Round up: My Scottish winter 2022
Suddenly it’s the end; winter started slowly, the usual January storms rolling in, in February instead of the dawn of the new year. March is always a sunshine tonic to the dark early days at the start. Often we get alpine conditions, walking in, in sunshine and heading up into cooler, snowier North facing corries and then returning to the warmth at the end of the day. A nice time to reflect then.
There was a small amount of anxiety as we had missed the winter season in 2021, would we remember how to do the job? This season hasn’t been a great one in all honesty for personal climbing or ski days for me but professionally it’s been brilliant. Lots of great work with great people in cool places and a huge success for Orange Mountaineering delivering 50+ instructor led days on the hill for a variety of clients.
Here then are some of the highlights from the days out I’ve had on the hill…
Winter Walking
I’ve always been a fan of walking in winter conditions; hill walking isn’t really a thing in winter as the simplest of terrain soon requires navigating hazards such as avalanche or firm neve requiring crampons for progress and safety. Every winter I do a huge amount of walking, most days involve over a1000 metres of ascent but this winter I didn’t do much mountain walking work. Twice I went up Bidean nam Bian which is a great mountain to ‘walk’ up, however the stand out day had to be crossing to Aonach Beag from Aonach Mor on my last day of the season.
Winter Mountaineering
It felt like in the early days of the season that we could only find winter on the highest tops of the Highlands which for us meant driving to Ben Nevis. It felt like I hadn’t spent much time in Glencoe however when I tallied it up I realised all the classic mountaineering journeys had been completed with clients; the Dragons tooth, Sron na Lairig, Curved ridge and of course the jewel, the mighty Aonach Eagach. This last one I was particular pleased with as it had been some years since I’d been across it. Luckily a strong team on the last day of a mountaineering course for Jagged Globe had it as one of their goals and with some good snow cover and a fantastic weather forecast, we enjoyed this classic piece of Scottish winter mountaineering at it’s best.
Winter Climbing
I have three highlights to the climbing I’ve done this season; firstly Tower ridge, secondly exploring more on Ben Nevis and lastly Red Gully on Sgurr na h Ulaidh in Glencoe. If there was a fourth it would definitely be the number of cold climbs I’ve guided.
Tower Ridge - this is one of the finest natural mountaineering lines in the British Isles, in winter maybe more so. This winter I climbed it 3 times; once with my partner Becky after first climbing a lean (and excellent Gardyloo gully) and then dropping down to complete the top half. The second two times I was guiding. Whilst never desperate this is a route that goes on and on so efficiency really is the name of the game. It’s varied, interesting and brilliant.
Random Ben Nevis - Ben Nevis is a huge massif boasting over 200 winter routes on it’s north face. Due to the unique (read lean) conditions early on, the routes that were trade routes were often climbs I had never really been aware of, a casing example being Garadh gully. This is usual a grade II snow slope but early season had significant ice pitches and climbed at grade III. Later in the season as the start became banked out, the indirect finish came into condition giving a top out at a stiff grade III. The obvious line which saw alot of traffic was Comb Gully buttress. This route apparently features on the front cover of Cold Climbs but I’d never taken much notice of it before. This was my last personal route of the season; in fact we climbed the icicle finish first and the abseiled back in for the original finish.
Red Gully - I’d never actually been up the munro of Sgurr na h Ulaidh before so early in January before we had significant snows, I had a mountain bike/run combo afternoon and traversed the peak on a warm and cloudy day. The gullies which finish on the summit are very obvious. Just a few weeks later on a wild week, my colleague Clive suggested that we go and look at Red Gully. It’s a long walk in and we wouldn’t really know whether it was in condition until we were stood at the base. However the team was up for an and an adventure indeed we had. Six pretty good pitches of climbing but solid grade IV not III due to the lean conditions and gear being a little less frequent than would be ideal!
Skiing
Sadly my skiing amounted to just 3 days (and one of those was a failed mission with no skiing due to the winds!) however once again we had a great day on Creag Megaidh which I’ve slowly been skiing the major lines on. This year it was a sunny afternoon on the Moy Burn with Rachael and Becky.
This season I've just worked for 3 organisations, thanks to Jagged Globe, Kirkhope Mountaineering and Hebridean Pursuits Outdoor Learning plus all their clients for good days out. Thanks to all the clients who’ve used Orange Mountaineering and especially to the friends who staffed courses for me, with special mention to Rachael who’s grafted hard!