28th / 29th/ 30th Dec

Me and Nathan visited Creag Dubh and we climbed Oui Oui II/III *** Golden Shower looked impressive but was thawing rapidly.
Then it was over to Aviemore in the afternoon for our first ski tour. We did a wee tour up Meall a' Bhuachaille, enjoyable skinning up, but having never skied before it was interesting getting back down in one piece.

Wednesday we did a tour from the lower car park, up over Cairngorm and back down via the Ski area.

After getting my hands on some Skitrab Ski's and Scarpa Boots me and John decided to have a blast up the Cheviot in Northumberland today. These amazingly light Ski's and boots are going to see some action this season. I'm addicted already.

Lakes 26th Dec

One day of festive activities is enough for me.
So after a few phone calls last night, it was back to the lakes this morning with John, Nathan and Steve for an enjoyable Boxing Day on Black Crag Icefall IV,5***
Plenty of fat ice to try out the new Jedi axes. Can't wait to use these awesome tools on some hard mixed routes later this week.

Lakes Ice 23rd Dec

The steep crags aren't holding any hoar frost at present, so me and Paul had a fun day running around the northern lakes looking for icefalls.
Launchy Gill III *** is complete, as is Right Fork III ***
Shoulthwaite Gill V,4** was in sound condition, and we managed to beat the hordes of people that turned up. Across to the right is a couple of excellent un-named lines that go at V or maybe VI.
Then it was off to Honister to check out the Gantry Crag Ice Falls, but on approaching the mine we were stopped and told we were not allowed to climb there, which is bull shit. I'll be back there soon, but the car will be parked in a different area.
To salvage our day we climbed the brilliant Quarry Fall V,5

Back out tomorrow hopefully.

Ben Nevis 19th Dec

It was a moon-lit walk in to the CIC hut last was night, with head torches being optional. Arriving at 22:00 to meet Paul Prentice and the gang.
Sunday morning, me and Paul Smith headed for Cutlass VI,7** on the Douglas boulder, but looking very black we decided to head up into Coire na Ciste. On the first pitch of Darth Vader VII,8*** I decided it wasn't going to happen due to extreme wind chill,and screaming barfies.. ahhhhh.
So me and Paul fled to south trident buttress. Having already lost a lot of time we got onto The Clanger IV,5** Paul led the excellent first pitch leaving me with the squeeze pitch. Struggling to fit through and with darkness falling we decided to bail and abbed off.

Paul Prentice opted for a easier day, having also failed on Darth Vader VII,8*** the previous day, due to the high winds. They did Thompson's Route IV,4***.

Camera finally died today so not many pics.

Hope to be out again later this week.


Paul Smith starting up The Clanger



Paul Prentice at the start of Thompson's




Darth Vader and Cornucopia

Gable 5th Dec

The morning started badly after I got the car stuck picking up Paul. After 20mins we managed to dig and push it out of TGI's car park!!
Picked up Steve - we had a trouble free run until Honister pass!! With only inches to go up the steepest part of the Pass, the car decided to run out of diesel!!
Doh.. Not having any brakes, we decided it was safer to fit the snow chains and roll back down the hill on the ice. After getting the car turned around, the engine now had enough diesel to start up and return to Keswick for fuel.

Having now added 1hr to our journey, we decided to stick to plan A and headed back along the Borrowdale Valley and up onto Honister Pass. Success; we made it to the Mine car park.

Fortunately, there was a team ahead of us blazing the trail to gable in (at times), knee deep snow (not realising they were after our choice of route for the day). Bugger!! Five times now I've been into Gable to do Engineers Slabs VI,7 and this time we were beaten to it. I blame the car...

So we decided on Engineers Chimney V,4 ***, which is a fantastic route (even if it is a sandbag). V,6 is a more realistic grade.

Great day (in the end)

Gable summit from steve lynch on Vimeo.