Deep-Cut Chimney, a Very Long Way

I thought it'd be colder towards the east in the Cairngorms today, but discovered the car covered in frost so we headed west to Glencoe. There was a line of 9 headtorches up the vally ahead of us at 7am. We passed Aonach Dubh as it got light (the Screen looks good) and walked on up to Stob Coire Nam Beith.

North West Gully looks in good condition but we moved left to join the parties on the 450 metre Deep-Cut Chimney, a IV.4 **** yes a 4-star route! And very long - don't arrive late!

Conditions are ok, a bit thin and we placed mainly rock gear and a peg.

Above the obvious difficulties is some old abseil tat. We continued on up and went right at the big buttress and kept right for 2 pitches.

Another party who went left seemed to have a more straight forward time. It's a long journey above the difficulties to the summit and we met another party at the summit just before it got dark. The decent was good, but we did see lights at the summit an hour later and think it was one of the other 2 parties who started way behind us. Great route, but get there very early!

Cautley Spout

Making the most of the cold weather Dan, Simon and Gareth and I headed off to Cautley Spout tonight.

Cautley is in the Yorkshire Howgills and is a 250 metre grade III icefall that takes a lot of cold weather before it's climbable.

Tonight there was a fair amount of runing water, but there's still plenty of ice. Beware though as the ice is "thin" on the first 2 pitches with poor protection.

After 2 pitches we decided to solo, so then the ice got firmer but we just kept moving on. Another excellent outing.

I thought my Petzl Myo RXP was very bright.... but when Dan and Simon switched on the bike lights they'd mounted on their helmets it got seriously bright (Dan's bikelight is off in this photo).

Now I'll need to save up for one of those Ultra bright Petzl headlamps!

Sunshine Gully

Ali and I could only manage a short day today. We waited behind a pair on Green Eyes but then moved over to Sunshine Gully, and can thoroughly recommend it.

Sunshine Gully follows the ice up and left in the above photo. It's given grade III but the party we passed and both of us felt it more a IV today.

The winds were strong with plenty of spindrift causing problems on some of the routes to our left but it was ok on S.G.

We caught up with another party roping up at the botom of S.G. and they kindly allowed us to climb alongside them and, as we were moving well, we were soon ahead and out of their way.

The route has a nice bulge on pitch one that we all felt deserved IV, and above it is a magnificent "thread" where you could go caveing behind a great thick column of ice, creating a natural runner (I didn't, not a caver). I got a good belay on the ridge on the right of the gully using nuts and threads. Ali led through to summit out on pitch 2.

Beware - you probably won't be able to hear the leader as they top out, and don't expect any obvious belays on the gently sloping summit.

Green Eyes

Green Eyes on Ben Udlaidh is the line going up and rightwards on the ice in the middle of the photo below - it's nice and fat, but it was windy today with steady streams of spindrift hiding ropes and climbers.

We went to climb this (IV.4*) but a leasurely start, and a party ahead of us, resulted in a change of routes but here are the pictures for anyone wanting info on this fantastic route.

Tebay Night Climbing

Tonight was sooo cold - the car thermometer said minus 12 and the air was freezing in our nostrils. So we had to go out with our head torches, didn't we?

Literally a step (or 3) from the car saw us tying on and attacking the brittle ice. This "crag" gives a number of lines approximatelly 13 meters high. The ice was thin and brittle ice with sparse protection - beware! So after Dan led the first route we were into top ropeing and having some quick fun.

Steall Falls in conditions

2nd January 2010

News was that Steall Falls was in condition thanks to the cold weather we've been having.

So Ali, Al, John and I made an early start and arrived ahead of Dan and his group of 6 but a headtorch start had Dan overtaking us. Later we were joined by Alan Halewood with 2 clients who had this superb route as their second ever ice climb!

The falls were wide enough to accommodate us all so everyone enjoyed a great climb, unfortunatelly thawing slightly as we climbed it.

No 6 Gully Aonach Dubh

What an amazing route! Park where the Clachaig Inn road meets the A82 and look South at the big West Face of Aonach Dubh. Today it had limited snow on the face it but in the gullys is some fantastic ice.

