UKC

Saturday: We went up the Cobbler. My it was a glorious day. Sun, crisp air, virgin snow, probably one of the best days I have ever had despite being knee deep in snow. I took lots of memories, and left lots of footprints, knee prints, bum prints, body prints...

Sunday: Went to the climbing wall and met up with some friends. It was a lovely day as well

In reply to lynda: Dragged my brother and two friends kicking and screaming up pen y fan. Very interesting day out

In reply to lynda:

was on the cobbler on Saturday too! What route did you do?

In reply to Flatlander:

I wasn't climbing it was just a hill walk for us (not fit enough to climb yet)

We crossed over at the wier and walked up the shoulder on the left. What time were you up there for? We went up at 8.30 am and were back at the car for 2.30 am

In reply to lynda:

Saturday: Failed to get out of bed due to massive hangover (an I'm-never-drinking-againser) until it was dark.

Sunday: Finally got out in my shiny new kayak and swam about in a freezing river all morning. Kayaking may be a summer sport. 'Twas good fun though but I don't think I've ever been so cold!

In reply to lynda:

I did the Aonach Eagach with 'Dr Marten'. An absolutely outstanding day. Lovely blue skies / sunshine in the morning, and a beautiful sunset at the end of the day. Quite a lot of powdery snow - which was never a problem - although the walk off from the Pap Bealach was a bit tedious.

One of the best days I've had on the hills though.

Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

(I did nothing yesterday).

In reply to lynda: Sat am - Hangover. Sat pm - Surfed Aberdeen.
Sun - did buggerall. Literally.

In reply to lynda:

we got there about 9ish and got back to the car by 5

glad to hear you are out and about again

In reply to lynda: Creation Climbing wall Saturday, Awesome walls in stockport Sunday. Good weekend all round.

In reply to lynda:

Night out in Manchester Friday night, bummed about in Sheffield and Ikea on Saturday, and went out for a lovely walk up Win hill and Lose hill yesterday! Much better than freezing my tits off at the crag. Time for the trig point profile pictures to being again me thinks!

Taxus on Beinn an Dothaidh - if anyone finds my clipper leash be most pleased if it is returned

http://www.mountainactive.co.uk/blog/

Davy

In reply to Chris F: Lay Z boy!

We went up to Skye on thursday night, dumped a car at Glen Brittle and got a left in Ben's new transit to his house. Sorted bivvy and climbing gear, set alarms for 4am and went to sleep.

3 hours later the alarms went off...grim!

Rammed down some breakfast and set off for the walk in to Sgurr nan Gillean. When we reached the river we turned right and started looking for a bridge....which has been washed away. So, 20 mins later we're finally on the path.

3 hours later, when we had already planned to be getting up and down Gillean, we still hadn't reached the col and the knee deep heavy snow was seriously tiring.

We quickly decided the ridge just wasn't going to happen, so we sacked it in and went down, doing a bit of "dry-tool bouldering" on the way.

We had thought of driving over to Beinn Eighe on Saturday, but due to excessive faffing we ran out of time and decided to try and get a new route done on Skye instead, unfortunately it was as black as coal so we continued up to the "fall-back" option. Turf was mushy, ice was cruddy and pro was dodgy!

So, all in a bit of a non-weekend, the only consolation was the first ascent of a nice Grade 1 Gully

In reply to Flatlander:

I was on the Cobbler too on Saturday! Just on my own for a quick traverse and then over Narnain. What an amazing day, was gutted that I forgot my camera. Were you climbing?

In reply to lynda:

Did the family thing! Early Christmas as sis and her bloke off to see my parents imminently. Went to London on Fridy evening, had a series of tapas at my sis's with her and her bloke, drank wine, nattered, chilled. Had big lunch with sis, her bloke, my aunt and her family on the Saturday (in East Sussex). Got home late. Had a lazy lie in and brunch. Then tootled home.

In reply to Davy Virdee: How was the turf? We had thought of the grey corries for Saturday but weren't sure if it would be in nick or not.

In reply to lynda:

First weekend my leg has been out of plaster for 7 weeks :-D Not allowed to climb yet but spent the weekend up in the lakes. Spent saturday at the bottom of a crag taking some pictures, was pleased just to go out and strech the old legs. Spent Sunday shopping and visiting various Keswick teashops and pubs!

In reply to Sarah_Clough:

Agree! Unless it's unseasonably warm this weekend, I'll be more up for walking than cragging. Otherwise I'll walk around the crag a lot haha!

In reply to lynda: sat played xmas carols at hughenden manor, then drove to b'ham for a b'day party. where i too got hideously drunk after being plied with Gin and tonic.

