Chamonix snow with some Aosta rock!

It's interesting times and high up around Chamonix the snow and ice conditions have been superb both for ski touring and climbing. Misty days come in and a short drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel provides easy access to some superb rock climbing.

Chamonix days

Been travelling so much over the past days, and enjoying ski- mountaineering and rock climbing.

Cairngorm Climbing

It's getting close to the end of our Scottish winter climbing in the Cairngorms, but here is Kevin enjoying a grade 11 climb. The weather was overcast all day!

Canadian Ski Touring

Well here is Alan and all skiing in Rogers Pass yesterday! Please note that next years we are running ski tours to Canada and Rogers Pass. The information is being uploaded to our TEAM ASCENT WEB SITE now.

www.teamascent.co.uk

COURSES

SKIING

Nice Easter day in the Cairngorms

A warm and spring like day in the Cairngorm with adequate snow cover high up.The gullies are still full and give nice climbing, the technical buttresses are a bit bare but gets one in the mood for technical routes around the world........ We are dreaming and getting back into the reality of going rock climbing, traveling and enjoying the adventures of expeditions to 8000 meter peaks. The lower two photos are taken in the Cairngorms. The upper one is an older photo from days on Nanga Parabt in Pakistan.The red line shows the Kingshoffer route, which Sandy is guiding in June and July. It's an amazing life ! Some of you may have heard the "Out of Doors" programme on BBC radio Scotland yesterday, you can still catch it on their I player web site. ( BBC Radio Scotland) where Sandy guided Mark and Helen up "the Runnel" and had an ace day! Also on the same programme, Greg Strange talks about the history of winter climbing in the Cairngorms and Cubby (Cuthbertson) and Dave (Macleod) chat casually about great routes and where Scottish climbing may well be heading... we are all so lucky!

Climbing is pretty good

The recent cold spell has brought some blustery weather and one had to get the navigation tools out again today. But later in the day it cleared up and if you click on the pictures here, they enlarge and then its clearer to see how wintry conditions still are.
Also for those with fading eye sight, one should go to the BMC web site ( Google it, or there is a link on http://www.teamascent.co.uk/!) and you will see that from this very reliable cyber shop you can now purchase the new expedition 4 compass from Silva. This model is scaled to suit Harveys maps!!! It really useful, but do remember that the contour lines are 15 meters apart rather than ten meters on OS maps. The five meters of extra ascent or descent that perhaps "is there" or is perhaps " not there" on a summit can cause confuse in a " white- out" so its worth double checking yourself and getting used this hassle! But given that there are so many pieces of debris crashing into satellites which are currently spinning around our our rapidly warming globe. Perhaps it's prudent not to be 100% dependant on ones GPS, even although they are fantastic bits of kit!

Nice weather in the Cairngorms

As you can see the gullies are well full. This photo also shows an interesting sky which indicates weather approaching! Thanks for the photo Kathy!