Archive for March, 2015

Sugar & Spice & all things nice. March 2015

31/03/15

March has been a hectic period as admin for the summer starts to dominate; very hard after such a fun winter. The wild conditions have continued pretty much identically to the past 3 months with plenty of good climbing conditions formed by bonkers winds, loads of snow, the odd thaw and repeat….. There’s snow settling at sea-level tonight and that’s not an April fool. Still basking in the glory of the In Pinn spoof in 2013; had folk who believed it well over a year later-

In fact I’ve bottled out of trying to catch you out this year so relax & enjoy a few pics from the past month or so.

Storr, 1st March. Driving there was scary enough! These guys had the harshest 3 days of the winter but still got out each day.

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Sheltering under the Old Man of Storr

P1050672Sunshine; yey!

Neist. Friday 13th, not unlucky at all. First day of hot rock with Iain and Ally

Green Lady DirectIain on Green Lady

 

Spring tide funSpring Tide excitement

 

Man of StrawMan of Straw, VS 4c

Bruton party, 14th. A great day with miles of perfect snow to practice crampon & axe work.

P1050892Broad Gully, grade I, seen on descent

 

P1060647Tooth taken by Lucy that day

 

P1050869Perfect snow all day; here heading to Bruach na Frithe

 

 

Bla Bheinn with Lucy, Sunday 15th. Another immaculate day

Glory day

Alpine conditions on approach.

 

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Not a cloud to ruin the view.

 

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Can’t beat that view out to Rum

 

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Serious graft for the Skye MRT taking the radio relay down for fixing, all 200kg of it!

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Lucy on the crux of South Buttress Gully, III.

 

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South Buttress Gully- A mix of sugary snow, plenty of spice & god it was nice!

 

Eilidh & Matt. A magical day with the mists burning off and rock drying front of our eyes on Sgurr an Fheadian, 21st

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The Spur of Sgurr an Fheadain

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Smiles of delight?

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Nah, pure relief eh Eilidh!

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Action Man

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And that’s why she’s allowed to be happy!

IMG_0610Magical mists

Orion Face Direct, Wednesday 25th. Winter looked to be washed out very soon so Icky & I made a dash for the last route of the season. Spoilt for choice we chose Orion which I’d been on but never done in it entirity. Definitely didn’t disappoint and the legs really knew about it. Luckily the descent on a cushion of powder right to the door of the hut was as good as it gets; “If Carling made descents”.

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Icky heading towards the exit chimneys that gave a superb steep finish to the 8 pitch day.

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Position

 

 

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Mega Ice

 

P1000427Dodgy belay on the exit slopes.

31st March. Video work on Human Geography with Phillip from Canada was quite some challenge in the mega-gusts we had but the stinging showers mostly left us alone until the very end of the day. I’m not sure quite how it works but the project is based on Munro Bagging and he’s off to interview Chris Townsend next. Looking forward to seeing the results.

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The Eastern Black Cuillin looking wintery. We went to the right hand of the 2 obvious cols

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Clac Glas from the shelter of a welcome overhang.

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Definitely winter.

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Main Cuillin Ridge laid out in front of us

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Clac Glas, the Matterhorn of Skye and a fiercesome barrier to reaching Bla Bheinn

Val di Lagan winter sports resort

09/03/15

With temperatures forecast to soar into double figures the following day it seemed that everyone wanted to get out on Wednesday. We were worried winter would come to an abrupt end but it hasn’t; we’ve more fresh snow down to 500m today, Sunday, with plenty of old snow on easterly aspects in particular.

Plastered

Laden with snowboards, skis and climbing kit our team made “steady” progress but nobody minded with the warm spring sunshine on the face.Spluttering start

Snow conditions were a wee bit “lively” but we eventually made it to the cave half-way up the Great Stone Shoot. It was a lovely day for a walk but we were a bit shocked to have a couple of French tourists in jeans & trainers join us! We assured them it wasn’t the voie normal so they gaily scooted off down again without a care in the world.Stone Shoot stomp

Angus opted for an extended rest so we had to miss his boarding but you can look it up on facebook.Here he comes

Snow cover was very limited and it really doesn’t show the steepness but, wow, what an arena to play in!

All Action team

Short on time we opted for Diedre Blanc again with Beads & Icky enjoying the lead.Pitch1

In December I suggested it may be IV,4 but with a thick coat of ice blocking both placements and protection the top pitch definitely felt worthy of its original grade V. Placements may have been blocked but the snow and ice was in superb condition which made the climbing feel a lot closer to traditional winter than modern mixed.Diedre Blanc

A long abseil took us back to the sacks (well nearly:-) Icky’s just below the skyline here-abseil2

before a traditional bumslide descent for me. Icky grabbed his skis from the cave and made an olympic standard descent with axes jangling like swiss cow bells.Survived

Things were warming up all day and, as well as some friendly red deer, we even spotted the first lamb of the season.First lamb 4 march