Tag Archives: winter skills

CUHWC Winter Skills 2018

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So once again we headed to Glencoe, this time to meet up with 4 current CUHWC members who had agreed to let Dave lead a winter skills course.

The 4 (Sarah, Bronwen, Chris and Simon) had been out the day before, and had some experience between them, so it was an intense couple of days covering lots of skills and lots of ground to practise them on.

First up, we headed towards Buachaille Etive Beag, to run through the basic personal skills – footwork, crampons and axes. After lunch we put these into practice by walking over both Munros and taking the direct route down to the car.

The next day, we planned an ambitious ascent of Bidean Nam Bian, ascending up to Coire nan Lochan, again recapping on the personal skills, while also talking more about route choice, planning and avalanches. The ascent onto Stob Coire nan Lochan provided some slightly more interesting mixed ground and some fantastic views on top. The consensus was to head for Bidean instead of doing any more skills, so we pressed on, up an imposing looking snow arete to find Bidean was also out of the cloud when we arrived. Knowledge from a passing helpful mountaineer told us the descent into the Lost Valley was not suitable. This wasn’t much of a surprise, so we retraced our steps and descended from Stob Coire nan Lochan back to the car, managing to fit in a brief demonstration of rope work and enjoying the good slidability of the snowpack.

It was a fantastic couple of days, with great weather, surprisingly good conditions and good company. Thanks to CUHWC and the guys

Found our first snow not too far from the road
Learning to walk again
Off to find another patch of snow
How not to hold an axe
“Now trip yourselves up”
‘Self belay’
SLIDING!
Surprisingly effective snow for both sliding and stopping
Stationary practice of the self arrest position
Dave goes for a slide
Mid arrest
Head first – looking good!
Another head first
We’ll try that again
Stomping in crampons
Let’s try this for real on a hill.
The top of Stob Dubh
Found an interesting way off
Looking back at Stob Dubh and the group coming up the ridge to Stob Coire Raineach
A lovely snow ramp direct to the car
Next day – into Stob Coire nan Lochan
Starting up the ridge to the summit
Found some rocky sections
More fun
Everyone (except photographer) on Stob Coire nan Lochan
The ridge to Bidean was too nice to miss out on
Taking care on the exposed slope
From Stob Coire nan Lochan, looking north to Glencoe and the Aonach Eagach
Good cornice avoiding on the way down
Final romp down the glen.

for a great weekend, I hope they all continue to enjoy the winter mountains.

Compacted Winter Skills

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A couple of Saturdays ago, I headed up to Aviemore to run a winter skills course for some friends from CUHWC. Very soon (0830), the van broke down. Turned out to be nothing dramatic – just the brake pads rubbing, but as the breakdown service had lost my policy details we took all day to get back to Cambridge.

On Sunday we took a second attempt. This time in the Polo, with minimal gear, and all of us booked into a hostel. Success! We got to Penrith for the best bacon butties I’ve ever had, and got to the Cairngorm ski car park by 5pm. We jumped at the opportunity to spend an hour on a small snow patch going over the basics and stretching our legs.

As we had lost a day with the van breakdown, I was worried about trying to squeeze a 3 day course into 2 days.. Luckily the wind and snow conditions meant that going high and getting some Munros done (the original plan) was unlikely to be sensible or beneficial. The group were also excellent, having loads of previous walking experience in all weather and picked up things quickly, allowing for some fast progression.

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So on the first day we headed into Coire an t-Sneachda, had a quick session on moving on snow, resulting in some sliding fun (ice axe arrests). We then moved into the Coire proper to have a look at some old avalanche debris, and use crampons. Despite the consolidated and melting pack, we found some (non vertical) ice to show what crampons do really well. As the group we picking this up well and conditions were good, we headed up an easy angled gully next to the goat track, looking at avalanche avoidance and testing on the way.

After that excitement, we went for lunch in Coire Domhain. Unfortunately there were no remnants of snow holes to look at. The plateau was pretty devoid of snow, but we headed to Cairngorm summit anyway. After bagging the Munro, we headed back into Corrie Cas for some more detailed avalanche tests and a walk down through the ski area.

The next day we concentrated on rope techniques, going into Coire an Lochain and getting a good look at the great slab. After some digging and testing of various snow anchors, we practised our bucket seats and buried axes while ‘pitching’ up an easy slope. After some navigation to the top of Cairn Lochan, we used a snow bollard to descend onto Fiacaill Corrie an t-Sneachda. The further descent gave some more practice of classic Scottish mix of snow/ice/slush/rock. The wind was picking up and it was getting late, so we rushed off back to the hostel catching a rain shower in the last 30 mins.

Despite the less than ideal conditions, the course was enjoyed by everyone, and there was much discussion about running it again next year.