So much so that i was sucking red wine from my best man's fiance's jumper, and was put to bed shortly thereafter.

Sunday was recovery and trying not to remember any events from the previous night.. however, the cameras present didn't allow this...

oh the shame,,, i'm never, ever, drinking again,,


well, maybe not never.

In reply to Alasdair Fulton:

Good - good ice too.

d

In reply to Flatlander: Thank you, glad you had a good day as well. I am however, very un-hill-fit

In reply to Alasdair Fulton:
Lazy maybe, but achieved more than you, at considerably less effort

Plus I am still suffering with a particularly bad strain of man-flu.

In reply to Davy Virdee: Cool, pity I'm goign offshore on Thursday and won't be able to make the most of it!

In reply to Chris F: Well, I can't really argue with that!

In reply to lynda:

Participated as a volunteer casualty for a joint MRT training exercise on Sat. Which in reality meant going for a pleasant walk on a beautiful day in the Ochils and witnessing one of the best sunsets I have seen in a long time.

On Sun I did not much, spent some quality time with my BF and went out to the Christmas German Market/Fair in Edinburgh to attempt to take the photo I have been trying to take for the last two years!

In reply to lynda:
We went up Stob Coire nan Lochan - wanted Bummerang Gully missed it somehow and were breaking trail through Pinnacle Gully finally..... snow varied from hip deep to front pointing for the last 5 m - amazing day. then on to Bidean nam Bian and down the lost valley...... very icy path in the glen.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-5311634370007233981
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-4802310080666758357
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7181331536137781425
cheerio
Frank

In reply to lynda:

We were on the Brack, cracking day, only one other guy on the hill.
Could see a few on top of the Cobler

In reply to lynda:

lots of snow in the lakes ski tow apparently open on saturday, breakable crust and some ice but not compacted enough to warrant crampons, no climbing done but did decend rapidly down some gully off the side of red screes on the way down to the kirkstone pass, even saw some people ski mountaineering going up the other side
sunday not much to see but seemed even more snow on the top of crinkle crags

In reply to lynda: Long run in the peak on friday, meant to be 8 miles but got lost once it went dark with no maps so had to run towards lights we recognised and run back from there, long 16 miler..

Saturday bouldering at the beacon

Sunday 10 k race, PB just sub 34:30 I think, happy enough, now need to look at sub 34. Went off too fast, did 2 5:13 min miles then slowed and the 16 miler 2 days earlier would have slowed me, icey roads as well, so reckon sub 34 isn't out of the question.

In reply to kathrync:


Did you get the photo?

In reply to Sarah_Clough:

Dunno, I'll have to wait until I have had the film developed!

In reply to lynda:

Over the weekend I had a big fat pizza, and it came to me like a bolt out of the blue - CHRISTMAS PIZZA - The favorite of Good King Wenceslas -- pizza that is "deep-pan, crisp and even." mmm.

Also since it is Monday... more useless info PLOUGH MONDAY to one any all -- "God speed the plough, 'a wish for success or prosperity,' was originally a phrase in a 15th-century song sung by ploughmen on Plough Monday; the first Monday after the Twelfth Day, which is the end of the Christmas holidays, when farm laborers returned to the plough, soliciting 'plough money' to spend in celebration." From "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

I hope everyone has a happy Monday.

Ben.

In reply to lynda:

Friday - mountaineering club ceilidh.

Saturday - took my sofa down 3 flights of stairs (hooray for the two friends who got up early to help us do it) put it in van took it to bloke's flat. Spend day cleaning flat, moved the rest of his stuff out of it into van. Sofa went into flat via living room window! Van wouldn't start - eventually bump started it with the help of a friendly neighbour. Carried all the stuff (including his sofa) up 3 flights of stairs to my flat. Ate pizza amid the chaos.

Sunday - bought some boxes and put lots of stuff in them. It looks as though we might actually manage to get the quart into the pint pot...

In reply to kathrync:

What was it of?

In reply to lynda:

saturday - surfing at Macrahanish. Perfect but cold!
sunday - wandered up Ben Lawers, fun navigation in whiteout conditions near the summit. To anyone in the University of York mountaineering club who reads this - we met you in the Lawers Hotel that evening - hope you made the made the drive back to York ok that night

rb

In reply to Sarah_Clough:

There is a ferris wheel that gets erected right next to the Walter Scott monument every year. I am trying to get a good light trail photograph of it with the silhouette of the monument, but there is always something that isn't quite right!

