This weekend I had a trip away with Craven Mountaineering Club to the Junior Mountaineering Club of Scotland's hut in Laggen followed by a trip to Ben Nevis for a days winter mountaineering instruction.
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| The final trek to the summit of Carn an Fhreiceadain |
Following a long drive up on Friday night, we headed out to walk up Carn an Fhreiceadain parking just outside the entrance to the golf club at Kingussie. Unsure about the weather forecast and the high winds expected, we followed the summit track in a clockwise direction. The weather was better than predicted, with some strong wind but mainly dry.
On Sunday the weather was predicted to be storms and heavy rain, so we felt a light walk to a local monument might be worthwhile. The monument was to the chief of the clan but that was about all we could make out on the plaque. It was a pleasant walk through the woods, over many fallen trees and then out on to the moor and back.
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| View on the way up to the monument looking towards Newtonmore |
Giles and I then departed the group and headed to Fort William for a days guided climbing with Jamie Bankhead (
http://glencoeclimbing.co.uk/who-we-are) who was instructing us on the basics of winter mountaineering, improving skills for me and introducing Giles to new ones. Alan Halewood (
http://alanhalewood.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/masses-of-debris-mentoring-and-lmrt.html) was also with us for the climb as Jamie's mentor.
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| Looking round from Carn Dearg Buttress (right) to Minus Face (left) with the CIC hut bottem right, Ben Nevis |
We climbed Douglas Gap West Gully (Grade 1), with me leading under close instruction and Giles seconding. There was a lot of snow but the climb was grade 1 fun. I won't begin to summarise the conditions, but Alan has produced a very good writeup on his blog about the climb along with the other unfortunate avalanche and rescue activity which was going on not too far away. You can see evidence of a large avalanche on the left.
We abseiled down the East side of the gap off some tat on a boulder, something I've wanted the confidence to do. I can recommend Jamie for his instruction, he made it a great day with plenty of new tips and tricks for me.
Although we had a long drive up the weekend has been great with plenty of laughs with the Craven bunch and good beer time in Fort William along with an unexpected trip to the Fort William Mountain Festival for a talk on Photography with
Nader Khan and films from the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which fortunately were ones we hadn't seen already.
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| Morning sun on the road towards the Three Sisters, Glencoe |
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| Dam release from Loch Laggen |
