Rock slope failure and a pig !

16/10/11

Clear forecast, early start, handsome ewes. A fast game of "follow my leader " with me trying to upset Craig’s timings, pacing's and general mind set. Security on steep ground, abseiling, rope anchors, lowers, knots, soup, sarnie, random warm based glacier chat ! Deer baths, another lost compass and a nosey pig.

MLA, bring it on ...

Winter boots are on it must be summer ML

12/10/11

Craig's last night nav tonight before his assessment. It was dark and the CLAG was in, so with 0 visibility we headed up the hill. The bracken made for some hard going at times, but we fought our way uphill and contoured round finding various indistinct and invisible features. Timing and pacing bang on and more hand railing had us on the summit for soup at 10.30pm.

Craig was surprised that his gloves, compass and map blew off the car roof on the trip back to Glasgow.

Apology...

9/10/11

I apologise for the alpines, the rock types, the last ice age, the how old?, the “did you know” and the random weather chat I gave on the lead up to sitting my ML last year... I am now getting it back in spades...


Good day on Glen Kinglas in really poor visibility with double soup and rope tricks.

 

Cold, wet and windy

Mr Frog sneaking a look at Craig's pacing chart

Lunch (tomato soup) in a cave ...

Bowline

M.O.D

10/10/11

Another wild night and we nearly sack it before we left the car.3 hrs later as we arrived back the sky was clear and the stars were out; crazy weather we have on the West coast. We were greeted by a friendly MOD Police officer as we marched back to the car. Fortunately he kept his "dugs" in his pick-up.

Boil in a bag...

2/10/11 

(No not Susan or uncle Ben’s) this is how I felt as we headed up the hill in full winter kit ... As the South basked in 29º, we in the North had heavy rain as a warm occluded front hovered above Scotland for 48hrs. Still, mustn't grumble, as this gave Craig more opportunity to navigate around the base and handrail his way to the summit of Ben Donich. This is a great Corbett with lots of fantastic fissures and interesting rock features. The tomato soup was, as ever, magic, as we sat in the mist looking at a lone sheep, “keeping the edgy” ...

 

Redemption ...

29/9/11

We headed up the hill in the dark with the CLAG at 100m and temperature reading 19º. Craig was keen to put some demons to rest after Saturday's minor errors. He did very well not being phased by features crossed but not on the 1:50 map. Visibility (because of the CLAG) was about 10m so it really was extreme, but he was spot on. We found a nice sheltered area for the now obligatory tomato soup and oddball combo sarnie before heading back into the darkness and mist for some more of the same. My head torch began to fail so by 11.30 it was time to head for home.

I was sporting my new Arc'Teryx Venta Hoodie soft shell bought from www.moosejaw.com in the States (not available in the UK), delivered to ‘the wee man’ for him to ship across the pond. This jacket has been halfway round the world already !

We are now on countdown to assessment...