getting the winter head on

Sat, Nov 14, 2009

I’ve just found out my winter climbing log book is fine for Winter ML so this season I will mostly be concentrating on nav, nav and lots more nav! There was snow down to about 2000ft this morning on the Knoydart mountains but it’s all mostly gone in a blur of west coast drizzle and very low clag. Ideal navigating weather! It’s starting to get near the time when you can get ready for the real winter arriving. You can get some nasty conditions up there, what with storm force winds and driving snow but without white outs and cornices at this time of year, so it’s an ideal time to “get the winter head” back on and get used to just how wild it gets. The general opinion these days is less snow but much more wind so what does fall gets blown into dangerous lee accumulations leaving you to contend with a mixture of avalanches and iron hard neve and ice, not to mention bare rock to blunt your crampons.

The speed of weather changes in winter is just phenomenal so it keeps you on your toes. I took this wee vid a couple of years ago on Blaven. It looks pretty wild but just 10mins before I took this I was toiling up the coire headwall in a t-shirt and sunshine. I kid you not. The noise of the wind racing past the boulder I ran behind sounded like an express train going past. Took me about 2mins to get into the gear and get feeling back into my numb head. Inspiring weather.

It’ll be interesting to see how the new jacket gets on. I won some dosh in a programming competition and coupled with 25% off in Outside Edge in Oban I invested in a Paramo Aspira jacket. Seems to be well thought out, even having studs on the velcro cuffs, which is a subtle feature you’d overlook. Snow and velcro don’t mix and you usually end up with snowballs on the end of your arms. Happens to gaiters too if you have to open and close them too much in snow. The velcro just becomes unusable, especially anywhere near your mouth where condensation freezes and ices it up.

I’m booked on a Winter ML refresher course at Glenmore Lodge so I’m hoping to go for assessment next winter as I want to make sure I’m ready as it’s the toughest of the outdoor quals Joe Public can go for. Some say it’s the toughest full stop. Let’s hope there’s plenty of snow this year.