Mel - ‘Listen to Nature’

Winter in scotland…

After realising that I would not make the WAAC winter meet this year I was gutted to be missing out but keen to head to Scotland again after my initial winter skills course with Adelong and Hayley Webb last year. So this year I spent two weeks based in Aviemore and booked myself and my partner a two day course in Winter Climbing to build on our previous experience. We had time to head out independently reacquainting ourselves with axes and crampons and general winter faffing before the course.

As a mountain leader I am comfortable with navigation but the winter conditions, weather and avalanche forecasts were something I wanted to get back to grips with straight away. The first few days of our trip we headed out in search of snow walking over Cairngorm and finding some old snow holes and completed our first Grade 1 gully Jacobs Ladder. As experienced trad climbers this felt within our abilities and definitely built up the excitement for heading into more complex terrain on our coure..

Our two day course with Adelong Outdoors was fairly bespoke. Our aims were to cover winter climbing terrain and to factor in alpine prep skills for future progression where possible. Our course was fantastic, we covered a lot of skills practice from bucket seats and buried axe anchors to snow bollards and crevasse rescue; as well as swinging leads through grade 2 terrain.

We also spent time on the course looking in more detail at avalanche forecasts and resources and the most valuable takeaway for me was having someone experienced to constantly verbalise their observations and judgements of the conditions all around us. We learned a huge amount and still had another week to put it all into practice. 

Over the next week we had several great days out, not all ‘successful’ in how we would usually value a day out. High winds and avalanche risk put a stopper to plans on two days where walking into our intended route and then deciding not to continue where necessary. I think that this is one of my favourite aspects of winter climbing, that caution and ‘backing off a route’ are deemed a sound mountaineering decision, there is total respect for the fierce conditions and environment.

We did have several magical days completing routes in and around the Northern Cories including Aladins Couloir, 0.5 Gully, Fiacaill Ridge and Fiacaill Couloir. This trip was great in building a foundation in getting into Winter Mountaineering and has provided the skills and confidence to venture further at our next opportunity.