First Post Hooray

Hello to everyone reading this, i have at last got a functioning webpage that is fit to advertise. Its been trial and error but I'm happy with the end product. The main point of these pages is to show photos of the areas i climb in and give people plenty of info about the courses i offer and the trips i do day to day.

New Years in Glencoe and Cairngorms

Well after a nice relaxed christmas with my family me, Jak (my girlfriend), Kev, Dec (and anyone else with 3 letter names) set off to Scotland for new years in Aviemore.

We did our best to balance partying with climbing, especially as these were some of the best conditions we'd ever experienced in Scotland.

Ice hard Neve made grade II and III gullies into easy sprints. We had a good time playing around moving together as a rope of three and pitching some awesome little sections of grade 3 ice. All with only 3 axes between us!

Kev was getting his first taste of winter climbing and was frankly spoilt! (I hope he doesn't expect this everytime). Its the first time i've Climbed in the Cairngorms in winter and it definitely won't be the last.

The dozy British obsession with pitching routes was very plain to see as we coasted past dozens of people messing around with double ropes, complicated belays and teams with multiple cb radios, all slowly cooling off in a grade I gully. Without stopping too often we were frankly sweaty.

Weather was spectacular, looking around the summit when we topped out most other folk, like us, were in softshells and fleeces, i didn't even bother to wear my wooly hat on day 2! Wind speeds were forecast as low as 3mph and we happily sat on the top and had coffee and penguins.



Night time temperatures around the cottage where we stayed got down to -15! Jak spent a good morning sliding around on a frozen Loch. The hoar frost in the fields twinkled in torch light so it was like the stars spread under our feet as well as overhead. (almost poetic that)

After a surreal New Years Eve where a bunch of very nice posh people from the south (with our motley crew mixed in) all pretended to be scottish lairds in a barn we chugged back home down the M6.