2 Day Winter Skills course with just one client. Very active summer hill walker with some scrambling experience who wanted to progress to winter walking.
Day 1 - reasonable weather, we walked into Coire An T-Sneachda, taking opportunities to look at a bit of navigation along the way and foot work. Once in the bottom of the Coire used the ice patch below the Goat Track to look at ice axe use and crampons, then progressing a little further up the slope to do some ice axe arrest. We then went up the Goat track (passing a party, 1 member with crampons only, 1 with ice axe only!) before heading up to the 1176m spot height and doing some easy nav around to the 1141m sport height before heading down the ridge.
Day 2 - not too bad weather again. We headed over to Miadan Creag an Leth-Choin using a bit of slpoe on the ridge to revisit ice axe arrest. Then up on to the plateau for some navigation work looking at pacings and timings. We then headed to Coire Domhain where we looked at emergency shelters and snow pack before heading down via 1141m again.
Area :
The Cairngorms
The Cairngorms are ‘a little piece of the arctic in Scotland’ according to the SMC Munros Guide and the area contains many of the tallest peaks in the East Highlands. Ben Macdui (1309m), Cairn Gorm (1244m) and Braeriach (1296) are probably three of the better known and the whole area is full of steep corries and high plateaux. Access to the mountains is typically from Aviemore or Braemar.
