I love instructing in the mountains and winter is my favourite time of year especially when I'm working up in the highlands surrounded by miles of snowcapped peaks. Many people think that winter skills are just about walking on snow and ice but the reality - especially with a warming climate - is that we now need to prepare our clients for more ferocious weather and how to remain flexible with our plans. This month's courses we remained flexible - adapted to the weather -and had some amazing days out in the mountains. Here is the month's roundup and pictures.
Winter Skills Weekender
Our winter courses in the Cairngorms kicked off with our Winter Skills Weekender and despite the stormy conditions we had plenty of snow and a challenging avalanche forecast to navigate -it was a great weekend with loads of learning for our clients.
Alex and Edna enjoying a day out in Coire an t-Sneachda, such a great team and lots of sliding and digging in the snow.
Winter Skills Week
Windy conditions kept us in the valley on the first day of our Winter Skills Week and with the guys keen for a summit - we headed to Cairngorm Summit on day 2 to see if we could push through the winds. Arriving at the top, the winds reached their peak and while it was only for a short period, the windchill was incredibly cold on the skin (Around -15c)
Gerard enjoying some 50mph+ winds at the summit of Cairngorm.
Every morning of the course we spend around 1 hour looking at forecasts and planning our route for the day. What are the wind speeds? Where is safe to walk away from avalanche-prone slopes and do we have any dangers on our journey? Planning is pretty important in winter and all of our clients did a great job absorbing all the information and putting it into practice during the course.
Gerard and Richard navigating us on the tops in some high winds, was great fun and a great final day of learning.
The course ended with a wild day of heavy snow, strong winds and sub-zero windchill. I chose a journey that would test all of the skills and the guys did an amazing job. From planning a route and navigating - to cutting steps on hard neve, cramponing and coping with high winds. we finished the session walking back down into the Ciste where I bumped into teammates from Ogwen Mountain Rescue who were up in the corries doing some winter training.
I had an amazing time out with our clients in January and I'm so proud of how well they all did in some pretty wild weather. Our next round of courses starts at the end of February and we only have a few spaces remaining, check out the link below for more details on our courses.
https://www.themountaineeringcompany.co.uk/wintercourses/
Matt Cooper
TMC - Owner and Senior Instructor
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