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Guided mountain experiences and skills - Scottish Highlands, south central Scotland and the Lakes.

18/12/2024

It has been full on winter conditions in the mountains recently, and although most of it has thawed this week it will undoubtedly be back soon. Accessing the mountains in winter requires more and better equipment than in summer, navigation is harder, electronic devices run down their batteries quicker, there are more hazards to avoid and more that can go wrong, and emergencies are harder to manage.

On the flip side, the hills become a truly magical place in the winter and experiencing them at this time of year is unforgettable. Developing the skills to do this independently will make you a more rounded mountaineer with better judgement, and give you greater self confidence in both the hills and possibly life generally!

Winter skills courses available throughout the season - get in touch to book yours. And remember to always at this time of the year.

Mountaineering Scotland
Mountain Training
Scottish Mountain Rescue

23/09/2024

A grand late summer adventure in the Cairngorms yesterday on Eagle Ridge, Lochnagar, with Emily. A long desired tick for her and the second time on this classic route for me, just as good as the first time! Possibly the technically hardest of Scotland's classic ridges, Eagle Ridge is officially a Severe graded climb - but unlike most of the country's other ridges, this one is full on sustained climbing from start to finish without any of the easy linking terrain of other classics such as Tower Ridge. Featuring big exposure, some amazing positions, complex route finding and several sequences of climbing that are significantly harder than the grade would suggest this is definitely a route with teeth - but an amazing experience for the prepared!

University climbing club vehicle woes throwback vibes on the way home when Ems wing mirror was exploded by a rogue pheasant! Cue ziptying it back together in a dark farmyard at 11pm. Good times.

01/08/2024

10 days in the Highlands prepping for MCI assessment - from Dunkeld to Fort William, Applecross, Torridon and Gairloch then back to Fort William again. Climbing, mountaineering and teaching, from valley cragging to big mountain faces. A class weekend and a half, thanks to Cam, Charlie and Al for all the peer/instructor input and practice and to all my mock clients for coming out with me! Great to catch up with Nate at Skye Mountaineering too.

07/06/2024

It's feeling pretty wintery again in the hills this weekend, despite being June, but it was a lot more summery this time last week! A reminder of just how changeable the conditions can be in the Scottish mountains.

A phenomenal couple of days out - a bluebird day on Saturday for an ascent of the classic Tower Ridge on Ben Nevis with Emily and Lewis which felt like a summer alpine day, the a less sunny but still (mostly) dry day on Curved Ridge on the Buachaille on Sunday with Alasdair and Shauna. Thanks as always for helping me out as I prepare for MCI assessment!

06/06/2024

An absolute pleasure to spend last week guiding in Glencoe with Yorkie Talkies Outdoors! ⛰️ Mixture of weather with it slowly improving through the week with the views slowly revealing themselves!

22/05/2024

Another fine weekend in the lakes climbing and working on a charity walking event! Great to catch up with folks and be involved with another well run event.

Walking With The Wounded

16/05/2024

Classic early summer lakes trip - climbing, swimming, dossing around Keswick and an impromptu display of the northern lights!

14/05/2024

A brilliant recent weekend on Skye guiding for a group from EYW - Edinburgh Young Walkers as part of my preparation for upcoming Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor assessment later this year. Great to work alongside Jamie on the ridge and bounce ideas off each other and watch the other work with mock clients - super useful!

We were very lucky with the weather and managed a series of classic days out including a traverse of the northern Cuillin munros, the four tops of Sgurr a Mhadaidh and an ascent of the innpinn and Sgurr Mhic Coinnich. The weather took a turn for the worse on the bank holiday Monday so Jan and I headed south to Glencoe where the weather was better and managed a successful ascent of Crowberry Ridge on the Buachaille.

A class long weekend and great practice for the assessment! Thanks to everyone who has come out and been a guinea pig on a rope with me, it's much appreciated.