In reply to lynda:


So did we. A cracking day and a cracking romp up Central Gully

In reply to lynda: Saturday: Scabbard Chimney in SCnL, quite exciting but fantastic.
Sunday: Not too much, short walk talk about snow pack and then drove home.

In reply to Jim Walton:

Ooooh, I also learned about the conditions for avalanching, and how to check the slab for the potential to avalanche (sugar snow etc). It was really interesting.

I had to fight the urge to make snow angels, snow really brings the kid out in me.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

Hey John, next time you're up that way get in touch, Lesley's only a couple of miles up the road from there.
Saturday however I was taking her on a tour of Glasgow, starting with the fracture clinic at the RAH in Paisley

In reply to Nevis-the-cat: What time were you guys there at? We meet some people at the car park around 8 am (on chap had forgotton his harness). Just wondered if they managed to get some stuff done too.

In reply to Chris F:


You mean.....

You mean.........

You took EVERYTHING in the UNIVERSE up the bum???!!!!

In reply to lynda:

Got the season off to a cracking start in Glen Clova. Climbed B Gully on Sat, which had a steep ice pitch near the top, good sport. Then continued to Mayar, watched the best sunset I've ever seen in Scotland (or anywhere, for that matter), continued to Driesh & then down again.

On Sunday we found some ice in Winter Corrie & had two good pitches before the long drive back. Brilliant, brilliant weekend.

In reply to tlm:

So That's where my hairbrush and other slipper went! ;oP

In reply to tlm:

Yup. Red raw this morning.

In reply to Mike C:

Will do. Looking to get lots done this season so will get in touch

John

In reply to lynda:

We got to the bottom of the crag around 10am. Three of us, Endless Winkle, myself and the fabulously sexy Lady HC~R.

It waqs not as busy qas I expected it to be, only 2 other parties on the route all day.

In reply to Mike C:

Is she OK?

In reply to Toby S:

Colles Fracture - wrist in plaster for 6 weeks, then another 6 weeks recovery. That's the XC skiis & kayaks away for most of the winter
Just don't ask how she did it!

In reply to lynda:

Myself and two other contributors to this forum went here: http://www.streetmap.co.uk/idmap.srf?x=205305&y=835860&z=130&sv... to a bothy. One of the remotest in Scotland. The idea was to check out some corries for possible winter climbing.

We left the car at 8.50 on Friday night and cycled up the estate road with rucksacks laden with the usual bothy stuff and a load of winter gear. The road turned out to be mainly covered in ice which slowed progress somewhat and lead to several crashes. Once that part of the journey was completed we hid the bikes and started walking. Again we had the choice of walking up the icy tracks made by the tracks of the estate ATV's or floundering in unconsolidated snow. Mostly we took the former. The path turned out to be considerably longer and steeper than we had anticipated. We had vaguely expected to get to the bothy about midnight. We arrived at 2.35am. The only enjoyable thing about the journey was the weather. Very cold and a cloudless sky, one of those nights when you can see the Milky Way and every star in the sky. I saw two shooting stars while lying on the ground gasping for breath.

On Saturday we overslept a little and were forced to refocus our objectives somewhat. However it was a spectacularly beautiful day and I think we all felt grateful for being in such a remote and beautiful corner of Scotland. On returning to the the bothy I was amazed to find someone else had turned up. It was the maintenance organiser, a Lancastrian in his seventies who had walked in that morning from Ben Dronaig bothy and was intending to stay for a week or so. He turned out to be quite a character. A single man who spent about 150 days a year in bothies.

Saturday evening it started to rain.

Sunday morning one of my companions went out early and on returning remarked that the journey out was likely to be just as unpleasant as the journey in but in an entirely different way. He was proved right.

Burns which were mere trickles on the way in were now swollen with melt water and rain. It was windy, it rained much of the time. The cycle out to the car should have been easy being mainly downhill, but the effects of a negative gradient on forward progress were negated by the gale that was now blowing in our faces, often reinforced by sheets of rain.

The car was a welcome sight.

In reply to Removed User:

but worth it?

In reply to lynda: Missed this thread earlier! I spent Saturday going up to Birmingham, setting up and manning an exhibition stand,and then coming back down to Worthing again. Was it worth it? No, not really, we didn't make a huge amount of sales and only had a small number of customers through the door However, you have to been seen to be attending these things, otherwise customers assume you're dead or something!

Sunday was spent doing not very much apart from some Christmas shopping, including buying Dad's present from Mum so that he won't find out about it before the day!

