Chamonix days with Hannah

It was a bit overcast at Le Tour first thing but brightened up later.

Hannah on the lift

Not bad for the first hours on skis for a while!

Winters back

Well we are so worried about climate change  as last week we had the mildest spell ever and the warmest February since records began. The snow came back last night and here are a few photos of Torridon today.

Creag Dhubh, Beinn Eighe

Slioch

Snow down from summit level to about 550 metres.

The winter snow is coming bcak soon

Michelle and Paul in the rather thawed our couloir, but the narrows below were well frozen and gave some good ice axe nad crampon front pointing practice!

Michelle in the far distance and Paul

Paul scrambling on Stac Polly

The North West highlands, nothing to beat it!!

Mountain guiding around the cairngorms

I have had two weeks of nice private guiding around the Cairngorms. The weather has been really fickle with sometimes good snow cover then amazing warming events which thawed away much of the snow. The lower graded gullies have remained complete and the snow pack surface has remained quite hard and first this in the morning ice axe placements have been reliable  enough to allow some good climbing,skills training,  and experience enhancing fun climbing. The advantage of the thaw is that its much easier to place running belays and anchors as the rocks are clear of snow and the cracks easy to see. The down side is that many of the rocks are unfrozen so the rock fall potential is very high and some cracks which are sometimes frozen solid in the cold and freezing winter conditions are much weaker now that the terrain is wet and unfrozen.

Peter and Luke

Peter topping out on the Seam

Franke in Spiral gully

Frankie on belay

Central gully with Frankie

Frankie  topping out after some mixed climbing.

Sunny in the background but much cooler where we were!

Andy Nisbet and Steve Perry

The Telegraph newspaper

From the Times Newspaper

 On the 6th February 2019 my best friends had a fall on Ben Hope and are no longer with us. It has been a sad time and my thoughts go out to family and friends. Many thanks to the rescue teams and RAF mountain rescue and Coast guard helicopter crews and support teams who were involved. Rest in peace guys, you will be sorely missed.

Andy and Steve on Ben Hope.

Lurchers crag, Cairngorm

Andy Nisbet

Andy and Steve in the distance

A nice light on the way home.

A few days in the Alps

Kicking around in Chamonix

Argentiere

The amazing plasticity of snow!

Mont Blanc looking good

Jennifer