busy busy

Work wise I have been doing some voluntary work through the Lodge. An afternoon going up Meall a Buchaille with a group from Who Cares Scotland. A group of young people and their carers were having a training weekend for their trip to Nepal later this year.

This weekend just gone, I was supervising a bronze D of E assessment expedition in the Glen Feshie area for a group from Kingussie High School.

Ardverikie Wall

Yesterday, Ardverikie Wall (Binnein Shuas). Little did Hannah and I know that we were planning to climb this classic on the exact day it was first climbed 42 years ago to the day and one of the guys who put the route up was climbing in front of us! Fantastic sustained climbing - which made a nice change from loose chossy stuff and heather - and outstanding scenery. The weather was also perfect, what more could you ask for. Unfortunately our timing was a bit out (I was 4 hours late for work, oops) and we ended up having to ab out after four and a half pitches. Even though we didn't finish the route we enjoyed some fantastic climbing and learned many lessons from our day. I also did my first multi-pitch abseil which was cool, although we were fairly tired by that point so really had to concentrate to manage it all safely. The walk in was quite long (hour and a half) so we'll probably take bikes next time.

No Blue Skies and Pot of Gold

Hannah Ian and I climbing in the northern corries on Tuesday

Biking near Insh

On Wednesday the girlies and myself went back to the Inshriach area. I was aiming to explore some of the singletrack, much of which isn't on the map. We headed off into the forest and I took a GPS so I could work out where I had been! From the summit of Creag Dubh (pictured) and there abouts, there are many single track descents. The most straight forward way to the summit is via the forest track, beware bushwacking on the summit!!

biking

On Monday Kes Wendy and I did a ride from Lynwilg towards Geal-charn, to Caggan and along the valley to Sluggsn bridge. The descent to Caggan is great and the ride along to Sluggan is also pleasant. This is one of the best rides I've done since I moved to scotland.

On Friday we got the rib over from Elgol to Scavaig to do a climb called Maday (!). At Severe it wasn't technically hard but gave some excellent climbing on a great gabbro crag. The second slab pitch was particularly high quality. The scenery and the hot weather made us forget we were in Scotland.

Cuillins day2/3

We started off the day by heading into Coire Lagan, up the Cioch slabs and the Cioch itself then scrambled across to East gulley with a bit of a caving manouvre (see picture!) . The day was fantastic, I love Skye more every time I go there, rock, rock and more rock. Richard gave me some help with short roping/ taking coils etc. and I led a couple of grade 3 scrambles including An Stac and then up the Inn Pinn. We also did Kings chimney. Fortunately for us we had another bone dry day but I can imagine Kings Chimney being a bit hairy in the wet. We dropped down about 100m to a small stream to bivvy for the night. On the second day we did everything else up to Bruch na Frithe. Just brilliant. One of my aims for the trip was to get to know the ridge better. I feel like I have scratched the surface. It's such a complex place.

Cuillins day 1

I just had an awesome week on Skye joining in with a scrambling course. On Tuesday Richard, Ben, Tom and myself did a scramble up Sgor nan Eighe then across to the Dubhs and the TD gap - more intimidating than i was expecting it to be despite it's bone dry state. We descended the Great Stone Shoot which wasn't actually that great a scree run as there were quite a few bigger rocks mixed in and an established 'path' . This was our rest day!

Wintry hill days

This week I had a couple of hill days with Milton Mountaineers, a visually impaired group of hill walkers. A really inspirational group of people. The snowfall this week and continued cold weather insured that we had a really wintry couple of days. The northern coirries are full of snow again and we were snowed on at the suummit of Lurchers crag.

Fingers Ridge

I'm on a UKCC L2 training this week and managed to convince a guy off my course to come climbing in the evening. All the snow was gone from the base of the routes and we climbed in T shirts the whole evening :)