Some Scottish Winter Action!

(Paul)
I have now been over in Scotland for the last week.  It has been a mixture of work, play and hanging with the worlds best Alpinist.

I started this wee trip in the Glencoe valley.  I was out with Anthony and Emma for 2 days looking at skills they could use for long mountaineering days out on ridges and easy angles snow slopes.  We managed to make the most of the weather and high temps by finished with a great journey up the zip-zags on Gearr Aonach.

High on Central Buttress

Finishing up with those guys a text came in from Tom Great that the NW was in condition so 4 hrs later I arrived in Torridon psyched at the thought of climbing the super classic Central Buttress on Ben Eighe.  The 3 hr walk-in flew by chatting about stuff, lovely temps (maybe a bit to warm), blue sky and very little wind!  The central buttress was well covered in snow but with the rising temps we laughed that we could be climb quite a lot of mush.  In the end it was a mush-fest. I would probably give it Mush8 on a scale of 1-10.  The mush got the best of us and upward progress at the top was so slow that we sacked it and headed back down and out just before we lost the light. Oh and Ueli Steck was climbing beside us, the mush even slowed him down!

hip flask time - thank ECC!

The Seam - buried

The last few days have been spend climbing with Gary.  We managed a very enjoyable ascent of Dorsal Arete on Sunday. It is amazing how being optimistic can pay off because during the walk in it was as if someone was pouring water on us, it cleared while we were climbing at the 100mph winds were no where to be seen when we topped out in blue skies! A quick change of plan took us to the East and for the last 2 days and we have climbed in the Cairngorms (coire an t-sneachda). The place is totally buried but it does give some amazing neve but very little in the way of gear.  We have ticked the Seam and Doctors Choice over the last few days.

top of the seam

Hoping to head back into coire an t-sneachda tomorrow. Will get some pictures if I can!