Well folks that is me off to the Spanish Pyrenees tonight followed by two weeks in the Suisse alps. I will try and keep you posted on my adventures out there...in the mean time have fun out there whatever use get up to lads and lassies!!
Hasta Pronto,
And remember ...Go daft and do some crazy stuff. get some air and jump into the unknown now and again....it feels so good...after all...you only live once!!
This week has been wild, windy, bitterly cold. Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty good but it seem to get wildish again though milder.
I was working with a school group from the South Friday and Saturday and managed to virtually lose my car door in Glenshee car park whilst I was transported and dumped a 100m further. Everything was flying out of my car past me, including my favorite hat. Boohoo. If anyone finds a pink and gray Bula beeny round GLenshee please contact me! I managed to crawl back to my car and push the door shut without me in it...by this time the winds got worse and worse and I was hanging of my roof bars with my legs dangling in the air, not able to let go! My brain was working overtime thinking, what on earth am I going to do? It was like a comedy sketch but then with quite a serious undertone! There was hardly anyone going by as nobody obviously wanted to venture up that way.
My colleagues hadn't arrived yet and I had tried to phone them to tell that the weather was to bad to come up and they should stay lower down and I would meet them but now I needed help. After 20min dangling in the air hoping that someone would pick up on my somewhat precarious situation a van passed by and noticed there was something weird going on at the other end of the car park. He drove up towards me and I was trying to explain him to park his van so that it would give me shelter from the wind and I could try and enter my own car. In the end we needed two vans to make a triangle round my car before I had enough shelter to crawl in. Wow what an epic!!!
White out....
I phoned my colleagues who decided to come up and check it out anyway as it didn't look so bad lower down..well they got the message alright when they got to the car park.
Everything alright in there?
We ended up doing a day starting from the lower car park. As the day went on the weather got worse and worse. It was hardly possible to do any major teaching. We ended up doing a big shovel up but the bitter cold and strong freezing winds made it pretty nasty out there and whatever we did it was very hard to keep people warm out there. We looked like a bunch of yetis at the end of the day and I was glad to get off the hill.
The 4 funny folks..
The next day we went to Cairngorms and it was slightly better in terms of wind and it got better as day went on. We did a lot of winterskills on the lower slopes in Sneachda and it was good fun. There were tons of climbers out on the snow and ice and I have never seen so many folks on the crags in Sneachda..it was like an ants nest!!
On Sunday I changed clients and was now working with young officers. The first day was a winterskills day at the hills behind Tulloch Station. Again pretty wild and cold and complete white out for the first half of the day made work pretty intense.
A lot of teaching navigation and necessary navigation!! The second half of the day we worked on winter skills followed by a journey over Stob Coire Sgriodain. The weather improved throughout the day which gave us some beautiful views of the plastered hills.
On the second day all went over to Creag Meagaidh. This turned into be a wild, wild day. The idea was to do the whole circuit Starting from the main car park at visitors centre over to Carn Liath and round to Meagaidh but the weather got totally nast and once on the top plateau of Carn Liath we were in complete white out with gail force winds and snow blizzards straight into our face.
Two of the groups went on and continued along the ridge for a little while but in the end all turned roud and came back the same way as we ascended...navigating our way through the soup. At times I couldn't even see my feet.
Once lower down we dug some pits, did some sliding and dug a snow grave whilst others did a shovel up and made I right palacio. We saw all sorts of wild life...especially little voles??? What were they doing out in those conditions? Mental. Also white hares were spotted on a few occasions and snow buntings.
My last day I worked together with my colleague Ian in Coire Leis working on winter skills as the others went back up to bag Meagaidh.
We had a grant day. We dug quite a few pits and the snow pack at the moment is rather interesting!!! Quite a few different layers of slab lying on all sorts of very slidy surfaces...like graupel, ice mmmm. We found many graupel layers!
We spend a quality day out doing winterskills and it was a good laugh with some great characters!!
Ice on our way in..
The Lunch break at the CIC..
Bothy bags are the business...
On our way to Coire Leis
People on the Curtain
Wonderful views...
Steeper terrain..
Kicking steps...hard work..
Beautiful ice and riming along the way...
Happy people...
In the war zone....
'Making ledges' for ruck sacks...
Some sweet demos by Ian and Martin...
Some funny faces by people eating snow...
You must be joking..this doesn't feel right...
Our main man ...Mr Airborne..
The arrest..
The forward role seemed to be the highlight!
Never mind the slightly faster approach...
Gramponing ...
Concentration...
A steep descent...
looking back...
Another beautiful day out in the hills and lot's of people out enjoying themselves wether climbing or walking.. We also met quite a few teams that had turned back due to slight unstable approaches. The curtain so a lot of people...The cave must have been absolutely jammed at one stage!
Also .5 saw many people. Well lot's of people all over again really. It seems to get better up there every day. Lot's of nice ice around!!!!
The weather suppose to get a littlebit milder but hopefully we get that refreeze, so that all of you that remain or come to Scotland over the next 3 weeks will have a great time out there!!!
How many people can we get in the cave???
Well that's it for just now, I am going out to Alps on Saturday and though I am looking forward to it...I really wouldn't mind staying here!!! It is ski touring heaven and climbing paradise just now!!!
Me moving house and preparing for leaving on Saturday...The blog will be updated when I have access to internet out there.
Have a wicked time out there everyone!!
Life is there to be lived!!
