Wednesday 8 February 2012

A familiar feeling...

Walking in
Heading up in a breeze
Bealy building through the spindrift
It looks black but there is a little firm snow and a good bit of verglas
Waiting to descend
At least a familiar feeling this year... that of being blown sideways by a strong wind!
Today was the first of 2 teaching days for our MIC Candidates on assessment at Glenmore Lodge. Each one was presented with 2 mock students (thanks to our volunteers) and had to make an assessment of their winter climbing ability and needs. Then all they had to do was to construct a suitable day for them given the conditions.
Walking in to Coire an t Sneachda was a wee bit of a mission with the path polished to a high glaze of ice and the wind doing its best to return you to the car park. Eventually 3 of the teams made it to the area below Jacob's Ladder having passed a number of climbers who had sacked it. All 3 of these candidates chose lines to the right of Jacob's and climbed a couple of pitches, before arranging abseils (no-one fancied facing what might be waiting for us on the plateau given the exfoliation we were getting from the gales and spindrift where we were). I joined the assessors soloing around on turf, thin ice and rock slabs to observe their approach to teaching winter climbing.

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