Powder hounds in the Gorms!

Managed to get a day off which coincided with sunny weather... And the snow was reported to be pretty good in the Cairngorms too. Shaw and Judith were also up winter climbing in the Northern Corries, but enough was enough I HAD to ski!

Me looking like I can ski (for once haha)!

Out of the blue Nico messaged me to remind me that he was also heading to the Cairngorms to meet Des to attend the Avalanche Geeks level 1 avalanche course which I'd done a couple of years ago (excellent course I really recommend)...

Des being chased dropping to the Ciste - Scotland rocks

So a date was set and I dutily turned up at the Youth Hostel to pick Des up at 8am as planned... I walked into the dining room saw Des, sat down opposite him and he slowly looked up, into my eyes (blearily), nodded his head and said 'so its 8am I guess, I'm not ready'! Brilliant!

Okay lets blow the piste shizzle

On Cairngorm top!

Woop, woop we headed up the hill and skied on piste for the morning, with a plan to tour later. The pistes were pretty good, and its the first time I've ever been that the West Wall and White Lady were open! The White Lady was fantastic, and going slightly outbound we found some great snow in no. 1 gully, dropping into the Ciste.. brilliant fun.

varied snow... but great

watch that gully boys!

Even though it was a blast we had agreed to get off piste on a wee tour so at about 2pm (I think) we skinned up to Cairngorm where Des did a headstand (its his yoga thing... and well why not, I wish I could do one!).

Des and frozen beard climber man!

It was touch and go with time (enough day light) but we agreed to ski around the tops of the Northern Corries, planning to drop into Lurchers gully for a final descent as we had heard it was holding good snow.

Lurchers - flat light but excellent snow

So we skied/skinned around and it was really nice and atmospheric. Lots, maybe 8 teams of climbers were all topping out of Sneachda and Lochain and it was fun to quickly zip past on planks, looking for but not spotting Shaw and Judith.

The wee walk out!

The snow was very varied, from hard frozen, soft, hard pack, crusty, and in fact the last little descent to gain Lurchers had the worst snow I'd ever skied (tried to ski!).. But Lurchers had dreamy snow and as the light left (well flat light) it was a lovely ski down before all to quickly contouring across aiming back towards the ski centre.. A fantastic day in the Highlands.

The problem with Scotland...

...is that its too good! So I know I'm repeating myself but again I wasn't sure what to do this last weekend as I had offers to winter climb with Shaw and Kelly, rock climb at Reiff (too early season for me I'm afraid), paint, ski or go for a remote munro.

A nice problem to have I guess.... I was certain I would ski.... but then the latest weather suggested that the far North was the sunniest spot and I haven't been able to get the ridge I'd spotted with Tom and Sheddy out of my mind.

The dramatic ridge and Seana Bhraigh to its right

So I packed my van and set the alarm for 5.30am thinking I'd go for Seana Bhraigh one of the more remote Ullapool munro's. Its a really interesting area and again for the second time in 2 weeks coaxed the van up the rough track from Oykel Bridge. From the parking out came the mt bike for the long ride up the valley and I quickly passed the school house bothy I stayed in last weekend.

At this point I changed the plan as the ridge looked uncertain

I'd slightly underestimated this ride and it took 2 hours with the river crossings, taking pictures and carrying the reasonably heavy rucksack. As I got closer to the ridge I started to think that soloing the North Ridge of Creag an Duine may be silly as I was on my own and from this perspective it looked quite steep at the top. I wondered if I could get boxed in on the top rocks...

ditch the bike

In the end I abandoned my bike before the last river crossing that goes to Magoo's and Loch a Choire Mhoir and set off up the North ridge of Seana Bhraig. This actually proved a great option and was a lovely walk.

Oh.... the ridge isn't actually steep! :-) 

It paralleled the other ridge which provided great views for the whole day, and I then realised that actually it wasn't steep and I could (should) have just gone for it. Och well.

Seana Bhraig - the final section (ahead) was lovely

Beautiful untracked snow lead me up Seana Bhraig and had plenty of interest with cornices, steep neve and lots of ptarmigan. I even scoped out some possible new winter route potential (need to ask Martin Hind about this area - he'll know).

the top

I lingered on the summit before returning to the bike and the cycle out, which was now mainly down hill and very welcome. A great day, but to be honest with today's weather I think that any option in Scotland would have been great. Can't wait to return to Magoo's bothy and climb the ridge.. but maybe I'll leave it a few weeks before my return...

The school house bothy (again)

Boys weekend!

Sheddy informed me that it had been 2.5 years since we had all last met, he's good at this sort of thing, where has the time gone?!

Originally we planned a reunion in Spain riding road bikes (out of my comfort zone), drinking beer and getting some winter sun, but when Tom enquired about this he was told that the area's he thought of visiting were all shut down for the winter so the plan was hatched for the softies to come North and visit the Highlands.

Waiting for them to arrive on the Friday flight I got in a couple of hours sunny bouldering at Tom Riach watching for their flight to come over. Luckily it was slightly last and so was I! (note - missed the best ski day of 2018 on Friday... thanks guys!)

I shouldn't have been surprised that when I picked them up just after lunch they had already had beers... but I was a little surprised that when I took them to Rosemarie beach (on the tour) after a quick dip in the sea they demanded the pub..... this set the tone of the trip..

Shed on the beer at 1pm - Inverness Airport

Tom wanted to stay in a bothy and Sheddy, well more on this later.. Originally we planned to go to Magoo's bothy below Seana Bhraigh one of the Ullapool munro's, but a combination of herding cats and the long drive meant that really by the time we got to Oykel Bridge we didn't really have time to walk the 7 miles to the bothy...

