I was ambling along daggering the snow with my axes, and noticed that the rope seemed to have got rather long. “How’s rope ?” I called to Paul…… getting “2 metres left” for an answer. A trifle unsatisfactory. That meant there would be rather more than 40 metres of rope… Continue reading
I concentrated quite hard, keeping my weight directly over the fine edge of snow, and carefully planting axe, pole, left foot, right foot…….. repeat. As snow aretes go, Sron nan Guibhas was definitely “narrow”. There’s over 800 metres of it altogether, sometimes comfortably a few metres wide, but several times… Continue reading
Getting high on white powder To general surprise, the Club weekend at Newlands on 13th/14th February coincided with a short period of good weather in the Lake District. Most of us started at Seathwaite and following Mike’s clever idea, we walked past Sty Head and onto the Corridor Route to… Continue reading
Oh dearie me !! One thing just leads on to another, don’t you find ? Poor weather in the west led to our being in Glen Shee. We had a good plan to walk from Balmoral and do the Stuic scramble onto Lochnagar, returning across Conachcraig, the adjacent Corbett. Then… Continue reading
My friend Steve W. and I had only a week to spare for a trip, so we decided to “cherry-pick’ the five most dramatic days (as we were told) of this famous route in between the Easyjet Tuesday flight to Nice, and it’s return. The mountains of Corsica form a… Continue reading
Our headline refers – obviously – to scramble routes in the West Highlands. First up was Ledges Route. This must be a contender for the best way up Ben Nevis. Interesting (in contrast to the Tourist Track) straightforward, and a reasonably short way to the summit as opposed to the… Continue reading
Dolly and I thumbed a couple of pages from R B Evans last week. On Monday, we chose Nitting Haws in Borrowdale. It’s a spur within the valley, so somewhat sheltered when conditions “upstairs” are less good. It provides about 250 metres height of scrambling, topping out at 410 M,… Continue reading
Here is a recipe for a Scottish weekend… to be used in cool showery and windy weather. INGREDIENTS A couple of Munros, c/w snow patches. (Beinn Eunaich and Beinn a’ Chocuill) panoramic views Interestin’ map to read……. Dinky mediaeval castle (Kilchurn) Afternoon tea in Victorian mansion (Lochawe) Dinner at The… Continue reading
The estate factor had not been paid for 18 months. The local people had blockaded the landowner in the big house: he escaped by helicopter. In this way the sometimes violent history of Knoydart was still being played out when I first went there in 1998. The peninsula has no… Continue reading
