The Godfather
11th March 2023, Coire Nan Fhamhair, Beinn Bhan The Godfather has some of the richest history of all modern winter climbs in Scotland. All these legends were swirling around up there when Rob and I dared to finally give it a try last winter, and so to set the scene I’d like to re-tell some…
Hung, Drawn, and Quartered
8th March 2023, Am Basteir We’ve reached the penultimate route of last winter now, which occurred on another one of those “best day of the winter” days. This being on Wednesday, I secured yet another last minute day off from my long-suffering manager and plans were set in motion! Iain and I headed over from…
Rumplestiltskin
5th March 2023, Carn Etchachan: I wanted to put this short post up to rave about the quality of a little-known route called Rumplestilskin on the Carn Etchachan upper tier, which Rob and I headed up to one Sunday. It was Rob’s 10th successive day out winter climbing, on a run which we’d started on…
Supersleuth
16th December 2022, Mainreachan buttress on Fuar Tholl Fuar Tholl hosts a couple of the mythical big crags in the North West which I’d read about in the guidebook for years, but the opportunity to go there had never quite materialised. Towards the end of the long and very cold spell of weather in December,…
Nathrach Dubh
26th February 2023, Carn Etchachan Some photos from one of the best days of the winter, when Tim and I headed over to Carn Etchachan and climbed Nathrach Dubh (aka. Black Snake). Walking over the tops was pretty special as we watched cloud pour into the Loch Avon basin. I would say that I’ve become…
The Gathering
24th February 2023, Coire an Lochain Warning: what follows is just a move-by-move account of an awesome route, but it was an intense experience for me, and probably the hardest winter pitch I’ve done or will ever do! I owe Will a lot for encouraging Rob and I to get on something like this, as…
Raven’s Edge
20th January 2023, Buachaille Etive Mor 7AM: Alarms blare in unison throughout the Caol climbing commune. Three fried eggs and we’re off. 8:45AM: The i20 rolls into the layby and we walk out, it’s a perfect winter day. The path is frozen into an icy runway promising perfect conditions on the hill, it looks like…
Slav Route
4th March 2022, Orion Face, Ben Nevis For me personally, much of the best writing about climbing isn’t really about the climbing at all. The raw facts of an ascent, especially if nothing major went wrong, don’t usually form a good narrative! Other modalities like video and images fare a bit better, since they’re inherently…
A good weekend part 2: Ventricle
13th February 2022, Number 1 buttress, Coire an Lochan Rob and I wandered in to lochan for an easy day, and stumbled out well after dark after ventricle. A post of few words and many pictures:
A good weekend part 1: Neanderthal
11th February 2022, Lost Valley Buttress In January I managed to switch my work down to a four day week. I really enjoy my job most of the time but there’s probably nothing which I want to spend 40 hours, 5 days a week doing year-round. I see it getting more and more common in…
Sioux Wall
Sioux wall. Ben Nevis. I must have walked past the sheer face at least ten times on my way to other climbs in Coire na Ciste before even imagining that a winter route would find a way up there. But this time looking up with the confidence that we could get up it, the line…
Un Poco Loco
18th January 2020, Church Door Buttress, Bidean Nam Bian January was a tough month for winter climbing in Scotland. An exceptionally warm Christmas period completely stripped the mountains, and for the rest of the month the weather seemed to alternate between massive storms and deep thaws which stopped any build up. Despite several attempts to…
Auricle and Ventriloquist
30th November 2019, Coire an Lochan, Cairngorms, Scotland Reflecting on the first few months of the scottish winter season in front of the fire in my parent’s house, these two routes spring straight to mind. Ventriloquist was a desperate no-holds-barred fight, with the odds of success ebbing and flowing on every move. I was buzzing…
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