Winter Mountain Leader on eBothy Blog

getting the winter head on

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

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.

on the edge winter ml training

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

I had heard it was a respected qualification and that the drop-out rate for the six day training was quite high, so it was with some trepidation I turned up at Alltshellach last week for my Winter Mountain Leader training with Plas Y Brenin. I’d led from Alltshellach last year for the HF so I knew the house was superb and the new swimming pool and jacuzzi was open so I was looking forward to a soak or two. In the bar on the first night I met Phil, my HF assessor and got the low down on scrambling assessment to lead guests on the more challenging holidays and made a note to apply for that when I got back. I’m really enjoying the outdoors life. Here I was, preparing for winter leader training and was already thinking about another assessment! All good stuff.

winter ml tips n tricks

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:00:00 +0000

Following on from my winter ML training, I thought I’d write down some tips ’n tricks I picked up along the way. Hopefully they’ll prove useful to anyone who’s thinking of doing their winter ML or indeed anyone who fancies going out in the winter mountains. These points are a brain dump after the training. Practical stuff that I’d teach on the hill, like step kicking, step cutting, cutting rest ledges, self-arrest and using pits to assess avalanche risk aren’t included as these really need to be demonstrated on the hill.