Mountain Guide’s Winter Training
This last week has been the winter training course for 8 of the candidates currently working through the courses to become IFMGA guides. The course is hopefully a catalyst to send them in the right direction towards their winter guiding exam in a month or so.
We ran the course out of Alan Kimber’s excellent base of Calluna http://www.fortwilliamholiday.co.uk/, allowing us to access all the good climbing available in the ‘Coe or the Nevis Range. The team of trainers were myself, Dave Hollinger, Tim Blakemore and Stu McAleese….all good friends with a strong background in Scottish winter guiding.
Dave on Crest Route, SCNL.
We climbed a number of routes in SCNL while concentrating on guiding mixed routes….some were easy in the icy conditions (Scabbard Chimney was muted as being a grade III ), some a little more interesting…the guys did Crest Route, Intruder, Scabbard and Spectre.
Will, Mark and Tim making short work of Intruder, SCNL
We had a day mountaineering on the Ben climbing Tower Ridge and Castle Ridge (easy climbing in the conditions but few rock belays currently) and down the Ledge route which is so banked out it is barely grade I and could be skied comfortably by the competent….it is a really quick and easy descent route to the CIC hut. The potential for ice climbing on the Ben this winter should be phenomenal…I have rarely seen some much consolidated snow on the steep parts of the mountain in January in 20 yrs. Much was buried but currently the Curtain was climbable for sure and rare things like the Shroud not far off…and may be a possibility towards the end of Jan if the forecast holds true.
Miles and Mark “sports casual” on a perfect Castle Ridge
We looked at guiding some longer routes on the Buachaille with a few ascents of North Buttress and the esoteric, but classic Shelf Route on Crowberry Ridge. These involved plenty of short roping, moving together and a variety of pitched climbing throughout. Both these routes suited the wild snowy conditions on the day, and on reaching the summit rewarded with some great views of the really snowy West coast ranges.
West Highland local Kenny at ease on his own patch
Al on the scenic Shelf Route
The last day had a deteriorating forecast so teams made trips up and down the sheltered Curved Ridge on the Buachaille, whilst some of us fired up Dinner Time Buttress on Aonach Dubh, Dorsal Arete in SCNL (those familiar with this route in normal years will have a surprise, as, at the moment it’s a barrel of neve and the dorsal section has only 2 rocky jugs sticking clear of solid neve…..very aesthetic), followed by a variety of awkward and steep descent routes in some wild weather. We rounded the course up in some local pub called the Clachaig.
All the best of luck to the trainees for the rest of the winter and especially on their exam at the end.
