An Alpine Traverse of Liathach

Over the past few years I have completed three (An Teallach, Aonach Eagach and the Cuillin Ridge) out of the four classic mountaineering ridges in Scotland in winter. This just left Liathach left to complete, unfortunately for the past two years the weather and conditions didn’t align while I was in the area. Thankfully this year it was very different as we were blessed with a stunning weather forecast during the time we had planned on being in Torridon. Our walk up from the Beinn Eighe carpark was wonderful as the sun was rising which was plastering the mountains in a wonderful orange glow, as we ascended the mountain we started to see some of the wonderful scenary which Torridon has to offer. The ascent up to the start of the ridge was pretty hard work and we took a very long time to get up to the ridge, thankfully yesterday someone else had broken trail which made the approach somewhat easier. When we got up to to the first top we were greeted by a spectacular panorama of the Torridon hills which instantly made all of the hard work. Read the full article…

Sunny Schiehallion

Today was the start of this years Scotland trip, last year we were constantly battling with frankly terrible weather. The start of this year’s trip could not have been more different as we were greeted with wall-to-wall sunshine, I even got sunburnt! We have plans in Torridon tomorrow so had a short day en-route today. We climbed Schiehallion, which is a Munroe which Becky had been saving for a perfect winter day, and it certainly could not have been much more perfect than today. On the ascent we were too hot in our baselayers as there was no wind, although we did get a sharp reminder of how cold it was in the slight breeze on the summit. The conditions underfoot were relatively easy going on the well trodden path which enabled us to make a quick ascent in under 2 hours. The views from the top were absolutely fantastic due to the cold crystal clear air which meant that we could see over to Rannoch Mor and Ben Nevis to the west, Ben Lawers to the south and the Cairngorms to the North East. The snow was softening slightly. Read the full article…

Rjukan Day 6: Nedre Svingfoss

Having had a long day out on Trappfoss yesterday we both felt a bit achy this morning when we woke up so we decided to have a shorter day out in the upper gorge so that Becky could do some more leading. We had a sociable walk down to the climb as there were numerous teams from our club heading down into the upper gorge. The walk in was as atmospheric as ever, and it was great to walk in with the great view of Trappfoss having climbed it yesterday. Our plans were to head to the single pitch WI3 of Nedre Svingfoss so that Becky could get some more experience on lead. Becky did a good job leading the route which was a bit steeper than it looked from the ground, which probably made it about WI3. Lucy ventured further up upper gorge with James and David who were setting off up Juvsøyla and after they had set off from the first belay came back and joined us for the climb. As the temperature was only just below freezing the ice remains a mix of decent ice and useless rotten ice,. Read the full article…

Rjukan Day 5: Trappfoss

With another good forecast Becky and I  climbed the classic WI4 of Trappfoss, partly because it is visible from our accommodation and looked brilliant from a distance. It was pretty windy this morning as we left the house, but we soon descended down into the bottom of upper gorge and out of the worst of the wind. The going underfoot was easy until we got past Sabotørfossen, when the good track vanished and left us trail braking in up to thigh deep powder which was hard work. As we got further up the gorge the wind started to pick up again and we soon had to start making our way up a steep snow slope to the start of Trappfoss. There was a fantastic ice formation which we had to climb past; I have no idea how it formed as it seemed to be a frozen waterfall with a horizontal roof sticking out from it before it had started to form another vertical ice fall. While we were gearing up to climb the edge of this feature another team turned up who were heading for the classic ice pillar of Juvsøyla. We. Read the full article…