The Old School House bothy

We drove up the East Coast and there were various enquiries about food establishments along the way from the city slickers (they aren't really), or more to the point lack of them.

Sheddy delivering his lesson

Tom has lines

Our backup plan worked well and we went to the Old School House bothy, which as expected used to be a school until the 1930's. It was nearly demolished, but rescued and renovated by the MBA. They have done a great job, and although no stove or fire it is well laid out and one room is still dressed as a classroom with desks, blackboard and books.

We explored the immediate area before the ubiquitous beer and whisky. Sheddy likes a rant and its always difficult to determine how much he actually means but he tried to express his displeasure to the art of Bothying numerous times during the night. It wasn't particularly cold, maybe 5-6 degrees, but after eating and drinking our supplies it seemed fitting to go to bed at 7.30pm to keep warm...

Again at various points during the following 13 hour slumber Mr Shed ensured that we were well aware of his displeasure at this pastime. I think he was joking as its cathartic and nice going away from technology and being ruled by the natural cycle of daylight and dark even if only for a very short time.

exploring an old steading

I feel I must add in at this point that the wind was horrendous and on Saturday you could barely go out of the bothy without being blown over, and Saturday night the bothy shook and moaned most of the night.

As forecast the wind dropped a little the following day and after our milkshake breakfast (guess who food shopped!?) we went for a walk up a big hill.. Well it was a tiny hill, but a nice 8-9 mile walk with great views of the bigger hills. The plan was perfect, because even on this 'beag meall' the wind was trying to blow us over.

To get to the small hill did involve a river crossing which would have been comical to watch, 3 guys, 2 poles, boots off, bloody cold water all holding hands to safely navigate the wide river. Sharing is caring!

The summit of our tiny lump!

They said that they were (very) happy to leave the following day as I dropped them back at the airport bar so that they could get back to the South of England, but I know that they enjoyed it really as I did, and they will be back... even Sheddy, but maybe in another 2.5 years when the memory of the cold water and bothy has faded slightly!

A wee bit icy

Ski or bike....... bike or ski, ski or bike... bike or ski.... My tiny little brain was going around and around with these thoughts all night and in the end I didn't get much sleep! The forecast was for a blue bird day and I so wanted to ski but Mark at Orange Fox Bikes  was fixing my mountain bike and offered a demo plus bike to try today.....

charging in the forest

Its all a haze but I think that in the end I dithered so much that I left it too late to get over to the west coast to ski (best weather) and I decided that biking was the sensible option, besides this would also be slightly better for my ankle, which is improving and save lots of travel time.

So I picked up the Orbea Laufey plus bike and hit the local trails... It was pretty icy and snowy and I again wondered if I'd made the right choice but the views were stunning and the warmth from the sun restorative.

beautiful loch side riding

I've always secretly wanted to try a fat bike, but the new plus size bikes seem a better compromise. The Laufey is a hard tail with 650b/27.5" wheels with 2.8" tyres (that's the plus bit if unsure). Wow... as Mark had said it was super fun, with an incredible amount of grip and it didn't feel too draggy even though the tyres are run on a much lower pressure (15psi I think).

It gripped and flew on the snowy and forest trails and I (?almost) fell in love with it. On very rough terrain you do realise that its not got rear suspension, but only just and its the most fun bike I can remember trying and felt a super balanced (much more than my current trek!).

Come on fatty lets get home...

So did I make the right choice... Well I think the pictures capture some of the magic I felt today so.... maybe (hehe)!

Land and Sky merge

The plan was to go winter climbing but I wasn't sure what state Loz would be in on his arrival as it had been his Birthday party the night before.

The Mess of Pottage area

He arrived and respectably requested that I drive as he felt a wee bit delicate and hadn't slept well...

land and sky merge

Again we headed to the Northern Corries as it seemed a safe bet. We had a rough plan of climbing 'The Message, IV, 6' on the Mess of Pottage but this plan looked in doubt until the very last minute as lots of teams (well maybe 6) were swarming the area.

Loz on the top corner

But leaving the route choice to the last minute it all worked out with only one team ahead and the other teams on neighbouring routes we got on it as planned.

Another team topping out

I lead off in a wild frenzy of a Blizzard, but the weather settled for the remaining pitches. It was never particularly good weather as you will see from the pictures and my camera got pretty wet on the rare times it came out.

Happy on top!

The route was amazing! Every pitch was good, and the 2 corners were just a joy to climb on great hooks. A thoroughly enjoyable day, only slightly marred by slipping on the icy path in the dusk 1/2 a mile from the car and spraining my ankle :-(. I'm hobbling today but don't think its broken and it was worth it to get the best route on the Mess of Pottage in!

Exploring the Monadhliath

After a fun Christmas day at Contin and a late cycle back home after a day of excesses it was difficult  to get up early on Boxing day, but with work the following I was (mildly) determined to get out and head up a hill.

The road to redemption!?

I settled on the Monadhliath as the weather looked better in this area and surprised myself by getting to Garva Bridge by about 9am!

Looking back down the broad ridge

The top comes into view

The walk up Geal Charn was very pleasant, with a dusting of fresh snow, clouds blowing in and out and not another soul on the hill today - bliss.

Mince pie time

Pretty cold at the summit and I sheltered on top for what felt like awhile taking in the views and eating mince pies. But I couldn't have been too long because I was back at the van in less than 5 hours.

Playing with the shadows

Bye for now beautiful mountain

A nice easy day blowing away the cobwebs.