Finally, it’s what we’ve all been waiting for, snow! And a reasonable amount of it at that. As we drove through to Glencoe this morning, it was actually a little disappointing to only see the lightest of dustings on the Pap of Glencoe, but as the morning progressed, the snow continued to accumulate and by […]
Despite the lack of recent snows, Stu Lade, who worked on one of our CIC Hut Weeks last winter, found some good ice high on Ben Nevis, on Little Brenva Face. The face can turn into rather undefined dribbles of ice, so route finding isn’t always straight forward, but he thought that they started up […]
It proved to be another stunning day in the Highlands, so long as you were prepared to head up to 800m. Aonach Mor proved to be a great place to enjoy being above the inversion, particularly as the effort of getting above the clouds was lessened by the gondola. The snow on the East Face had […]
Fairly good conditions holding on in Number 2 Gully on Ben Nevis today. Much of the day was spent in the clouds, but the summit of Ben Nevis was just poking out above a fairly dense cloud inversion. Quite busy in Nos. 2,3&4 Gullies today, as well as teams on Tower Ridge. Tower Gully looked […]
Unfortunately, the cold weather of late has come to an end for the moment, taking away with it much of the recent snow, which didn’t have an opportunity to consolidate. I was out with Gam and Tom, and working for and alongside Scott (Kirkhope Mountaineering), who was with Gary and Angus. We all climbed the […]
We’ve had a few brilliant days recently, and we’ve been out making the most of it. Yesterday, Hannah was out on a personal climbing day with Mark. They decided to head up to Coire na Ciste and climb the neglected gem that is Lost the Place, a mixed route high on Creag Coire na Ciste. The […]
After sitting out a rather stormy day yesterday (amazingly a hardy team of visiting Swiss climbers managed to climb Green Gully, but reported that the ice wasn’t good for ice screws), I was back out with Joe and Kirsty for another day of coached lead climbing. Despite the promise of snow yesterday, with the strong winds, […]
Overnight, the freezing levels sneaked up to about 1150m, a bit higher than some of the forecasts were suggesting, causing the snowpack to start to thaw at most levels. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it may refreeze before the next dump of snow, giving the well needed consolidated base for new snow to […]
It was pleasing to see that sometime this morning, winter had made a return to the Highlands, a theme which continued throughout the day and will do for the rest of the week. I was out with Ceri and Richard who both had climbed in winter before. They were after a refresher and a kick-start […]
For Gareth, Mike and Matt’s final day, having exhausted the supply of winter climbs currently in good condition (which will change on Monday thankfully), we decided to take a different, but still completely relevant tact, and climbed a non-wintry Curved Ridge on Buachaille Etive Mor instead. The day started with a cloud inversion, and it […]
