Having been back from Scotland for a week long trip for three days before  heading up for an impromptu trip last weekend, I was back at work for another three days before heading up to Scotland for the annual Avon Mountaineering Club trip to Scotland. This time we were flying which meant that as we were catching an early flight we arrived in Glen Coe by midday with time to do a quick route. After very quickly repacking our bags we headed up out of the very warm valley up to Stob Coire nan Lochan hoping that it was cold enough up high for the snow to have remained frozen. This turned out to be very optimistic and it was a hard slog up unfrozen snow to get up to the coire, however the weather was good and provided us with great views up Glen Coe and we could even occasionally see the summit. We headed up Boomerang Gully a grade II climb, it was a bit soft all the way up which made it very hard going, however it was nice to be out in the mountains again. We soloed up. Read the full article…

A route which I have heard so many people rave about and knew so little about due to never even considering climbing it, until this trip where the mountain was in great condition, I had partners which were capable of climbing it and partners who wanted to climb hard which made me want to push myself. As with the previous two days the first line of the guide book was fantastically inspiring “An outstanding climb, probably the most famous ice gully in the world!” and when Saturday night came and we agreed we would do it on Sunday I was both very excited and slightly nervous, especially as I asked to lead the crux pitch (I do like to throw myself in at the deep end). Due to wanting to be first on the route and having to drive back to Bristol we woke up at 5:30 however still we were not the first people walking up, thankfully we saw one party turn up to head to Coire na Ciste and we passed another at the CIC hut, however there was still one party heading up to Observatory Gully so we moved. Read the full article…

Over the past few months Tower Ridge has become a slight obsession of mine due to how great the ridge looked in photos and the descriptions in guide books containing phrases such as “perhaps the finest mountaineering expedition in Scotland” and I was disappointed not to have managed to climb it when I was up in Scotland last week, however I am so glad I waited until this week to do it. We woke up early to avoid having to queue behind multiple parties at Eastern Traverse and Tower Gap, at the start of the day we were joined by Nick’s friend Steve so were now planning on moving as two groups of two on the ridge. We woke up to a misty Ben Nevis and I began fairly optimistic that it was going to clear, however upon leaving the CIC hut it started to snow fairly heavily and at this point I assumed we were going to have a bit of a Scottish Day. The snow stopped after half an hour and the cloud base rose back up a bit as we ascended the gully up to the start of the. Read the full article…

Despite having just got back from a brilliant week in Scotland it was still hard looking at the photos appearing from Scotland the week after due to a massive high pressure system creating clear blue skies and cold weather which lead to fantastic climbing condition. Due to this I started emailing around and came up with a plan to head up to Scotland for a three day weekend, due to thinking it was going to busy on the north face of the Ben and combined with the great forecast we decided to camp just below the CIC hut to save having to do the walk in with full packs every day and also get a head start on other climbers. We arrived at the North Face car park at 1am on Wednesday night and the car thermometer was reading minus 5 so we must have been crazy to get out of the lovely warm car and start walking up to the CIC hut with a tent and sleeping bags. It was great to walk in by moonlight and once we were out of the forest we did not need to. Read the full article…