A wild one!

There's nothing like an impending assessment to get one out when everyone else is tucked up at home!

I headed up into Brown Cove Crags today, the plan being to solo some gullies and see where the day took me.  50mph winds and a blizzard, with pretty much no visibility, put pay to that!

Brown Cove Crags in a blizzard

There is ice and old neve in the gullies, but it's lean and the guidebook grades probably don't apply.

There were a couple of keen beans heading up Central Gully which was in very lean conditions.

So i headed into the craziness and spent a good few hours navigating by compass, timing and pacing alone, coupled to that winds of 70mph, made it was a brilliant day!

The snow was being shifted around at a fair old rate, and any banks quickly had drifts behind them.  (Not in front of them as I always thought!)  Finding a reasonably deep one, I set to and dug myself a quick, little snowhole to get out of the elements.  I ended up getting my body out, but not my legs, I am 6ft 2".

Improvised shelter 'Lake Distict Stylee'

 ie: i reached grass before i could dig a good shelter!

Fisherplace Gill on the way down

It has been cold...these are rimed up blades of grass!!

And a rimed up tree.

Once again the Lakes has shown me that with enough motivation to get out, the worst days can be the best.

Scottish Munro Bagging

 

The winter season continues and we are cracking on with what must be the sure sign of old age and senility in outdoor folk…we are ticking Munro’s! 

Ben Lawers

For those of you not aware of this Scottish phenomenon; it essential involves visiting all of the Scottish Peaks that stand alone and are above 300ft/914m. 

There are 283 munros listed at present, but because of the complex listing criteria this does change. It’s all to do with peaks having a prominence of more than 500 feet (152 m) from their neighbour. And as maps get more and more accurate, some Munros have gone and new ones have appeared.

Stob Coire Nan Lochain - amazing but not a Munro! It’s neighbour Bidean nam Bien is higher and too close…poor Stob :0(

Crazily some people have done a ‘continuous round’ ie: all of them in one go, non stop!  Some have even used a bike or kayak between munro’s, so no motor transport! Mental! The first person to complete a winter round (all the Munros in one winter season) was Martin Moran in 1984/85. His journey lasted between December 21, 1984 and March 13, 1985 (83 days), he walked 1,028 miles (1,654 km) with 412,000 ft (126,000 m) of ascent. He used motor transport, a campervan, to link his walk.

So we have joined the ranks of the mental!  The plan is to do them mostly in winter by foot for the steep more mountaineering ones, and ski touring (conditions allowing) for the moorland ones.

And with days like this one on Friday in Glen Coe…I can think of worse things to be doing!

 

Happy Adventures!

 

Mark and Ali

Weather in the Lakes

 

Well the wind did huff and puff and blow loads of stuff down last night.  Our power went out, so a night was spent on the sofa bed in front of the wood burning stove (any excuse really!)

And now it has cleared up and looks like this!

Hmmm!?  I wish!

There is still bits of snow about, but the forecast is getting warm and really it’s all going in the Lakes.

 

Glenshee and most of Scotland has had a lot more and there’s even pisted sking to be had.

 

We’re back up to Scotland soon and will keep you abreast of what’s to be had.

Winter is here!

We've just gotten back from 3 fantastic days in the Cairngorms Winter Mountaineering and Ski Touring.

It had been a bit of an 'over keen, there might be snow' type trip, but as it turned out the heavens opened, the temperature fell and we had a great time.

Day 1

We headed into Gen Feshie, south of Aviemore, and went up Carn Ban Mor 1052. It was a cold and very windy day, with googles on for the duration, winds gusting 60mph and at the top hardly any visibility...great stuff!

We then headed north and up onto Sgor Gaoith 1118 and on again to Sgoran Dubh Mor 1111. The thing with a lot od Scottish Hills is they are such a long way from the car, so once you are near them, it's daft not to get as many in as you can. The problem is, you end up doing a 22km day!

The hill was in got winter nick from 500m upwards, not much deep snow, but some neve and lots of ice and frozen ground.

Day 2

Day 2 was a solo day for me, Ali was having some retail therapy and a rest. These can sometimes be tough, finding the energy to do a big day on your own, but with pretty challenging conditions, I found plenty of motivation pitting my skills against some typically Scottish winds and blizzards.

I started at the bottom ski carpark near Glen More and headed into Coire na Ciste, thinking I'd get shelter from the westerly's. I got shelter, but also deep snow and deeper heather! Several hours of battling got me up onto Cnap Coire na Spreidhe 1151 and into a white out with 50mph winds and about -10'c with wind chill, brilliant!

Then , with some proper navigation needed, I headed up to the top of the mighty Cairngorm 1245, and as the clouds lifted was treated to some amazing views.

The weather station popped into life at one point, raising its electronic wizardary above it's shelter to measure the crazy weather (it read 54mph and -6'c without wind chill, the link to the website is http://cairngormweather.eps.hw.ac.uk/archive.htm)

Day 3

With Ali recovered and a little more snow fallen, we thought we'd risk a little ski touring foray around the back of Cairngorm to a hill called Bynack More 1090. We managed just about to ski from Glenmore Lodge up to the Ryvoan Bothy and up onto the flat plateau below the final 1km onto the top. To say we were slightly battered by this point would be an understatement and having just done 10km to get here and only having 2hrs of daylight left we made the tough, but sensible decision to turntail and ski back. I'd thought we were going to have all sorts of problems sking back down the hill with it's modest amounts of snow and copious amounts of heather...but no bother. You couldn't turn, but hey, who needs to turn!

Then to cap it all, we get home and the Lakes is white! So i'm off out to have more adventures i the Lakes!