Blue Bird: School House Ridge & Aonach Eagach

(Steve) It was my final day with Peter and Brenda and with a fine forecast we decided to piece all their skills together and climb School House Ridge above Ballachulish. This is a great intro route for budding mountaineers as it’s not too difficult and allows time to refine skills such as building belays and placing protection. Well done to these two inspirational people who are twice my age yet can stick 5 days winter mountaineering.

For one reason or another, Ken hadn’t traversed the Aonach Eagach in winter until today. Fortunately, today, that was finally rectified, and along with returning clients; Andy, Nick and Allan, they traversed one of the finest ridges in the UK under near perfect conditions. With conditions being so helpful, the trio were happy soloing a fair bit of it, and the team made good time along the ridge. Even the descent directly south of the summit of Sgorr nam Fiannaidh was in great conditions, with plenty of helpful snow until about halfway down.