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…

Late on Friday night David arrived up from Derby which meant that I had a climbing partner keen to get on a grade V ice route, so we set our alarms for 4:30 with a plan on walking into the Ben and seeing what was in condition but hoping that Minus Two was still looking climbable. After four hours sleep we both felt pretty rough in the morning but after 1h30 of walking in drizzle reached the CIC hut, thankfully as we approached the hut the drizzle stopped and the conditions started to improve. After picking up some water we headed up to Observatory Gully and got our first closeup view of the Minus face and saw a very thin looking Minus Two, after a brief discussion we decided to carry on walking towards it to see if it looked any better. Minus One was looking fatter and had a team gearing up at the first belay, we decided that Minus Two looked climbable so went for it. After a quick game of rock, paper, scissors at the belay I took the first pitch and very feeling slightly nervous setting. Read the full article…

On Thursday night most people were feeling pretty tried due to getting up at around 4:30am and then having an afternoon in the hills. Due to this no one fancied an alpine start to head into Ben Nevis so the decision was made to head up to the east face of Aonach Mor for a day of chilled out ice climbing. I describe it as chilled out as it is possible to get a gondola and chair lift up to over 900m which makes it a very easy approach. I tried to climb at Aonach Mor twice in February but both days were cancelled due to the wind being stronger than forecast and causing the gondola not to open, however today the weather was much nicer than forecast with no wind, crystal clear skies and lovely cold air overnight which froze all the snow up nicely. After a cold gondola ride up to the top we started the walk in with stunning views and quickly warmed up as the air temperature was increasing and the sun moving higher into the sky, we quickly arrived at the top of easy gully. Read the full article…

Having been back from Scotland for a week long trip for three days before  heading up for an impromptu trip last weekend, I was back at work for another three days before heading up to Scotland for the annual Avon Mountaineering Club trip to Scotland. This time we were flying which meant that as we were catching an early flight we arrived in Glen Coe by midday with time to do a quick route. After very quickly repacking our bags we headed up out of the very warm valley up to Stob Coire nan Lochan hoping that it was cold enough up high for the snow to have remained frozen. This turned out to be very optimistic and it was a hard slog up unfrozen snow to get up to the coire, however the weather was good and provided us with great views up Glen Coe and we could even occasionally see the summit. We headed up Boomerang Gully a grade II climb, it was a bit soft all the way up which made it very hard going, however it was nice to be out in the mountains again. We soloed up. Read the full article…

A route which I have heard so many people rave about and knew so little about due to never even considering climbing it, until this trip where the mountain was in great condition, I had partners which were capable of climbing it and partners who wanted to climb hard which made me want to push myself. As with the previous two days the first line of the guide book was fantastically inspiring “An outstanding climb, probably the most famous ice gully in the world!” and when Saturday night came and we agreed we would do it on Sunday I was both very excited and slightly nervous, especially as I asked to lead the crux pitch (I do like to throw myself in at the deep end). Due to wanting to be first on the route and having to drive back to Bristol we woke up at 5:30 however still we were not the first people walking up, thankfully we saw one party turn up to head to Coire na Ciste and we passed another at the CIC hut, however there was still one party heading up to Observatory Gully so we moved. Read the full article…

Over the past few months Tower Ridge has become a slight obsession of mine due to how great the ridge looked in photos and the descriptions in guide books containing phrases such as “perhaps the finest mountaineering expedition in Scotland” and I was disappointed not to have managed to climb it when I was up in Scotland last week, however I am so glad I waited until this week to do it. We woke up early to avoid having to queue behind multiple parties at Eastern Traverse and Tower Gap, at the start of the day we were joined by Nick’s friend Steve so were now planning on moving as two groups of two on the ridge. We woke up to a misty Ben Nevis and I began fairly optimistic that it was going to clear, however upon leaving the CIC hut it started to snow fairly heavily and at this point I assumed we were going to have a bit of a Scottish Day. The snow stopped after half an hour and the cloud base rose back up a bit as we ascended the gully up to the start of the. Read the full article…

Despite having just got back from a brilliant week in Scotland it was still hard looking at the photos appearing from Scotland the week after due to a massive high pressure system creating clear blue skies and cold weather which lead to fantastic climbing condition. Due to this I started emailing around and came up with a plan to head up to Scotland for a three day weekend, due to thinking it was going to busy on the north face of the Ben and combined with the great forecast we decided to camp just below the CIC hut to save having to do the walk in with full packs every day and also get a head start on other climbers. We arrived at the North Face car park at 1am on Wednesday night and the car thermometer was reading minus 5 so we must have been crazy to get out of the lovely warm car and start walking up to the CIC hut with a tent and sleeping bags. It was great to walk in by moonlight and once we were out of the forest we did not need to. Read the full article…