first pitch which was straightforward to start with, but I was soon stopped by vertical snow below the first belay which meant that I couldn’t get to the belay. The crux pitch looked thin but maybe climbable, but with only a rusty peg 10m below me I wasn’t willing to try and swim up vertical snow (never seen anything like it, in the photo look at the icicles hanging down for reference of angle). After a quick abseil back down the gully we came up with. Read the full article…

Fingers Ridge, Coire an t-Sneachda

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

After a few days of bad weather we set off into Coire an t-Sneachda with an open mind, but really aiming to climb fingers ridge. As we approached the coire there was hill fog shrouding the crags, but the  walk in was pretty quick and easy due to there being a small layer of soft snow on top of good neve. As we approached the crag the hill fog started to lift and soon we had good visibility of the entire crag. An hour later all that was left above us was blue sky and sun shining down into the coire which was fantastic. There was another team of three ahead of us on the route, which was a trainee guide on his assessment. Due to this we made the assumption that the team would be quick up the route so decided to follow them up. Unfortunately it turned out that they were not quick and took a very long time on the first pitch, but by this time we felt like we had committed to the route as we had been waiting for a while, and my psyche had. Read the full article…

Mullach Clach a’Bhlair & Sgor Gaoith

Alastair BegleyMountaineering, Scotland, Walking Short Link

Having had an excellent day on Sunday traversing Liathach in unusually nice Scottish weather, today we were treated with a more usual day out. We spent the day munroe bagging above Glen Feshie where we completed a 25km loop which included Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair & Sgor Gaoith. We set off from the car hoping that we would be able to cross all of the rivers which on the east bank of Glen Feshie, thankfully we were just about able to with some fairly committing jumps over the first river we came to. The ascent up Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair was very painless after the long walk down the valley due to the estate track which runs all the way up to the plateau, as we joined the plateau we ascended into the white room. Unfortunately the rest of the day was spent in the white room staring at a compass. Having read stories online of people not being able to find the summit of Mullach Clach a’ Bhlair in the summer even with the help of GPS due to the summit being very indistinct and having a tiny cairn. Due to this. Read the full article…

An Alpine Traverse of Liathach

Alastair BegleyScotland, Winter Climbing Short Link

Over the past few years I have completed three (An Teallach, Aonach Eagach and the Cuillin Ridge) out of the four classic mountaineering ridges in Scotland in winter. This just left Liathach left to complete, unfortunately for the past two years the weather and conditions didn’t align while I was in the area. Thankfully this year it was very different as we were blessed with a stunning weather forecast during the time we had planned on being in Torridon. Our walk up from the Beinn Eighe carpark was wonderful as the sun was rising which was plastering the mountains in a wonderful orange glow, as we ascended the mountain we started to see some of the wonderful scenary which Torridon has to offer. The ascent up to the start of the ridge was pretty hard work and we took a very long time to get up to the ridge, thankfully yesterday someone else had broken trail which made the approach somewhat easier. When we got up to to the first top we were greeted by a spectacular panorama of the Torridon hills which instantly made all of the hard work. Read the full article…

Sunny Schiehallion

Alastair BegleyScotland, Walking Short Link

Today was the start of this years Scotland trip, last year we were constantly battling with frankly terrible weather. The start of this year’s trip could not have been more different as we were greeted with wall-to-wall sunshine, I even got sunburnt! We have plans in Torridon tomorrow so had a short day en-route today. We climbed Schiehallion, which is a Munroe which Becky had been saving for a perfect winter day, and it certainly could not have been much more perfect than today. On the ascent we were too hot in our baselayers as there was no wind, although we did get a sharp reminder of how cold it was in the slight breeze on the summit. The conditions underfoot were relatively easy going on the well trodden path which enabled us to make a quick ascent in under 2 hours. The views from the top were absolutely fantastic due to the cold crystal clear air which meant that we could see over to Rannoch Mor and Ben Nevis to the west, Ben Lawers to the south and the Cairngorms to the North East. The snow was softening slightly. Read the full article…