Winters back ...

Sunday 4th December

With the forecast for snow Craig and I headed to the Coe. We found deep snow, in fact the A82 was tricky. With the thick blanket of snow and short daylight hours we headed up to Curved Ridge, this is a favourite route and is great early season (to get your eye in) as its mixed and does not rely on anything frozen. It didn’t disappoint. We pitched the first and open book corner , the tricky move before , and moved together on the rest. One word, fantastic! 

We waded through knee and sometimes thigh deep snow to the summit to be met by very high winds and icy spindrift. Snow was being deposited all over the place and it felt  like a full on winter day. Rope off we headed to Coire na Tulaich. This is a very avalanche prone spot and had deep accumulations so we carefully managed ourway down.  

Back at the car it was getting dark and the A82 didn’t show much improvement. More on Craig’s blog here http://outactive.blogspot.com/

Pass ...

Well done to Craig, all the hard work paid off and he passed his ML summer award. More here on Craig's blog here http://outactive.blogspot.com/ <http://outactive.blogspot.com/>

On assessment doing what he has been doing all summer, pacing, timing and contour interpretation.     

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...

Button hole...

24 September 2011

In an effort to find Craig more challenging navigation ground we headed up Stob nan Coinnich above Ardlui. This is really good ground apart from the bracken slopes lower down. Lots and lots of contour interpretation using 1:50 maps which proved challenging even with 100% visibility. After Lunch (tomato btw) we did some rigging of simple lowers and abseils using a variety of rock features as anchors. The key focus here is keep it simple and be slick and err, “keep it simple”. Craig did well despite the odd "blonde" and senior moment.

Looking forward to more tomato soup on Thursday PM 

If it's tomato soup...

20 September 2011

...it must be Tuesday and more night navigation with Craig this time on the hills down Glen Luss. Looking forward to Saturday and who knows what flavour of soup.

Addicts...

13/9/11

Despite the severe weather warnings on the back of hurricane Katia Craig and I headed onto the hill for some more mid-week night navigation. Heavy rain and CLAG made for zero visibility and great training conditions. Craig had 100% success for the set navigation points I asked him to find.

Great jet-boiled tomato soup, sarnie and crisps courtesy of Craig as we sheltered behind a rock in the pitch dark.

A good humoured Northern Constabulary, who were on patrol, were there to greet us as we got back to the car (they spotted our head torches).

Black Magic

8th September 2011

More midweek night navigation with Craig. Hand railing is key backed up with timing and pacing ... its addictive.

Interesting rock (mica schist) fracture

Craig counting contours ...

No map, no compass, no head torch, no wonder he's lost.

Pea Souper...

Heavy rain and CLAG did not prevent us from plodding up Beinn Ime. The Streams were all in spate so we contoured round the hill and hand-railed our way to the summit using various features. Craig would have enjoyed but he was busy looking after some bikers !

Nav Nav Nav...

27 August 20011 

The uber poisonous Devils Matchstick 

 

On the hill with Craig ... timing, pacing, abseil and security on steep ground...

The dark art ...

25 August 2011

With Craig's ML Summer Assessment fast approaching he was keen to get out in the dark. He has put in loads of ground work so his navigation was spot on ... 

4Hrs later and still on the same spot !