It's been a very busy few weeks for us with different courses being delivered.It's been a testing winter so far with some pretty lean conditions overall. As I type though its cold and often clear sunny days in the mountains at the moment but snow is thin on the ground. For running our winter skills programmes the conditions have been on the whole good with firm hard snow and cold days.
Scottish winter has always been a tricky thing at a dinner function in Newtonmore marking the Eagles Ski Mountaineering Club’s centenary it was clear that no one was that surprised there was at best limited skiing. With experience ranging over the last fifty years in the room peoples memory suggested there was always good years and lean years and that this was another weekend of walking the ski’s. We did have a week scheduled in mid January which turned into a rock climbing course with even the highest mountain routes in Glencoe being dry and summer in condition and appearance. That is highly unusual as is the avalanche service suspending reports due to no snow. Currently the conditions are cold and there is snow on the ground but its a thin pack. Perhaps an indicator of our snowfall this winter is noted in a recent article in the Times online which mentioned that so far this season twenty five avalanches recorded compared to the normal at least a hundred in most seasons, last season one hundred and seventy seven where recorded.
We have had various skills courses coming through and a very busy few weeks enjoying some great wintry days. Jo also managed to combine cold weather sunshine and a day off to climb Fingers Ridge in the Northern Corries. Time has really been spent delivering courses and hasn’t allowed much time off for personal trips into the hills.
We had a very busy weekend with our university skills courses at the start of February with a large team out in the Cairngorms from Cardiff. Over on the West Jo was out with another large team from Edinburgh. A great weekend with plenty of skills learnt through the course of the weekend.
Jo had a good week with our skills and summits course mid January on the West Coast with Dave and Will who had come with a planned course of winter skills but with a mega thaw and things turning almost over night from winter to spring moved into rock climbing and mountaineering mode ticking off Curved Ridge, The Zig Zags and learning some roped climbing and mountaineering skills. Perhaps a good example that sometimes you may have something planned for the mountains but the mountains may give you another plan a great skill to have as a mountaineer is to be able to interpret that and adapt things to fit the conditions and get the best out of your mountain day.
After a week of summer mid January though things cooled down and have remained pretty cold since although not much in the way of fresh snow what there is though is firm and great to work on combined with the odd snow shower its made the hills feel good and wintery.
We had another of our summits and skills courses on Ben Nevis which went well. A day at the Glencoe Mountain Ski hill on day one with a skills circuit and then followed up with a day up and down the Ben in some pretty fierce winter conditions. Large amounts of snow moving about the mountain primarily into our path with some big drifts to get through.We have also been given plenty of sunshine. Our Summits and Skills Cairngorms got off to a damp start but finished on Creag Meagaidh with plenty of sunshine and good hard neve to travel on.
I also had a great overnight trip into the ‘back country’ of the Cairngorms with Dan traveling over from Cairngorm taking in a night at the Hutchy hut under Carn Etchachan and circling round over Ben Macdui to Cairngorm the following day.
Ed also joined us for a few days where we were able to get to grips with some mountaineering skills before he headed off to South America to put it all into practice. Whether your ambitions are to tick off more Scottish winter objectives or or the Alps and Greater Ranges then Scotland makes the perfect training ground for preparing to be able to travel in a snowy mountain envoiroment.
So although perhaps a lean winter its not meant lean on the courses nor has it meant we are not able to deliver good winter mountain training courses. The conditions look set to stay cold for the next while with a cold south easterly blowing, not much precipitation on the cards although perhaps some showers over the weekend. Perhaps the most astonishing thing this winter was that I saw the Cairngorm Mountain Funicular move. A possibility that the uplift for the ski area might be back.
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