In reply to lynda:

LMC over-eating meet in the Duddon Valley.
Saturday I managed to get a rock route done near Seathwaite, but the objectives I had on Wallowbarrow were running with water (despite the crag looking superficially dry). Perhaps the most astonishing lighting I have ever seen in the UK, but unfortunately I couldn't really get a decent picture of it (the back of Dow was bathed in a lusterous piny-orange light after the sun had set - at the point I did wish that I had been well enough to get up that high).
Saturday night - amazing Mexican meal for the troops
Sunday - trying to find something good to photgraph as the mist and low cloud slowly cleared - again rather unlucky in that respect.

PP.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

Seeing as half of UKC seems to have been on the Cobbler, many thanks to whoever it was that gave me change for a fiver in the car park.

In reply to Removed User:

And did you find any? I see Saturday during the day has disappeared from your story, like you weren't wanting to give anything away.

In reply to Removed User: Pretty much sums it up nicely Eric.

Andy....nothing of note. A couple of waterfalls on the west side of Aonach Bhuidhe possibly, but they didn't look particularly steep. And I'd imagine it'd take a sustained period of freezing for them to ever come into condition.

Nice weekend though!

In reply to wcdave:

Shame. I did the three Corbetts there and looked down into the mist, and it looked very steep. But obviously not steep enough

In reply to Andy Nisbet: There's some steep ground on AB right enough....unfortunately it's all grass/broken ground. The west side, where the waterfalls are, is probably the least steep part of the hill.

The hills(I think one of them's a Graham?) on the other side of the loch/river on the way up to Iron Lodge had some very impressive, long, gullies on them. Again though, it'd take a very sustained cold snap before they ever came into nick (that's if they've not been done already).

In reply to kathrync:

Cool, hope it comes out!

Thrashed up the side of a drainage bowl on Mt Hood (Kananaskis Country) for 5.5 hours to reach a climb that the guidebook said should be 90 mins away. Soloed numerous easy ice steps 5-10 m high on the way. Turned around one hour before dark, still 45 mins from the route (we could now see it above us at last). Descended the drainage instead of the suicide track we'd followed in to the route and found that the lower part of the draiange is blocked by a collosal log jam about 15 m high. Interesting descent...got back to the car well after dark to be greeted by a ranger, who said 'you don't see many people coming out of there'. At least I got to use my new tools though.

In reply to lynda: met up with six lads from all over Ireland in the Killarney National Park and did howling ridge .Two hours on the finest alpine(ish) route in Ireland probably the best view from the summit of Carrantouhill I've seen in ten years of climbing up there,cold and clear with cloud inversions in every cwm and low cloud usually only seen from 4000ft in the alps.Thanks to all those that made the effort.Off to Kumaon Himalayas on Thursday for a wee holiday.Good luck to Keith on Aconcagua in the New Year.To the rest of ye ,come down to Cork as soon as conditions hit in, which I've been which I've been informed will be mid Jan.

Perfect winter walking conditions in the Lakes (Blea Tarn cottage - Pike o Blisco - Crinkle Crags - The Band) and a not-in-condition snow gully on Crinkle Crags, then a hearty dinner at the ODG. Shorter walk under a sombre sky on Sunday followed by digging the cars out.

In reply to lynda:

Nothing, nursing a very sore knee.
Hope it'll be ready for action in a couple of weeks.

In reply to lynda:

Hi

Spent the weekend in Cwm Idwal winter climbing.

Saturday

Did Hidden Gully (2) solo on sugary snow then descended down Easy Gully (1). Then did Nameless Face (2-3) and descended Nameless Gully (1) before the mad dash down the mountain slipping on verglas rock back to Ogwen for mountaineering club dinner.

Sunday

Did Tower Slabs (3) on good ice and neve then walked over Glyder Fawr and down the Devils Kitchen. While walking out, we had a surreal moment. We clocked a collie dog 'topping out' Easy gully. As we looked at each other the owner followed up a bit puffed. You can imagine our thoughts; the owner was trying to get his dog back while the dog though was a new fun game climbing the steeping slope on hard snow....brilliant.

In reply to lynda:
Langdale ODG to Great End: Cental Gully Left Hand, Cust's Gully, South East Gully (all solo). A great end to the day. Then back to the ODG in the blustery swirling winds, shattered but happy to have ice climbed on such local peaks.

In reply to lynda:
A good weekend on Ben Nevis - did quite a few of the easy gullies and ridges (Ledge), a nice easing back into winter climbing for the season.

In reply to lynda: Acted as a casualty for the same exercise that kathryn did above. We got 'rescued' at 7.30 so got to play (and we got fed lots of sweeties and got a ride in the Landy down a steepish hill which was cool, and met a couple of the Sarda dogs) Then got free soup and stovies