Mountain Diary and Conditions

There was a strong West Coast Mountain Guides presence on School House Ridge in Glencoe today, with Niels, Caspar and myself with our respective teams making the most of the quick access and straight forward descent that the route offers. There’s an amazing amount of snow on the ridge at the moment, and in places, it has consolidated well, offering solid, first time axe placements.

Meanwile, further up Glencoe, Mike was out with Sammie on North Buttress on Buachaille Etive Mor. Strong winds and spindrift were again, a theme of the day, but the pair made steady progress up the route, before abseiling back down the line. It’s a great option in stormy weather or when there’s far too much snow up high, or in this case, both.

Also in Glencoe, Hannah spent day 4 with her budding mountaineers on Beinn a Chrulaiste. Their main focus was putting all their taught navigation skills from yesterday into practice; pacing and walking on bearings to the summit in fine style. Along the way they also found some short fun steps of ice to test their front pointing and also an ideal sheltered spot for a bit if ice axe arrest practice. Henry was also on Beinn a’Chrulaiste, and climbed the Pink Rib with the Wolf Family. It was a day of tough conditions for everyone, but there’s no better environment in which to learn and be tested in!

Nick, Keith and Ken joined Steve and Graeme down at the Bridge of Orchy hills, but peeled off to climb on Creag Coire an Dothaidh. With two teams heading up to Salamander Gully, they climbed Centigrade, which gave a good and varied climb up vegetated corners and icy grooves. Despite another dump of snow through the night and into the morning, the day turned out to be stunning, with clear views of the surrounding snowy peaks.
Whilst Ken and team were busy on Centigrade Steve and Graeme climbed Antichrist with the Promise Land finish VI,6. They had originally wanted to climb Antichrist in its entirety but copious amounts of digging led them to Promise Land and it’s thin and impressive crux icefall.

With more fresh snow overnight Hannah and team had a late change of plan. And as both Josh and Harry had expressed a strong interest in reaching the top of Ben Nevis, this was to be their objective for the day. With a slightly later than desired start (9:45!) they set off at full steam breaking trail and sharing the navigation under Hannah’s watchful eye. It was tough going but they made the summit and back in less than 7 hours. Harry and Josh were super chuffed with the change of plan and blown away by the unexpected views.

Ken: Today was my final day with Ricci, and as this is all preparation for a forthcoming trip to Everest, with a possible summit attempt, we decided to finish his three days with a fairly big day.

We climbed Sron na Lairig first off, which is always a brilliant journey up an imposing buttress and ridge. The route culminates in a short but very exposed ridge, before tackling a final head-wall, which in current conditions, was quite steep. We then turned right, and headed up to the summit of Stob Coire Sgreamhach, just as the cloud descended on us, and reduced our visibility hugely. We then continued on our traverse of the South Glencoe Munros, and dropped down to Bealach Dearg, before the steady pull up to Bidean nam Bian.

From the summit of Bidean, with almost zero visibility, we had to be pretty careful to find the ridge connecting it with Stob Coire nan Lochan. The skies cleared just as we reached the col. From the summit of Stob Coire nan Lochan, we descended the NW flank of the mountain, and observed a lot of debris from possible cornice collapse above the east facing slopes and around South Buttress. Broad Gully also seemed to be loaded with windslab, and well worth avoiding for the time being.

I was out with Ricci, who has his sight set on Mount Everest later this year. He was keen to get some mileage in the mountains under his belt, so we went up Golden Oldie, and then from the summit of Aonach Mor, made our way over to the summit of Aonach Beag before returning back to the gondola station. Needless to say that Golden Oldie was in great condition.

Not far behind, Steve was out with Chris and Shane. Again, they led the majority of the route, looking at various ways to move safely with the rope attached.

Caspar, Petko and Vladislav, who are preparing for Denali, had a day climbing Ruth and Ruth’s Rib, looking at a variety of belays.

It was a stunning day to be out and about in the Scottish Highlands, with plenty of sunshine and cool temperatures. It was the sort of day that we all wish for everyday throughout winter!

(Steve) Today was my final day with team Ireland: Bridget and Winnie. And so with slightly tired legs we made a steady stride up to Stob Coire nan Lochain to climb Dorsal Arete. The route is a romp on amazing neve at the moment and the crest providing entertainment as always. It felt much more like Scotland today; which I was glad of – (these alpine conditions making us soft!) with plenty of wind and snow being whipped into the air. We came down a snowy broad gully that had accumulated a significant amount of snow yet no slab had yet formed.

Han and Becky were also up at SNCL enjoying a day of personal climbing. They chose to climb Moonshadow. The ice on pitch 2 and 3 was in reasonable nick, not good enough for ice screws but nice and chewy for the axes. They said the route has interest on every pitch and was a fine route; worthy of it’s 2 stars.