Gareth’s last day today and despite the challenging forecast we still managed to come up with three very different options. The warmer temperatures and strong winds were of concern, we spent a lot longer doing the pre-day planning as I set Gareth the task of studying the weather and avalanche reports and applying them to a selected route on the mountain. This required him to extract all the relevant information from guide books, maps and forecasts, it properly tested Gareth’s learning and comprehension of everything we have been discussing and observing this week. An excellent exercise which will hopefully stand him good stead when he comes back up here and explores the mountains for himself.
Of the three options on offer our man picked the most challenging, no surprises there then! He ruled out the battling up a friendly low-level hill in the stormy weather, spurned the idea of sampling the delights of the Ice Factors indoor ice wall and opted for an ascent of the Zig Zags in heavy rain and strong gusty winds to try to hone his rope skills and brush up on some mountain navigation.
Maps and compasses were out in force today but Gareth has a good grasp of summer navigation so I was not teaching techniques from scratch but more ‘winterising’ existing skills that Gareth has. The main focus was contour interpretation and trying to read the ground from its shape. After getting used to the subtleties of a 1:50000 map he was confidently picking out features around us and having a good stab at trying to pin point our location from small wiggles and indentations on the brown lines on the map.
It is quite common for people to look at our chosen route from the walk-in and exclaim ‘are we going up there’, looking at it face on it does seem a bit steep and unlikely, even the unflappable trainee marine asked the same question. Once we got closer and he could see the line more clearly his usual confidence reasserted itself. The same as yesterday we spent some time repeating previous techniques to make sure they were firmly bedded into the memory banks and also introduced a smattering of new skills. Multi point anchors were tackled along with changing rope systems for different terrains. Gareth was also using wires and cams to build his own belays, a bit like packing your own parachute. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, I had already gone through two changes of gloves and we had not had lunch yet, but we carried on pitching the steeper sections and moving together on the easier ground. As we gained height the gale force winds were starting to having a detrimental impact so we decided to beat a hasty retreat and abseiled back down the line.
It would have been great to have had three blue sky, hard ice days out but Gareth’s robust attitude to the weather, (an essential quality if you want to get out regularly in the mountains) allowed us to have three very full days out in the spectacular Scottish scenery. The temperatures dropped at the end of the day and with all the snow starting to firm up again hopefully Gareth will be able to get up soon and be able to put it all into practice.