Ciaoooo, Chris
Photo: George Reid in .5 Gully by Christel Langeveld
Sunday night saw a team of 3 blokes and a bird walking into the CIC with ridiculously big rucksacks full of essential kit like wine and whiskey. Kirk Watson and Robin Smith, Tom Marshall and myself headed into the Ben for a few wicked days climbing!
Photo: Team on Tower Ridge by Christel Langeveld
On our way in we met Claire, who told us she had been filming Dave MacLeod and Joe French on Don't die of ignorance but she had left them to it as they had been on it for a very long time and it was getting to cold to stand around with the camera and after watching Joe dangling and screaming with pain as Joe ended up in a predicament on the traverse it had been a full on day.
Photo: An overview of the Ben by Christel Langeveld
I met Dave and Joe later as they were coming of the hill properly broken but it had been a success Dave climbed free and Joe did an amazing second, super tough with major complications on the way up as you can read on Dave MacLeod's site. What an inspiration and what a amazing night to come of the hill....the Ben was moonlit and sparkled by the stars...it was an incredible sight.
Photo: Looking into a moonlit Coire Na ciste by Christel Langeveld
On Monday the weather gods were super kind and the teams headed of to their objectives. There were a lot of people on the hill..all arriving with big smiles...and leaving with even bigger ones!!
On our walk into the Comb Gully buttress we saw folks on Italian Climb Right hand which looks wicked, see photo below. People on Tower Ridge, Folks on Vanishing Gully, well people everywhere really.
Photo: Team on Italian Climb right hand by Christel Langeveld
Kirk and I went for Green Gully. A wonderful classic thin on the gear but climbing although cruddy in a few places overall fine and there were even a few ice screw placements on the way. Down no 4 Gully to coffee and biscuits!
Photo: Me topping out Green Gully by Kirk Watson
At night we met Steve Hammond and Nick Arding who had done Orion Face and they were beaming...in super nick at present! Ice screw heaven apparently! Fairy Wyffe (Blair) and Gaz had also been out for an adventure and climbed Hadrian's Wall direct on overall good mountain conditions but kinda cruddy ice and difficult to protect. Many others enjoyed this fine day.
Photo: Could it get much better?...by Christel Langeveld
On Monday evening George Reid came up to join me for a climb on Tuesday. We headed off to do .5 Gully...It has been the best winter climbing day I have ever had!!! We shared out climb with another team from Northampton, Martyn Frost and his mate Niall. They couldn't have been a better team to share the climb with. We had a right social up there. It was great.
Photo: Martyn Frost in .5 Gully. by Christel Langeveld
The climbing was good and the ice pretty all right. The 3rd pitch was a bit hollow and ice axe placements weren't really positive. Feet ballet it was!
Photo: Climbers' tools by Kirk Watson
The upper 3 pitches covered us with spin drift. The snow was good though in the upper section and there was ice to be found for belays. The weather had turned to proper winter just after midday and when we topped out we were in snow blizzard and white out. We had to navigate our way back to Coire Leis. Photo below, George starting the 3rd pitch of .5 Gully.
Photo: George Reid to set off on the 3rd pitch of .5 Gully by Christel Langeveld
At the hut we met the other guys who all had a great day. Kirk, Dan and the famous team of T. Marshall and R. Smith all climbed Smith's route and something else which I can't remember, could have been Zero Gully! Two other guys from CIC climbed Psychedelic Wall, which was thin but good. Tim Blakemore, Steve and Ian climbed Vade Mecum. Miky Brownlow and partner climbed Slav Route after the day before ticked of the Citadel in the Cairngorms! Fit bloke or what? Steve Hammond and Nick Arding climbed Zero Gully and said it was a great route but pretty serious due to the lack of any real security in the form of belays or runners (there was one good belay at the top of the first pitch).
All in all another wicked day for all of us.
On my last day Kirk, Des and I climbed Comb Gully whilst Tom and Rob, Richard and Niall did .5 Gully. When they came back they were on absolute high! They all loved it!!
Photo: .5 Gully by Christel Langeveld
Photo: A close up of .5 Gully by Christel Langeveld
Comb Gully was a great way to finish of my adventure on the Ben this week. Another classic....the first section is a snow plot but then you get to two lovely pitches of fine climbing. Very thin on the gear but that means less faff or hanging around to get it in or out!!! As we topped out it was pee soup again at the top. Plan was descent via no 4 Gully. We didn't pay any attention to where we were going as we were in highly intelligent conversations....so we had relocate and walk back up...three 'professionals' ehh???? Great fun getting ourselves back though.
Photo: Me heading up to start of Green Gully by Kirk Watson
Tim and Ian climbed Cascade today which was in great condition and it was marvelous watching them! There were folks in Vanishing Gully and on Italian Climb right hand. There was a team on Glover's Chimney. Two Step Corner had a team on it and there was a team filming on the top of Number Three Gully Buttress but not sure what they were on.
After coffee and pack up at CIC I had to make my way back down, boohoooo I did not want to go it was so good!!!
Photo: Climber on top section Tower Ridge by Christel Langeveld
Had a lovely walk back to the upper car park where I met Tim who gave me a lift back to North Face car park which meant I could go to climbing wall at night for a wee climbing session to cool down.
As from today it is going to be a busy time with work but I am wonderfully recharged after this beautiful week.
Thanks to Kirk, Tom, Rob, Des and George...You guys have made my week magic!!
Photo: George Reid and I after topping out .5 Gully by Martyn Frost
My advise to all climber maddies out there...go and visit the bonny Ben soon....it is in such wonderful condition...don't miss it!!!! Get out there, live it and love it!!
Have fun out there,
Love,
Christel
Photo: All smiles... by Kirk Watson
