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Brand new: How to get started?

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ROSP 19 Dec 2015
I'm interested in getting into ice climbing but don't know anyone who has the skills to take out a novice and the courses are a bit out of my price range at the moment! Could anyone please give me some advice on how they got into ice climbing/ found partners? Also, if anyone was prepare to take out a novice, I would happily pay petrol and buy the beer on any trips! Cheers
 olddirtydoggy 19 Dec 2015
In reply to ross_spours:

I totally get where you're coming from as ice climbing isn't easy to break into without some help. Over the last few years I started solo trips on some of the harder scrambling ridges and gullys to get a feel for the axes and crampons. There's a pile of vids on youtube that have some great info. Mike Barter's stuff is all good and the Glenmore Lodge vids are very useful. The stuff on safety is just as good as the tech vids.
This winter I booked 5 days at the Glenmore lodge and hopefully the last few years of playing around should help skip the basics and get onto the good stuff.
ROSP 19 Dec 2015
In reply to olddirtydoggy:

Cheers for the advice, much appreciated!
 k_os 20 Dec 2015

I wouldn't advise soloing stuff in winter if you've no previous experience to be honest. If the age in your profile is right, there are a number of options for courses that will be in budget, as you can get them either free or heavily subsidised by awards that aim to teach people in exactly your position. I did a week long mountaineering course with Plas y Brenin which was subsidised by the Godfrey Jackson Memorial Award, bringing the cost to something like 1/4 of what it would have been otherwise. The Brenin are also the providers of the well known Conville courses which run in both Scotland and the Alps, again for the younger mountaineer looking to get started. Both these are listed in the link below...

http://pyb.co.uk/awards.php

Another option is joining the Austrian Alpine Club (UK section, link below), which will cost you £36 as a Junior member and give you access to potentially fully subsidised courses (mostly in Austria, but I think some are UK based). Being a member of the AAC is also a generally good thing due to their membership insurance (although it's not a normal travel policy, so have a look).

http://aacuk.org.uk/

Go on a course [above], join a local mountaineering club[1], uni mountaineering club if you're going, buy/borrow winter skills books [2], go to one of the BMCs winter skills lectures [3], buy the BMC DVD [4] or find a partner on here [5]. Plenty of options that won't break the bank. But I would avoid going on your own (at least for now), you'll have far more fun with a mate/someone you trust.

[1]https://www.thebmc.co.uk/map

[2] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Skills-Essential-Climbing-Techniques/dp/0954...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mountaineering-Freedom-Hills-40-Experts/dp/19040572...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Mountain-Skills-Training-Handbook/dp/1446300978
Plenty of others, just a selection of the ones i've owned/read

[3] actually you've missed these this season but they'll be back next winter - https://www.thebmc.co.uk/sharpen-your-skills-with-a-bmc-winter-lecture-this...

[4] https://www.thebmc.co.uk/winter-essentials-dvd

[5] try to climb with prospective winter partners before making a big trip to Avimore only to find that you don't really get on or they were completely bullsh*tting about their previous experience etc.

Hope that's useful!
 Andy Nisbet 20 Dec 2015
In reply to ross_spours:

If you've no partners, winter hillwalking is a good start, especially steeper hills where crampons are needed.
ROSP 20 Dec 2015
In reply to kos_os:

Hi, thank you very much for your detailed advice. I will put in bids for those subsidised courses next year as I have missed the dates for this season. Thanks again!
ROSP 20 Dec 2015
In reply to Andy Nisbet:

Thank you for your advice
 Root1 20 Dec 2015
In reply to ross_spours:

Read the BMCwinter skills book. Invaluable.
 Billhook 20 Dec 2015
In reply to ross_spours:

There's absolutely no need to do courses.

Just get out walking in winter or go to your local climbing club, buy a beer or two, get socialising a bit whilst you're out. You'll find someone who'll take you out and you'll pick the skills up bit by bit and you'll be off.

Thats how all of my generation learned because thee were no courses and its still a very acceptable way of learning. Its called an apprenticeship!
 Jasonic 02 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:

Also consider joining your local club- another traditional way to meet folk.

http://swmc.org.uk/
 JackM92 02 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:

I'd never actually done any trad climbing before going straight into the winter stuff, climbed Crowberry Gully in Glen Coe as a first route (of any kind), then the week after that went to the Ben with a mate from work and led the steeper pitch on The Curtain!
It was the first time I'd placed a screw, or had to set up a belay, and the phrase 'no cuff too tough' sprung to mind.
1
 Tricadam 03 Jan 2016
In reply to Andy Nisbet:

+1 to winter hillwalking being the logical way to get into winter climbing. The well-trodden route these days seems to be indoor climbing -> trad climbing -> winter climbing, but given that 75% of winter climbing is hill- and snowcraft, that approach doesn't really make sense if winter climbing is what you're headed towards.