Number 6 gully (IV.4 ***) is 240 meters with great climbing throughout.

Following a late start (Oops! But that's another story) we passed other groups and arrived with just one pair ahead of us. It seems we managed to avoid the crowds again.

We placed loads of screws, a peg and small wire and found a few bits of in-situ bits of gear.

Swinging leads and a bit of moving together we made great progress, stopping to chat and disagree about whether the crux was the iced corner, or the the long ice pitch with the peg in the left wall.

We topped out, grabbed out kit and helped another party with their ropes before decending in the gathering dark.

Another wonderful day with great company on a fantastic route.

Beinn Udlaidh - Quartzvein Scoop

Today Simon and I joined the crowds at Quartzvein Scoop IV.4 and it's a superb route well worth (a bit) of queing. We had a late start, planning to be behind the crowds and saw 5 parties ahead of us, some already topping out, as we walked in.

The conditions are great and timing was perfect with us missing the busiest period and getting back to the car as it got dark.

Smoking the White Owl

With a forecast of strong winds and a slight rise in temperature Alan Halewood and I went off to explore Sgurr Finnisg-aig and to fing StWO (grade III.4). To get there park at the Aonach Mor chairlift and follow the track behind the building, after 45 minutes and a few twists and turns the crag appears on the right up the hillside. A bit of trail breaking gets you to the route.

The ice was substantial enough for good ice screws, but water was running in places.

There were some fantastic iceshapes for hooking and holding, and evidence of lots of icicles having fallen down.

The wind picked up and we topped out with a blast of snow in the face.

The route finishes about level with the top gondola station so we made a dash for it. The cabins were running but it was too windy to let us on board and it took 50 minutes to dash down the track, my son Tom (mad downhill mountain biker) does it in 7 minutes!

Aonach Mor - Web Buttress

The Gondola is open so Simon and I headed up, taking the addittional "soft" option of the chair lift to get us even higher. There were parties walking on ahead of us but a steady walk got us to the top of Easy Gully (Grade 1) with the leading parties. The cornice cap to the gully is BIG so we created a Snow Bollard and abseilled over the lip to walk down the gully to easier ground.
I'd not been to Web Buttress before so we climbed The Web III, sorry but not great in current conditions as gear placements are scarce and hard to find. I suggest waiting until later in the season and after some freeze/thaw action.

Very cold and a healthy cornice at the top.

Further along the crag John climbed Left Twin and placed loads of gear!

Expedition to Tien Shan

Old or young - try following your heart occasionally and live life; do something you want to do; the opportunity may never come around again....

I've just returned from the very remote Tien Shan mountains - a fantastic and place of high mountains. We landed in Kazakstan (a country the size of west Europe) and were whisked from the airport for the long drive to Karakol in Kyrgystan. The countryside is amazing; people live in summer yurts in the high mountains with herds of sheep, horses and cattle. Some take trailers loaded up with beehives into the mountains for the pollen in the high alpine meadows. At Karakol we organized food lists and 11 clients, without any local language skills, bought 400 chocolate bars (I have a sweet tooth but that's crazy!) hundreds of loaves, eggs, cheese etc to sustain us for the coming weeks. Meanwhile Sean and I arranged camp kit, transport and accommodation. After checking stoves and packing we loaded up the truck for the next part of the journey, driving over passes up to almost 4,000 meters, to an ex-Soviet helicopter base. The helicopter deposited us rapidly onto the glacier at 3,800 meters. With the nearest people 3 days walk away we rapidly erected our tents and cook tent and got settled in. After acclimatization and practicing on local ice cliffs we made an ascent of a peak (unclimbed?) at almost 5,000mtrs. Over the next week attempts were made on other peaks but deep snow and avalanches thwarted us. The helicopter flew in 2 hours early and it was a mad rush to get the last tent down and load up whilst being battered by the rotors’ downdraft but we were quickly in the air and heading for Khan Tengri base camp where Sean and 8 clients were going to make an attempt on that peak (thwarted again by bad weather) whilst I returned to UK with 3 clients.
A fantastic country, weather was too warm with the coldest night in my tent being -4 degrees (boiling in my altitude sleeping bag). The weather was a problem and we could literally see the glacier melting away from under our tents. We varied from a truck driver to an investment banker, a doctor to a construction manager, and from 19 to 50 years old. A wonderful team with broad experience, sadly the weather was too warm (or good?) for what we wanted to achieve this time. Maybe another time, who knows?

