Winter expedition skills January 15

Course report: Michael Thomas
Course: Winter Expedition Skills

Joanne had previous basic winter mountaineering experience and rock climbing experience, she wanted to develop these further along with specific expedition skills in preparation for a Scottish climbing trip with friends a future high altitude trip.

Day one
After camping in Glencoe, we looked at equipment and packing our rucksacks for a wild camp. The gusts were to strong even in the most sheltered spot of the hidden valley. So we stashed the camping gear and went up to the higher corrie, to do some mountaineering, refresh winter skills, build snow bollards and South African abseiling.

Day two
Another day of snow and very strong winds, we went up to Stob coire nan lochan for ‘full on Scottish conditions we looked at using expedition style fixed lines in ascent and descent, abseiling with a prusik and building snow belays.

Day three
strong winds and blizzards again we chose to stay low and find a comfortable learning environment. At Onich Slabs Joanne had her first experience of dry tooling giving a great opportunity to perfect her movement skills for mixed climbing, Joanne did really well flashing both routes. Joanne wanted to develop here rope work and technical skills further. So we looked at managing an abseil retreat, crevasse rescue skills, escaping the system and hoisting in an improvised rescue situation.

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