Mountain Diary and Conditions

Welcome to the West Coast Mountain Guides diary and conditions page, which we will update regularly throughout the year.  During the winter, there will be plenty of up-to-date information and reports regarding the latest mixed and ice climbing and mountaineering conditions in the Scottish Highlands, and in particular, on Ben Nevis, Aonach Mor and in Glencoe.  We’ll also be posting accounts of our latest trips, both work and play. 

If you have any up-to-date conditions reports and photos that we can include in our blog, please drop us an email:
info@77.104.174.8


It’s cooling down – Scottish winter courses

It’s been a busy summer, both on the Isle of Skye and in the Alps and it’s been great to meet new and also catch up with familiar faces. The late Indian summer we’ve had has been very much appreciated and t-shirt climbing in October and November has been great! We are however also pleased to say it’s now cooling down, and with winter not far away, it’s a good time to start laying down plans for the upcoming winter season.

Our first Scottish winter courses this year start in mid December and we also have some running over the New Year period. This coming winter, we will be offering a greater range of courses than previously, with the inclusion of a Winter Skills & Summits course, aimed at hill walkers looking to take their first winter steps in the Scottish mountains and who wish to tackle snow covered Munros.

Should you wish to tackle something steeper, such as a snow filled gully, iced up buttress or classic icefall, then our range of Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Courses may be just what you’re after!  We’re lucky to be surrounded by some of the finest winter venues, from Ben Nevis to Aonach Mor on our doorstep, to the impressive peaks and crags of Glencoe just to the south.

We will, of course, be running our flagship CIC Hut Weeks too.  The week is spent in the UK’s only alpine hut, at the foot of the North Face of Ben Nevis, which means minimal walk-ins, maximum climbing time!

Don’t forget, we also take Private Guiding bookings too so if you can’t quite find what you’re after when it comes to climbing, winter skills, or walking make sure you get in touch whether your an individual or a group so we can talk through what you’d like to achieve and we’ll come up with a tailor made itinerary for you.

The West Coast Mountain Guides blog will also be kept up-to-date throughout the winter season and please feel free to email us with your own conditions updates and pictures that we can then include on our blog

Oh, and if you haven’t yet, don’t forget to ‘like’ us on facebook and we look forward to seeing you soon!

Climbing in the Valle d’Aosta, Italy

For the second half of my trip to the Alps, Tom and I found ourselves on the other side of the Mont Blanc Tunnel, in the stunning sun trap that is the Valle d’Aosta.  Whilst it is a beautiful valley, it wasn’t quite our intended plan from the outset… Having met up with Tom, who […]

Eugster Couloir Direct, Aiguille du Midi, Chamonix

There can’t be many better ways to prepare for the forthcoming winter climbing season in Scotland than climbing the Eugster Couloir Direct on the 1000m north face of the Aiguille du Midi, so that’s what Alex and I set out to do last week, but our first attempt was far from successful.

With a reasonable forecast, Alex and I spent the night at the Aigulle du Plan, ‘enjoying’ a cold bivi, but with plenty of fresh snow lying on the ground, thought it would be best to scope out our approach that evening, for the following morning, so having stumbled our way through powder covered boulders to a point where we could see the obvious, or so we thought, snow cone beneath the Eugster Couloir and it’s direct variant, we got our heads down for a few hours of sleep. At 2:30am, we ‘woke up’ and retraced our tracks to what we thought was the snow cone we were after. Wrong! A few hundred meters of wading up a snow slope and two tricky pitches later, we realised that in the darkness we had in fact headed uphill too soon, and that our intended route was round the next spur of rock, and without a guidebook to help identify a suitable way up, we bailed, although not without interest, as we had opted to take a single 60m rope, halving our abseil potential to 30m at a time. Fortunately, three short abseils found us on easier snow slopes which we could descend with ease. Unfortunately, our efforts had already taken a fair few hours, meaning the only option was to head back down to Chamonix.

Three days later, we found ourselves, with 2x60m half ropes this time, back at the Aiguille du Plan, and biviing once again, but happy with where we should have gone, we chose not to check our approach again. Also, by this point, we had been back and forth along the approach a number of times, and had put in a fairly obvious track, not to mention we were quite tired of it. Alex made the call to start even earlier, so at 1:30am, we got ourselves ready, and trudged off. This time, we found our ‘obvious’ snow cone, and made our way up steep snow slopes to the base of a tricky and not overly inspiring steep step, featuring thin, un attached ice and no gear. I took the lead, and was quite grateful to reach the gully above, which continued with ceaselessness, but on easy ground.

