Established in 1992 Talisman Mountaineering | Cairngorm Guides | Aviemore specialise in winter skills, climbing and guiding in the Cairngorms. This is a day to day OR monthly diary of what we get up to on our courses and the winter conditions in the Scottish mountains...!
An amazing snowy and sunny weekend of Winter Skills, working for Gavin with Fraser and a great bunch of students from Durham Uni MC.
Saturday was a great day for navigation in poor viz and near whiteout in contrast to the stunning blue skies and wall to wall sunshine on Sunday! All in all a weekend that will have inspired and be remembered by all :-)
The calm before the storm and another bright but milder day practising navigation on a round of the Northern Corries.
Brett and the two Marks had fun exploring snow caves as well as checking out snow patches and the remaining winter routes - the good news is that winter returns with a vengeance next week! There are lots more photos showing the snow conditions on our Facebook page and in the Winter Conditions 2017 Album, but you will need to like the page at https://www.facebook.com/CairngormMountainGuides/ to view them all ;-)
First day of Cairngorm Winter Skills course - sheltered from the wind it was a nice day with the snow perfect for sliding on and firm enough for crampons.
With valley temperatures rising to the early teens and winds gusting 100 mph, we headed up high for a day digging snow shelters and looking at snow belays. It was a long hike up but we were rewarded for the effort. We were completely sheltered and the deep snow drifts surprisingly deep, firm and extensive - the guys had fun digging!
Great to see familiar faces on our now annual winter weekend with Not's University.
The club's name may have changed from the Munro Pineapple and Adventure Societies but apart from that the routines and courses were of a similar format.
Between us the instructors were Fi and Rob with the Winters Skills groups, Jamie and myself with the Winter Mountaineering groups and Jonathan with the Winter Climbing group.
The weather was wild and visibility even at carpark level was almost non existent at times, due to the high winds and driving snow. It was a steep learning curve for many of the students, even those that had been out in winter before, in much more settled conditions!
Despite this we did manage to cover the basics, though in difficult conditions, as can be seen from the mountaineering groups video and photos.
After Saturday's baptism by ice the winter climbers and mountaineers had a more technical day looking at the ropework and belays on Sunday.
Despite higher winds being forecast for Sunday, it turned out a much nicer day with good visibility and lighter winds.
With Fi and Rob the Winter Skills groups headed up to our sheltered spot from Saturday and a had a good day looking at micro navigation techniques and emergency shelters.
Lots more photos on the Facebook Album here and some photos from the students to follow...
A mirror like Loch Morlich reflected the stars as we drove past for our early alpine like torchlit start.
We hadn't had a chance to do any ropework and the guys weren't trad climbers though the plan was to try and beat the weather,get a winter climb in before the forecast storm actually arrived.
We had really great conditions underfoot on the walk in and in a very banked out Jacob's Ladder. However the depth of snow meant the usual belays were buried and required much digging for four people!
In time honoured fashion plumes of spindrift engulfed us, just as we reached the easily climbed cornice and plateau around noon - the forecast storm had arrived!
Have a look at Josef's headcam video below or on YouTube at http://youtu.be/m7iDLPzWH6g unfortunately the battery ran out just before the cornice!!
More photos and my short video taken on the plateau on our Facebook page here.
A nice surprise - Fi's just received an email from Carron saying that our advanced Winter Mountaineering course get a mention in the latest issue 23 of Trek & Mountain magazine.
A PDF of Scottish Winter Skills article can now be viewed here (3.31 Mb).
We're running several of these courses throughout the winter season into Easter 2012 including this Christmas and New Year.
We still have a couple of places available on the 27th-31st December 2011 and on the 2nd-6th January 2012 as well as places on the five day intro Winter Skills courses.
