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winter mountaineering course

In recent months I have been very busy running winter skills courses. It has been a very busy 3 months with many courses running at full or almost full capacity. By running the courses this year on the west coast I have also covered more areas with more challenging conditions. January and February were pretty...
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Last weekend would be the first time this winter when I didn’t have to battle into the wind and we even managed to have lunch breaks. On Saturday we went into Coire Ciste and did some of the slipping, tripping and sliding skills, while on Sunday we walked into Coire an t-Sneachda for all the...
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This year winter has been a wee bit slow to arrive but with storm Ciara and the Dennis, it eventually has. The 2 storms were at 2 consecutive weekends in February, which also meant that running a course was rather challenging. On one day we only managed to walk 10 metres from the cars and...
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Last weekend we had some pretty strong winds in the hills, which made the course a little more tricky to run. However, we managed to fit it all in. On Saturday we went up the ski area at Coire Cas and went through all the walking, cutting steps, kicking step, crampons and avalanche awareness bits...
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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...
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This weekend was the last winter course we have run and I’m proud to say that we have introduced 53 people to winter mountaineering. It has been a challenging winter from the start. There wasn’t a lot of snow to start with in January and as much as fell in February it was just skin...
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This week has seen some really good winter conditions. We had a good cover of snow in most areas and even the Cairngorm Ski area is planning to open the top runs for the first time this season. There is still hope for a good winter. The walk in to Ciste Mhearad was a bit...
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The start of the 5 day winter mountaineering course was first wet on Saturday. We managed to find a decent spot for most of the skills. Sunday was pretty wild high up with winds of up to 70mph and blizzard conditions. Therefore we stayed low at the Glenmore forest and did a fair amount of...
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Looks like the snow has returned. Lets hope there is some more on the way.
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Winter Mountaineering inversions
The last 5 days has seen some really mixed weather. On Saturday we had milder weather with some spindrifts. Because of this the snow gates to Cairn Gorm Mountain were not open. Therefore we went to Drumochter, which had some really good snow conditions. The snow was a bit soft, but really good for doing...
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