After what felt like hours, we finally reached the bottom of the steeper pitches of the direct variant, the first of which was a steady grade 4 ice pitch. Alex then jumped onto the sharp end, and manged to string one and a half pitches together before a shorter, bold pitch, brought me to beneath a huge jammed block. The final exit from the narrow gully was what seemed to be a rather thin and steep mixed corner, which surprisingly Alex managed to squeeze into a long pitch from the jammed boulder. It was thin and steep, but well protected, and had just enough ice for axe placements. This brought us out onto snow slopes directly beneath the Aiguille du Midi lift station, which looked tantalisingly close… 2 hours of calf burning, variable steep snow later, we finally, with much relief, dropped into the entrance tunnel of the Aiguille du Midi lift station, in time for the final bin down of the day. Eugster Couloir Direct is given an alpine grade of IV,5 and probably equivalent to solid Scottish grade V (although the crux was probably closer to grade VI/VII), with plenty of grade II ground before and after the main pitches. It covers a total of 1500m from the Aiguille du Plan to the Aigulle du Midi, which is/was calf explodingly long.

Rest day today!

Sun setting at our bivi at the Aiguille du Plan  Looking up at the North Face of the Aiguille du Midi

Pitch 2 of the Eugster Couloir Direct Endless snow slopes up tot he Aiguille du Midi lift

The final move into the tunnel, Aiguille du Midi

Ken & Hannah to head up Scottish Courses

With an ever expanding Alpine climbing and ski touring season, and with Scottish winter and Skye mountaineering courses continuing to be busy, we have brought in Ken Applegate and Hannah Evans, who are based in Fort William, to head up our Scottish mountaineering and climbing courses.

Over the past couple of years, since taking over West Coast Mountain Guides, we have been developing both our Alpine ski touring and cascade climbing courses, along with running our flagship Scottish winter and Skye mountaineering courses, all of which has led to an increase in administration and additional pressures on logistics, to the point that we feel our level of service is beginning to feel the strain.  It therefore makes sense to bring in Ken and Hannah to spread out the work load, and ultimately offer quicker turn around times to enquiries and deliver smoother courses, right from initial contact and booking,  through to enjoying yourselves in the mountains.

Ken, who holds the Mountaineering Instructor Certificate and International Mountain Leader, and Hannah, who holds the Winter Mountain Leader and International Mountain Leader, have been based in Fort William for the past 8 years, and have worked and climbed extensively on Ben Nevis, in Glencoe and throughout the Scottish Highlands.  In between seasons, they seek adventures ski touring, rock and alpine climbing, and recently successfully summited Ama Dablam (6956m), as an independent team,  in the Nepalese Himalaya.  They are both part of Lowe Alpine’s Outdoor Team, and regularly test clothing and equipment for Lowe Alpine and Rab and will bring a wealth of experience into West Coast Mountain Guides and have a constant presence in Fort William.

Contact:

ken@westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk
hannah@westcoast-mountainguides.co.uk

Phone number: +44 (0)7799 863068

Vicky and I will continue to process all Alpine enquiries, both summer and winter.

Bruce.

 

Minus Three Gully, Ben Nevis

There is deep snow all over Ben Nevis at the moment, down to low levels. The team in the CIC Hut were all alone on the mountain today and climbed the brilliant Minus Three Gully on the side of North East Buttress.  They encountered high quality climbing on each pitch.  Rather than battle up the buttress, they chose to abseil back down the route. Tomorrow looks fine and clear, so they’ll look at climbing a route that tops out on the summit of Ben Nevis.

Scottish Snow Conditions

Here are the latest Scottish Snow Conditions:

West Coast

Ben Nevis

Skiing Nevis Range
Great cover on the mountain with extensive cover on the upper slopes. At all levels and back to the top station there is a mix of firm packed snow with soft snow on a packed base where the groomer has been along with pockets of soft sleety snow on the summit and upper Goose. Mix of soft wet snow on the Quad Chair runs and firm packed. On the very lower runs Linnhe run is broken but the rope tow is fine.

Warrens lift will open as demand increases with the run currently accessible for the summit.

BACK CORRIES: Assessed daily but Tuesday the snow was soft and exits good with some soft cornices and localised instabilities.

FUNPARK: Small Terrain Park with 3 features at the end of Rabbit run.

Climbing
Fantastic conditions for winter climbing and mountaineering…

Glencoe

Skiing
Wide and deep cover of snow offering excellent skiing on the whole of the mountain.

Climbing
Fantastic conditions for winter climbing and mountaineering…