Chocks Away Chaps!

Another early start this morning. Today Andy, James and I, headed over to Beinn Eighe in search of a little less snow than Cairngorms. Anyway the North West gave us a brilliant day. With conditions good for the steeper upper quartzite tier, we poked around on Far West Buttress which gave us a new route. Probably in the V6 area Chocks Away gave 3 sustained pitches and just enough for one each, which was good.
A superb day, and route that is well worth a couple of stars. Details to follow. In the meantime a few pics.

The weather never came in quite as Geoff was forecasting!

Andy on top of pitch 4.

Me heading up pitch 4

Coming up the first corner of Pitch 1

James on Pitch 3

Andy on Pitch 4

Coire Sputan Dearg

A few pics from yesterday when Andy and I headed over to Coire Sputan Dearg. Despite lots of snow and cold temps things really do need a little bit of consolidation. Anyway the pictures tell the story better...

Every winter climbers favourite sight on a Saturday morning!

With the visibility poor, navigation was to the fore from the start.

Some nice views.

Glissade gully provides a quick and easy approach to the coire floor.

The coire looked good, but be warned the snow was about as much use as...........




Take the guide book grades for this Coire with a pinch of salt, well we discoverd a sandbag or two! In it's current condition this little chimney is at least two adjective and technical grades out. Go and try it and see if you agree?

Finishing about 12 hours after that alarm clock!

Now only 3 hours back across the plateau and Andy looks really pleased about that little walk home in the snow and lovely Cairngorm breeze.

Loading the Guns!

About a week ago I was in Pete MacPherson’s shop in town and he pointed out Ian Parnells blog post to me where he highlights a winter training programme. Have a look here.

Anyway the concept is simple a set number of pull-ups on the minute every minute for 30 minutes. Somewhere between 2 and 6 was suggested. Now subsequent posts on Ian’s Blog, suggest Pete has done 270 an impressive 9 a minute. As Ian points out good training to be cranking out those IXs.

Back in the real world, I have been motivated to start properly training for winter. So 3 seemed a good starting point, 30 minutes later that’s 90 pull ups done and dusted. A couple sessions down and I intend to do some form of active rest in the recovery time, perhaps a set number of squats? All we need now is some glimmer of hope on the horizon that winter is on its way. The long range GFS data doesn’t look too promising, for the next fortnight at least.

Lovely day to be high in the hills.

A cheeky look into the Northern Corries on Friday morning was very fruitless, but with a blue sky day forecast Andy and I headed in for another early season inspection this morning.



The result Almost, but not quite, getting there slowly would be a better phrase I think.

Though there is obviously a lot of water in the hills it was nice to see the cold of the last few days had frozen the exposed ground and turf. The odd drool of ice and crusty snow made for a scenic walk.

As for climbing conditions it really is a question of a little more time, snow and cold weather. High east facing crags were starting to form, lower crags on other aspects no where near.


A tale of two halves-both taken on number one buttress today.

So with that in mind, and a bit of insight, we headed over to what we hoped would be the only pitch in a well frozen condition today.

Andy making the most of the day.

But still a lovely day to be out in the hills, with not a breath of wind, and a real crisp feel to the air. No doubt Andy will have some more photos on his blog, have a look here.

Monadh Liath: A Chailleach, Carn Sgulain, Carn Dearg.

Carn Sgulain.

Becky and I had a quick stroll over the 27km round of these three Munro's in the Monadh Liath.

Carn Dearg, from Carn Ban

Perhaps not the most exciting of hills, but in an attempt to get fitter, we did them in lung bursting style which added to the fun, though my thighs are paying for the uphill runs today. Winter was definitely around the corner as the wind was Baltic yesterday.

The lonely coire of Nan Laogh.

Roof, Fly, Nail and Bridge.

Alpine Adventures continue.

In Switzerland follow the signs!

With the settled weather of late summer you would think alpine objectives were easy to come by, however the very dry spell has made the approach to many routes difficult if not impossible and many of the mixed routes are simply too dry to be considered stable, so it has been a time for the thinking caps.
Rock in the Valle Blanche provided much of the entertainment in the first week or so, or though the usual stroll across towards the Torino is worthy of a note to say that is has some pretty nasty holes. Much of the North Face of the Tacul was a shooting gallery with blocks the size of cars comming down on a regular basis.
　

Perhaps the most stupid place to pitch your tent, extreme sleeping a new sport?

After a brief Swiss interlude, and the South Ridge of the Lagginhorn, the 0 degree isotherm also fell right down to around 2300 mts meaning it was pretty Baltic up high, but still no sign of any meaningful snow.

However the Contamine routes on the NW Triangle of Mount Blanc du Tacul provided brilliant long and relatively objectively safe mixed climbing. The lack of neve and more water ice surface just added to the fun.

Andy and I having fun on the 10 or so pitches of ice.

As you might imagine lower rock routes were very pleasant indeed and the odd sports crag allowed for a productive rest day now and again.
Anyway Andy is still out getting stuff done whilst I returned to do some proper work! Check out his blog for the latest take on conditions and few more pictures.

focusmountaineering blog

Alps- Week 1

Hot and falling down would sum it up. Still having fun. Time to move on? Switzerland has a better forecast for the next few days.