Round up: Winter 2020

Winter time means some of the toughest yet most rewarding work of the year. Scottish winter is a harsh environment to manoeuvre through; challenging navigation and route finding, high risk with avalanche potential to avoid, PHYSICALLY DEMANDING, weather that is so cold, so wet and so windy we sometimes can’t stand up. So why do we do it? It uses our skills to the max, we are providing safe, demanding days out to our clients and employers, AND quite frankly it’s like nothing else and we love it!

Winter 2020 was an interesting year for a number of reasons. Firstly the season was a slow starter. November put down significant snowfall but it all disappeared in December and didn’t really come back until the last weeks of January. January was when the winds started and they never really gave up until the bitter end! Second when winter did turn up it came with daily precipitation, and gale force or storm force winds and therefore considerable avalanche risk. Third I had deliberately left weekends free to climb and ski for myself but the weather was always worse at the weekends. Fourth the premature end to the season due to the global pandemic!

Despite all this we got some ace stuff done, and as here’s some of favourite bits…

PLAY

Deepcut Chimney, Hells Lum, Cairngorms

The first day of the season always feels a bit fumbly as we get used to climbing again with gloves and axes! Mega therefore to kick the season off with my highly hilarious and competent friend Tom who is training to become a British Mountain Guide. This climb has been on my radar for years so when Tom suggested it I was very keen. A quick walk into Coire An T Sneachda took us up the goat track and over the plateau to the crag. Here we beat a few other teams to the base and had a relatively fast ascent up and time to do a route on the way back through Sneachda too.

Skiing Creag Meagaidh

Opportunities to go skiing this year have unfortunately been few and far between as storm after storm has rolled in. Skiing is never fun in high winds and whiteout! With the season finally mellowing out I suggested we go and check out the west side of Creag Meagaidh which had excellent snow cover but was at the time, the safest aspects for travel and a interesting route option. I’m (very) slowly ticking off some of the the big Munro journeys on skis and this again was on my hit list as the massive plateau holds snow really well. The ski up was steady and so was the down if a little heavy.

Minus Two into North East Buttress, Ben Nevis

The one place I have been consistently jealous of folk climbing on this year has been the Minus face on Ben Nevis. This relatively low lying face rarely forms well but the combination of the storms making travel up high on the Ben almost impossible due to avalanche risk and the plastering of this face in snow and ice has led to it being very popular. When Becky suggested we had one good small window of opportunity there really weren’t many options I was more keen for. We did this sit start (from sea level) up and down in under 9 hours which I was really pleased with as a competent fit pair.

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WORK

Norway ice climbing

This (becoming annual) week of work for Peak Mountaineering was fairly challenging as a warm spell in January had delayed formation of ice. Thankfully the week we were out was cold and snowy albeit the choice of venues were limited, the ice where formed was of good quality.

End of a great week in Rjukan to have my clients becoming independent and leading themselves up routes.

Mountaineering weeks for Jagged Globe

Jagged Globe has a hugely popular scottish winter mountaineering and climbing programme and it is always a real privilege to spend time both in the staff room with highly experienced colleagues and out on the hill with motivated and keen to learn clients. This winter all the weeks I worked, folk were keen for development rather than pure guiding and we ended up using the full breadth of our experience to find safe venues as we faced continuously strong winds, daily precipitation which resulted in considerable avalanche risk. This meant a really varied few weeks of rewarding work

Northwest Mountaineering For the military

I spend a good few weeks every year working with military across the UK. Some of the best days out I’ve had are facilitating experiences for military instructors to expand their own experiences prior to undertaking more challenging qualifications. Time in the far North West of Scotland presents by far some of the best wilderness mountaineering in the world so it’s always a pleasure to explore up there. If you fancy some inspiration Garry Smith’s excellent guidebook ‘Scotland’s Winter Mountain with one axe’ is available here.