29/04/2024

After a wet and cold start to the spring, good weather finally arrived in the Highlands this weekend. A phenomenal weekend on Skye and Raasay where unusually the weather was better than on the mainland!

Two classic Cuillin routes - the amazing Clach (class) Glas - Blabheinn traverse and Sgurr nan Gillean's Pinnacle Ridge. Perfect grippy gabbro and basalt d***s, big mountain exposure and brilliant climbing over two of the UKs finest mountaineering routes, topped off by dinner hosted by Nate and Lizzie at Skye Mountaineering (many thanks!) and stargazing out of the van.

Testing my new mescalito approach shoes on the Cuillin - very good first impressions!

02/04/2024

Early spring Scotland adventures 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

A long Easter weekend of mountain sports in grand company to kick off spring and mark the clock change!

Some fine touring conditions to be found high up in the Cairngorms - two days of skiing with Dave and Cat after attending a rescues workshop on Friday, followed by a leg stretch up Ben Oss and Beinn Dubhchraig over west for Easter Monday. Spring can often be the best time of year to be in the Scottish mountains as the days get longer, the weather gets better and the midges have yet to emerge!

05/03/2024

Winter climbing in Scotland can be a frustrating exercise - good conditions can prove elusive and the weather is often wild. When it comes good though, it can be excellent. Over the last couple of weeks I have been out quite a bit with several good friends and trusted climbing partners where we have found some great conditions and surprisingly good weather! Snow and ice routes have remained lean for the most part - this has unfortunately been a "low snow" winter to date. Mixed climbing comes in much quicker though and while it is not my preferred or strongest style of winter climbing it is still a lot of fun.

Particularly great was climbing Deep Cut Chimney on Hells Lum at the weekend with Oliver Grady. I've wanted to do this route for years since seeing a picture of it - the top pitch looks totally improbable and is absolutely outrageous - it must be one of the most photogenic pitches of winter climbing in Scotland. And as it turns out, it wasn't even the crux pitch in current conditions!

Skye Mountaineering

03/03/2024

It's not often that you hope for whiteout conditions in the mountains - but it certainly helped to put things into context today running a winter navigation and avalanche awareness course for Edinburgh Young Walkers!

12/02/2024

A fine winter expedition over Aonach Beag yesterday - and a good example of how quickly conditions can change in the mountains and the importance of being prepared and skilled up. Blue skies, sunshine and light winds gave way rapidly to thick cloud and snow enveloping the peaks in the late morning, resulting in whiteout (sometimes referred to as "the white room" or likened to being inside a ping pong ball). The summit ridge and plateaus of the Aonachs are serious places in these conditions, with large corniced cliffs right next to the summit of Aonach Beag. In nil visibility like this in winter, it would be all too easy to wander off the edge of a cliff - especially since corniced edges make it impossible to see where solid ground actually turns to empty space! Yesterday the only visible features at the top were glide cracks in the snowpack, where recent warmer temperatures have caused the snowpack near the cliff edge to "creep" - this can result in full depth avalanches though these are extremely hard to predict.

There were also reports of multiple avalanches in the area yesterday. Good route choice, honest assessment of you and your parties equipment and skill level, knowledge of avalanche conditions and excellent navigation skills are all essential to an enjoyable and more importantly safe day in the hills at this time of year. But with these in place some incredible days out in what feels like an entirely different world can be enjoyed!

12/01/2024

2024 already delivering some amazing mountain days - bluebird skies and great snow conditions up high for a couple days out trying the new ski touring setup around glenshee and helping Colin to consolidate some technical skills for his WML. Can confirm that descending munros on skis is even more fun than glissading!

A reminder of the seriousness of winter terrain today watching somebody very nearly get caught in an avalanche - the snow may be well consolidated now and the avalanche forecasts a full ring of green - but remember low doesn't necessarily mean no!

31/12/2023

Happy new year from Skye!

Here's to many more adventures in 2024.

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