A day off today, well that was the theory but in practise the weather was ace so with my friend Andy we went along to Anoch Beag, using the chair lift and Quad chair at Nevis Range and climbed a couple of unclimbed lines. It was almost perfect weather with quite strong and cold winds, but in the sunshine it felt really good.
Above : Ben Nevis on the skyline in fantastic winter conditions!
Climbing down to our climbs!
Above: Kathy probing the snow pack!
Ice on the windscreen of our cars this morning in Newtonmore and climbing conditions in the Cairngorms are amazingly fine. Here are Max and Ross on Fiacaill Couloir which had lots of ice to climb and is generally in excellent condition. The recent melt freeze has striped some of the steeper buttress routes and this has made it easier to place runners. There remains tons of snow, and skiing on Cairngorm Mountain looks fantastic.
We walked in and went to the foot of our intended climb, but gusts were really strong and there was ice falling from any exposed rock above. The day was great for navigation practice!
Here is Maxine and Ross climbing their first winter climb. This is Spiral Gully an good grade 2 **, a long and fairly interesting climb on Fluted Buttress, Corie an t- Sneachda, Cairngorms.
The day started out very wet and windy on Cairngorm, at one point it snowed for a while. The wind changed direction and sunshine came in for the afternoon and all in all it was not such a bad day. Cairngorm Mountain had to close due to the high winds so we took the opportunity to work in the relative shelter of the Ciste Gully and covered lots of use full skills. Bucket Stances, Stompers and Klemheist's are terms you will come to know if you climb on snow and ice. 
(Above) Max gives a demonstration of a Stomper or Standing-Axe belay.
Ross ascending fixed rope with Kleimheist friction knots.
(Above) Jonathan with introductory ski-mountaineers on Cairngorm.
Sunday, new week, new people and our interesting life continues. This week at Team Ascent we have introductory ski touring and an introductory winter climbing course. The snow was well frozen this morning although it became quite soft by the end of the day. Climbs are getting done and ski touring conditions are excellent with continued outstandingly amazing snow cover. On Cairngorm Mountain the snow cover is amazing and there are no crows to contend with from Monday to Friday- it's superb.
Maxine and Ross on the summit of Cairngorm.
The Diploma in Mountain Medicine week came to a close today ( Saturday) evening. I was guiding on climbs at Anoach Mor, Nevis range... It was an nice day with very few people around although climbing conditions were OK and well frozen in the morning. Later the ice became a bit softer with the occasional dubious placement, but generally pretty good. The skiing also looked superb!
As part of the Diploma of Mountain Medicine we were involved in setting up some avalanche (search and rescue) scenarios, with bodies buried in avalanche debris. The location was near Tyndrum where earlier this year avalanches extended well beyond the recreation zone and damaged the "Network Rail" link between Glasgow and Fort William and caused some serious delays to commuters. We are fortunate that there are Doctors willing to put themselves through this type of additional training in some fairly unpleasant weather so that they can deal expertly with mountain trauma.
A nice day in the Cairngorms today, on Red Gully and Fingers Ridge.. the weather was sunny, windy and warmish with lots of rime ice falling down the gullies, so really it was not that pleasant climbing in the gullies but ridges were ace although wind exposed! Conditions are good with lots of plastic fantastic ice! A friend told me that the forecast is for colder temperature to return by the end of the week, so it will be amazing climbing by the weekend!
The Met office forecast was accurate again today with freezing level coming down quite low giving us reasonably frozen conditions on the snow. Here we are abseiling over some large cornices down into a gully.
Climbing out again: simulating making ones way out from a crevasse.
Abseiling off a T-Axe snow anchor.
Wet snow avalanches were seen in the Corie today while guiding nad coaching doctors who are taking part in the Diploma of Mountain Medicine (DMM)
The weather was pretty wild this morning with high winds and freezing levels above the west coast summits, but later it cleared to give a brilliant day.
Above, R to L. James, Karen, Mike and Rob on the summit. Karen's first visit to Scotland and her first Munro!
An interesting day today with slightly warmer temperatures and a wind which gusted to 60 mph on Cairngorm summit. It was full Scottish winter climbing conditions and these photos are of Jon climbing on Invernookie which is a classic two star grade III,4 . Invernookie was first climbed in winter by Kenny Spence and John Porteous on the 4th January 1969. It's on the Fiacaill buttress of Coire an t-Snechda.
It's been a great day today over in the Glenshee area and visibility stayed good for most of the day.
The Aiguilles of Chamonix.
H. at rest!
Here we are with amazing views of Mont Blanc and the Chamonix valley! Yep, been away skiing for a few days, wow, so lucky!
Stu and I went to climb Short Circuit IV,5 today but a couple of pitches up Stu's crampon broke so we had a nice escape exercise with some good abseiling and all... Experience enhancing.
Climbed Tunnel Vision today over on the West, the skiing at Nevis range looks superb! The initial descent down Easy Gully was OK but not ideal and the SAIS report forecasting localised considerable seemed to be bang on. The traverse around the bottom required care as there is some deep and seemingly bottomless snow around.The climb itself was in good condition although there were occasional falls of snow from above once the sun began to shine. An ace day.
Here is Stu climbing Fiacaill Couloir , a 150 m grade 11/111. This was first climbed by Tom Patey in January 1958. Today avalanche condition's were considerable but on easterly aspects climbing is good enough although the gullies are full of snow and grades are easy. A great day out.