Scrambling in North Wales

Summer arrived in the UK (just after I returned from Asia) and after a few days climbing in the Lakes I was off to Snowdonia with Matt & Neil.

On Saturday we practiced a "recoverable abseil" using an Italian hitch, and then ascended a grade III scramble up the steep East face of Tryfan and Matt jumped the gap between the 2 pinnicles of Adam & Eve, all in fantastic sunny weather.

Sunday started bright and we were the first on Idwal Slabs and climbed Ordinary Route, then scrambled up Seniors Ridge until we could cross Nameless Cwm to climb Cneifion Arete.

We were 50mtrs up Cneifion when the sky darkened, thunder was heard and soon we were in a hail shower. Neil and Matt are set on scrambling on the Cuillins this year and a better introduction to the changeable weather of Skye could not have been arranged!

A superb couple of days full of laughs and experiences, and we were dry by the time we got back to the car.

Ben Nevis Ice

A superb few days personal climbing on Ben Nevis, sleeping in the CIC hut. Great weather, great partners, and so much good food (carried in) that we were giving passing climbers warm garlic bread, and feeding nearby campers with haggis or fresh pasta to help use it up.
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We climbed loads of great routes including;
Castle Ridge III; Central Gulley III 4;
Number III Gully Buttress; Quickstep;
Green Gulley IV.3; Indicator Wall V.4;
Italian Right Hand IV.4; Combe Gulley IV.4;
















Sadly there were lots of rescues going on around us with the RAF helicopter flying in every day looking for lost walkers, and slow or overdue climbers.














Whilst on Ben Nevis, next to the Trig Point, we were asked by another group to help with the working of a GPS which they'd programmed the night before. We explained that we were on the summit of Ben Nevis. Fortunatelly the visibilty lifted and the journey down into the valley was made more straight forward.

Tower Ridge in Winter

Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis is a wonderful scramble in summer but a greater undertaking in winter. Paul, Pat and I left the car park in the dark at 6am aiming to be at the start of the ridge as the sun rose but still there were head torches from another party flashing ahead of us.

Conditions were fantastic, if a bit lean, and the temperature inversion with the cloud below us was fantastic.


It was one of those all days when you wish you'd remembered your sunglasses.

Tower Ridge (summer) - Ben Nevis

Tower Ridge - probably the best long scramble in the UK (Cuilin Ridge on Skye excluded) and a route that catches parties out every year resulting in an unplanned night out. It finishes near the summit of Ben Nevis and, if you want to add some "spice", can be started via the massive Douglas Boulder which takes the grade up from scramble 3 to climb D~VD. Always start very early.

I planned to climb this route whilst my son hurtled down the Mountain Biking downhill course nearby and just days before we left I got a call asking if I'd guide clients on this. Years ago when training for my Mountain Instructor Award I was told that you'd know if you were ready if you could instruct anywhere in the UK, even if you'd not been there before so, after researching the route and weather, I was happy to take clients there.

Sadly a last minute change saw me revert to plan A of soloing the route alone but during the walk in I met 2 experienced mountaineers planning to do the same route. I soloed up the Douglas Boulder (D~VD) as the other 2 climber roped-up below me. They weren't happy with the damp nature of the rock and so I dropped an end of the rope to help out and soon we were roped together.

This turned out to be very fortunate as their rope was a few metres too short for the abseil down the back of this tall 'Boulder'. After that we were on the long main ridge and everyone was happy to move unroped so I went ahead up the ridge. A superb day and I met some nice guy's.

The descent down to the Lochan and then on to the North face car park was wonderful and leg stretching - the new path is a great improvement.