On the technical side, I think part of what's important, in terms of developing new skills, is figuring out how you learn best and gearing your time investment towards that. Lots of great tips above.
 iksander 04 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:

Just bear in mind "ice climbing" is quite diffferent to the vast majority of UK "winter climbing". In a good winter with a bit of luck you *can* climb ice in the UK, but most of the time it is "mixed" climbing of snow/ iced up rock/ turf/ mud/ grass/ choss - a bit different from the gleaming frozen waterfalls of the Alps/ Norway/ Rockies.

While it's possible to do UK winter climbing on a budget, "ice climbing" usually involves foreign travel.
 IPPurewater 04 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:
Ross, I suugest you go along to your local club.

Here is a link to the BMC clubs page. https://www.thebmc.co.uk/essential-club-know-how
It explains a bit about clubs, gives a link to find your local club and provides contact details.

Good luck. IPP
Post edited at 11:29
 Misha 04 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:
Join a club with active experienced winter climbers.
 Misha 04 Jan 2016
In reply to JackM92:
Good on you but I wouldn't recommend someone to get into technical winter climbing without at least some summer trad experience - placing gear and building belays are skills that are best learned on a single pitch crag when it's warm and the gear placements aren't covered in snow and ice!
 ipfreely 04 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:

+1 for winter hill walking / easy ridge (I) walking
 Tricadam 04 Jan 2016
In reply to Misha:

I actually disagree, Misha - having learned this stuff myself during a minging winter week in the NW highlands! Learning to tie knots, place gear in snow-covered rock, set up belays etc - all while wearing Dachsteins - prepares you well for the first time you have to do it alone in winter. And if you subsequently get into trad (as I have a little bit) placing gear and ropework feels like shooting fish in a barrel. Whereas I'd imagine that if you started on trad, the facts that finding winter gear placements requires a fair bit more skill and work and that you often only get to place a runner every 5-10 metres in winter would feel distinctly unnerving!
1
In reply to adamarchie: Having had the misfortune to watch a novice Winter climber fail find any decent rock gear and then take a 20+ metre fall on a grade III breaking both his ankles, I am definitely with Misha on this one.
The last place you want to be learning to find and place rock gear is run out on a Winter route.

 Misha 04 Jan 2016
In reply to adamarchie:
Considering that starting trad can be scary and early gear placements can be poor even on nice dry rock with plenty of gear options, starting in winter where placements are harder, less certain and fewer apart won't be a good idea for most people. May be if you're going up an easy grade I snow gully where you're very unlikely to fall and you've got someone experienced soloing next to you, practicing gear placements on the sides of the gully isn't such a bad idea. Still, you'd be better off doing it on an average VDiff in summer. It worked for you but it might not be great for us mere mortals!
 Misha 04 Jan 2016
In reply to adamarchie:
May be you Scots are just hard! So many people out there whose winter grades are disproportionately higher than their summer grades, compared to us softies!
 Tricadam 05 Jan 2016
In reply to The Ex-Engineer:

I wholeheartedly agree that grade IIIs are not where novices should be learning their gear and rope trade. In fact I've often thought that III might be the most dangerous grade, full stop: at grades below this, the lack of available gear isn't too much of an issue once you've some experience as the climbing is (usually!) straightforward; at IV upwards, the route is usually either on proper screwable ice or steeper rock - generally abounding in protectable cracks, otherwise it wouldn't be climbable. In between is the dreaded land of the grade III where sketchy steep snow and blank slabs abound and protection doesn't!
 Tricadam 05 Jan 2016
In reply to Misha:

> May be you Scots are just hard! So many people out there whose winter grades are disproportionately higher than their summer grades, compared to us softies!

Aye, we're well'ard up here!
 Andy Nisbet 05 Jan 2016
In reply to adamarchie:

> I wholeheartedly agree that grade IIIs are not where novices should be learning their gear and rope trade.

Absolutely. Given that you can add at least one to the grade if conditions are poor (or even normal if the route has been graded for good conditions), then you could get yourself into trouble. It's different for those more experienced who can interpret the conditions. Start easy and progress quickly if you are finding things OK.
 thomm 05 Jan 2016
In reply to ross_spours:
Lots of good recommendations here, often shaped by people's own differing experiences. I took the hill-walking route (was using axe and crampons many years before my first rock climb), but the course / club / guide / rock / wall routes can all work for different people. It really depends on finding potential partners and what they want to do, since the solo route is by far the most risky and difficult.

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