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Welcome to my blog

I don't always write a blog, and indeed some of the companies I work for as a freelancer specifically insist that I don't, but I do occasionally like to put my thoughts and trips into words for posterity, by way of a wee diary, and also an illustration of what I get up to with folks. I do hope you find it interesting, and would welcome any feedback or comments.
The best way to search my Archive to see if anything is of interest to you is to type into Google 'johnnywalker.co.uk', then a space, then your query, e.g. 'Arrochar', and you will get a selection of pages and blogs

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A beautiful Ben Nevis

24/2/2016

2 Comments

 
On Monday and Tuesday I was out with Andrew, Ifan and Adam, who wanted to hone their winter skills, and then do an ascent of Ben Nevis. After the stormy weekend, the snow conditions were excellent, and even the sun made an appearance!
We took the gondola onto Aonach Mor on Monday morning, to reduce the effort and maximise the time on the snow and ice. The area around Aonach an Nid is perfect for gradually increasing the angle and difficulty of the terrain, as well as providing some entertaining slopes for practicing boot work, crampon use, and of course ice axe techniques. It was here that I realised I had trimmed the replacement  straps on my hire crampons too short for using with big boots like Nepals, and the lads only had a tiny amount to pull on. I usually have to use them on B2 boots you see. Doh! Still, at least they didn't have to faff around tidying off long ends eh?
We had great fun working through the repertoire of arrest techniques, and culminated in whizzing quickly down on hard neve,  headfirst, upside down, and then safely arresting. The lads picked it up very well, and indeed, one chap was so pleased with his progress that he chose to put it into effect a little later in the day as we descended, executing a perfect arrest, albeit in crampons....never recommended!
After the technical stuff, we went for a short 'journey', taking a look at the loaded and 'High' rated avalanche prone slopes on the Eastern face, before working our way over a small cornice, deep powder snow, onto neve, and then finally water ice. All of this helped the guys adapt their footwork to the ever-changing snow pack, placing their axes and making progress safely, taking small rests where safe to do so. Finally, we worked our way back down to the ski centre for the gondola down. Most civilised :)
Tuesday was a red-letter ascent of Ben Nevis. At 1344m high, and setting off from almost sea level, even the much-maligned Pony Track is an effort in winter. There were not the hordes that one sees during a summer ascent, though there were folks with rather less than the full winter package of safe kit, but that's unfortunately the norm. The benign weather meant this wasn't such an issue...this time, and the presence of the helicopter in the morning reminded us of the ongoing search for the missing climbers, let alone the two under-equipped folks rescued from the summit shelter on Saturday night.
Anyway, our ascent went smoothly, donning crampons at the Red Burn, and being assisted by some kind folks who had broken trail in the deep snow. The navigation cairns are always reassuring as we entered the 'white room' periodically, but there were some fantastic views in between. The summit had very deep snow, with the old observatory ruins being all but buried, and the trig cairn being just a step up, rather than the spiral steps of a couple of metres or so.
After a brief stop for lunch, we made our way swiftly down, chatting to various folks on their way up, and we had fun taking the more direct Route One where safe to do so, avoiding a zig and a zag or two. There is a team repairing sections of the path, and who had set up a diversion route on the zig zags below the wooden bridge, but we missed it on the way down, and made a nuisance of ourselves by walking through it all. Whoops....well, we did at least tell the fella that his signage had gone! We were down pretty much spot on our 7hr estimation, having had a top day out.
A great couple of days in good winter conditions. Hope to see you guys again maybe!
2 Comments
Andrew
26/2/2016 09:24:30 am

An absolutely fantastic couple of days. Johnny provided a spot-on mix of information, experience and fun. Difficult to highlight any specific parts without feeling like you've placed less emphasis on others.

The first day exceeded my expectations by a long, long way. It's clear that Johnny wasn't just going to provide a pleasant little jaunt on crampons, he wanted to actually arm us with skills and experience that might be needed the next day. For someone like me who hasn't racked up that many hours with crampons and an ice axe, just strapping them on and wandering round was useful, but there was a real emphasis on learning - repeating different types of arrest until we got it, making sure we spent time on different types of ground, with varying angles of steepness, talking us through decisions of which slopes to use and which to avoid, digging a hasty pit and talking us through it as he did. From a personal point of view, I also appreciated that he clearly got a sense of individual strengths and - not necessarily weaknesses, but lack of experience, maybe, and sought to start filling in some of the gaps, as well as having a sense of where I could be pushed and encouraging us throughout.

The ascent of Ben Nevis was the main reason we'd booked this trip and it didn't disappoint; it was a great opportunity to start embedding some of the stuff we'd learnt the previous day - feet placement, swapping the ice axe over, breaking trail - really good to reinforce that learning and put it into practice on a mountain. It was also great to be out in those snowy conditions and to be able to ask 'silly' questions about gear, technique and how far away from a cornice is safe (as far as possible!), For what we got out of both days it was money very, very well spent.

Reply
Johnny
26/2/2016 10:33:12 am

Thank you for your comments, pleased to have been of service :)

Reply



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