Winter Mountaineering Course - January, Lochaber & Glencoe

Guide: Mark Scales
Course: Winter Mountaineering Course

Mark has sent us a report from his Winter Mountaineering Course on Ben Nevis. Things are really shaping up in Scotland at the moment and more snow is forecast!

Day 1 Winter Mountaineering Course – Chris and I climbed Number 3 Gully today on Ben Nevis. The conditions were excellent, lots of snow but little wind made for a very pleasant day. We looked at movement techniques on steep snow, how to deal with a slip, along with some steep ground rope work, some poor visibility navigation and an abseil into Number 4 gully.

Day 2 Today Chris and I headed to Glencoe to do Curved Ridge. Conditions were good, with snow almost down to valley level, and lots of powder on the route. This made for slow going as the snow hasn’t had time to consolidate, but we just had time to nip up Crowberry tower on the way past. Calm and clear weather made for a very enjoyable day!

Day 3 – Tower Ridge is a route Chris had his eye on, and it is a justifiably famous route, being long (1000m + of climbing), with the major difficulties high on the route, and some classic pitches such as the Eastern Traverse and Tower Gap.  We made an early start this morning to make an ascent of this classic route.  The weather was perfect, with blue skies and amazing views.  There was a lot of fresh snow on the ridge (thanks to the guys in front breaking trail) but we made good progress and topped out to incredible views over to the Caingorms in the East Highlands.  If only the weather would always be this good!!

Day 4 – The Aonach Eagach ridge was another route on Chris’ tick list, so this was our objective for the day.  Fortunately, the weather turned out far better than forecast, and we had sun for a lot of the day.  There is a lot of fresh snow on the ridge at the moment, so at times it was hard going breaking trail.  We looked at various methods for moving safely and quickly on this type of terrain, which varies from easy ridge walking to exposed scrambling including a few tricky bits of downclimbing down rock slabs.

Day 5 – We needed a shorter day today, so headed into Glencoe to do Dorsal Arete.  It had snowed overnight so although folks had been there the day before, a lot of trail breaking was needed to get into the corrie, up the route, and back down again.  The corrie was very quiet, with only a few other teams around enjoying the snow.

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