Today Kenny and I headed out to the Cairngorms early doors to meet up with Andy. The forecast was meant to be quite cold but we recorded temps of 4oc at the car park and only 1oc on the top of the route. It was raining at the car park but we still headed into Coire an T-sneachda. As the weather was pretty miserable we headed up to the Mess of Pottage and quickly climbed The Message (IV,6). Kenny shot up the 1st pitch, 1 shot up the second and Andy shot up the third. We got up the route super quick and the headed back to the cars, back down for 1pm. Despite it being quite warm the route was pretty firm, soft and damp in a couple of places but not worth writing home about! If we have a cold night it would be ace tomorrow.

Langdale Bouldering

Today was another cold crisp blue sky day in the Lakes, hardly a breath of wind. Dave and I decided to head out for a spot of bouldering at the Langdale boulders as they were sitting in the sun most of the day. We had the boulders to ourselfs until a strong team from Ambleside came down and gave us all the crutial beta we needed on the problems we couldnt do. Some of the lines were still damp, but avoidble. Good day with a reasonable amount of skin loss.

Blencathra

I am currently based in the Lakes for a couple of weeks before I go on holiday to Morocco. Today I had the morning free so I headed up Blencathra, a hill I haven't been up for about 8 years! I headed up via Sharp edge which was like verglass underfoot with the combination of polish and dampness. One team backed of as I slid past them like Bambi on ice! I always seem to slip when someone is watching! From the top of this grade 1 scramble I walked onto the summit passing some small patches of snow on some east facing recesses. From the summit I headed SE down Hallsfell Ridge, another interesting grade 1 scramble but also very slippy. Passed a couple of teams coming up and going down. Very warm day with little wind and cloud patches were covering the tops. I think a session down at the wall is in order tonight.

Face Blasted on Aonach Beg

Today Jamie and I head off from Glen Nevis up to Raw Egg Buttress on Aonach Beg. The weather forcast suggested foul weather coming in at midday, so we had a super early start so we could walk in and get most of the climbing done before it got nasty. So we were planning on climbing Raw Egg Buttress (IV,4), however a quick change of line due to no turf pro, we made a bit of a varied journey through the crag and ended up climbing some pitches of REB, Top Gun (V,6) and also a pitch of ground, as far as I can see, hasnt been climbed (need to check). Has anyone got a good photo topo of the crag? The climbing was top quality, conditions were perfect, turf was bomber, belays spacious, ice was forming well and we were relatively sheltered from the wind until we got to the top. Well worth the walk in!