This Winter has started pretty slowly and hasn’t done much in regards of snow over the last few weeks. However, in January there is always enough to do to run a winter mountaineering course in the Cairngorms. For the first 2 days we went up Coire Ciste and to Ciste Mhearad to do the basic winter skills. Due to the high winds we only managed to do a short walk up Coire Cas on the 3rd day and do some rope work.
On the last 2 days we went back to Ciste Mhearad and found some already made snowholes from last weekend’s Winter Mountain Leader Training. Because the snow was rock hard and difficult to dig we decided to reuse the existing snowholes. Even that took us 2 hours of digging just to make them more liveable. Due to some high winds on the summits we had to go straight down the next morning.
