A week in the Peak District 22/04/10

With university effectively finished I was hoping to get one or two more routes out of winter; to take my tally up to 40 routes this season, but it didn't take much persuasion to ditch this plan and head down to the Peak District with Ali, Andy, Ferdia and Neil for some sunny rock climbing. The weather was incredible for the whole week, as was the quality of the climbing and a plethora of routes got ticked! On Tuesday we climbed at Stanage, Wednesday at Frogatt, Thursday at Burbage and Stanage, and Friday at Stanage again. Highlights included; The Left Unconquerable, Chequers Buttress, Knight's Move, Long Tall Sally, Flying Buttress Direct, The Tippler, Manchester Buttress and Lancashire Wall. It was great to get moving on rock again and I was pleased with how my climbing improved throughout the week, given this was my first time rock climbing since I injured my ankle last summer. Mega psyched for the rest of the summer now!

A week at the CIC Hut 08/04/10

This past week I have been staying up at the CIC hut with a great crowd; which made a big difference to the enjoyment of the week as there wasn't much climbing to be done! Walking in on Monday we all got soaked and it was raining at all levels, after drying our kit out Oli and I headed out to have a snoop around. We headed up later in the day into Observatory Gully and found Tower Scoop to be in climable condition; this was a fun little route with some fairly steep options which saved the day. Snow conditions were soft and as we walked down and it started raining again. This theme continued on Tuesday and we ventured out for a wander into Oberservatory Gully again, but with continued rain and some fairly large avalanches and loud cracking and sliding noises echoing off the walls of the gully we ran back to the hut for further card games and whisky! With a lower freezing level and no rain forecast for Wednesday we decided to get on Hadrian's Wall Direct, the weather was nice enough up to about 1100m and above this the clouds clagged in and there was snowfall. Climbing conditions were poor; there was a thin layer of hard snow insulating a thicker layer of soft snow and then a final layer of serious mushy ice, this made for some time consuming and quite bold climbing. We arrived back at the Hut 13 hours later, again soaked as the snow and rain set in as we descended. After drying out our sodden kit and learning about the rescue that Mike and Graham assisted in on Tower Ridge, we decided to head back down to the Glen on Thursday. With further warm temperatures and rain I think this may be the end of my winter, it's been an amazing season and I'm glad to have finished it with a week in fantastic company and such a full on and engaging climb. Bring on summer!

Italian Right Hand 25/03/10

With the extensive thawing and rain I had thought winter was coming to an end; but the forecast had been showing slightly colder conditions this week and things have been climbed, so I headed up to Ben Nevis to have an optimistic look around. After stopping for some night photos at Rannoch Moor I arrived at the North Face carpark around 11:30pm and got a few hours sleep before meeting Steve and heading off around 5:30am.

After some sustenance at the CIC we decided on Italian Right Hand as this had been climbed yesterday. Steve quickly dispatched the first pitch and then I went on up the second pitch; this was mostly hooked out giving easy climbing, I finished with a slightly more difficult and direct line to the belay on fresh ice which was great. Steve then led up the next pitch of easy ground before we abbed back down the line from the plentiful tat. After some lunch the clouds had blown in as forecast, so we decided to stay lower on the mountain and avoid any potential difficulty in trying to locate Number 4 Gully in near zero visibility. On the approach there was an obvious section of single pitch waterfall ice which looked great but had a big crack across it, after speaking to a party who had top-roped it we decided to head down there. We abbed into the line and after doing three laps on the steep detached pillar I was done, and then brought Steve up with some entertainment.

The climbing was fantastic and it would have been a great, but hard, lead; but with the crack being around 7m up and with the steepest climbing below, it would have been very bold. As the clouds closed in further we headed back down to the car after a good 11 hours on the hill. Hopefully the forecasted cold and settled weather will arrive next week and continue winter for a while yet.

Sunshine on Creag Meagaidh 10/03/10

Today Bruce and I had a fantastic day climbing The Wand on Creag Meagaidh in glorious sunshine. It was positively tropical on the walk in, and I felt very French walking in sans salopettes.

It was great to be in the sun and I got very psyched for barbeques, sun lounging and rock climbing, but with such a fat line I managed to put my winter clothes back on and trek into the shade without too much moaning. We started up The Sash which was typical sloggish ground and were then confronted with the corner of The Wand.

The line didn't look very steep so I jumped straight on. Ten screws, some healthy dinner-plating, and lots of calf burning later I arrived at the belay. The route was never particularly steep but was quite sustained, giving really fun climbing throughout.

Bruce then led up the next pitch which was less sustained but pretty steep, followed by another pitch of easy ground to the summit.

After taking in the awesome views from the summit we headed back down to the bags, and sped off towards the car.

Back to Udlaidh 05/03/10

Greg and I headed back to Udlaidh today to climb some more fat ice routes. Again there were hordes of people, with most people staying in the West sector apart from a brave few venturing under the huge cornices on the East sector in the rising temperatures. With light rain falling all day we decided to have a short day climbing on Organ Pipe Wall, Greg led up a direct line on the left of the normal route which was quite sustained and steep, and on awesome, featured ice. It was great fun seconding and I then led up to the top of the route where we unroped and headed back towards the car. Another great day out, not much left to climb at Beinn Udlaidh now!

Smiles at Beinn Udlaidh 03/03/10

With a fantastic forecast, Greg and I headed to Beinn Udlaidh again hoping there would still be some fat ice free of avalanche risk. We headed up after negotiating the almost multi-storey car park on a well tracked path into the West side of the coire as most of the snow has been completely scoured off this side. The East sector was heavily laiden, with most of the routes under a lot of snow with large, and in some cases, double cornices. We headed up to look at The Smirk which has seen lots of ascents recently, there was a party half way up the route and another party waiting at the bottom and before I could convince Greg to stop for a Snickers he was off scouting for something else to climb. After some snooping he decided on a gnarly looking continental style mixed route onto a prominent hanging icicle, followed by an icy groove onto more hanging ice, just left of The Smirk, check out Greg's blog for full details. Given there was a large and comfortable ledge to stand on I put him on belay and watched him work his way up the route, throwing caution to the wind as to how I would follow him up and take out the gear! Fortunately Tamsin, Helena and Tim showed up to climb The Smirk and Tim kindly offered to save me the hassle of swinging around on fallen down icicles.

As the queues slowly disappeared Greg and Tim had topped out and came back down raving about the quality of the route; they decided on naming it The Grin. After snapping some shots of Tamsin cruising up the aesthetic line of The Smirk I got on the sharp end and started up it myself.

The ice was nice and soft and with the number of recent ascents it was very featured, which was fortuntate as the strength in my arms was failing proportionately faster than my rate of ascent! The climbing was fantastic though and it was perfect for me to get on lead on something steeper but with lots of hooks. I'm looking forward to getting on some more of the classic routes that are in such great condition at the moment. Unfortunately my GoPro camera went GoBroke and will be out of action for a while, hopefully some of the photographs will justify this though!

Steall Hut Falls 26/02/10

After some scrounging for route info, Adam and I headed to Steall Hut Falls this morning. We were in for a treat as the falls were frozen almost solidly and the ice was virgin and soft. We zigzaged from left to right to take in the steepest parts of the ice in three pitches before abbing and walking off through the trees. Another classic tick in this awesome winter.