Made of Stone: Little by Little - Getting back into the swing of things (literally)

Its been a pretty busy few weeks. Getting back into college timetables, working, and finally wanting to get out climbing again. Can't say with everything that has been going on besides college, work and climbing has made things easy but they are slowly getting there.

I haven't posted here for a while due to lending my laptop to my 'dear' mate Sean Dunigan so he could edit (sterling effort) our video presentation for our skill acquisition class. It was a bit of an effort to get everything done and dusted but it's good to have it out the road.

A few weeks ago I was climbing on the Buachaille. Kate, Emma and myself headed to climb Curved Ridge but after seeing it was more Moderate standard than II/III we decided to give it a miss and head for home. On the walk out we spotted a line of gully/groove lines which had some decent looking ice in them so that was the direction we headed in. We didn't know what it was and we only had Scottish Winter Climbs which wasn't much use in finding out what the route was but it looked fun all the same. Kate was handed the leading reigns but unfortunately for us the snow was more like slush and the ice was detached so it was decided to call it a day and head for home, getting back to the Fort by lunchtime! A quick look in the guidebook and I think the line may have been that of Infected, will go back for it before long.

I had a practical day with college which involved a trip to Glencoe again, this time heading for the top of Stob Coire nan Lochain. This was a chance for Gregor and Cormac to put the skills they had learned the previous week into proper use on a journey style day. We had a good pace heading up and we geared up just before the steeping to get into the Coire proper. After a steep climb we headed for the bealach between SCNL and Aonach Dubh and then up the ridge. The ridge was nice and scoured and quite icy so a good test for both the lads to use their crampons properly. Back down the ridge, a quick bumslide and a steep jaunt down hill later and we were back at the van, impressive timing in about 5 hours! We were out with Dave from Lochaber Guides again, top notch instruction and craic!

The next chance I had to get out was on Thompson's Route with Mark. It was a super grey day with lots of cloud swirling high on the mountain and we had a job finding the bottom of the route. Once we got there though it was nice and sheltered and the ice was good and fat. I haven't done much in terms of climbing steeper ice so let Mark enjoy the first and second pitch then I took the third. One really enjoyable but cheeky move on No.3 Gully Buttress and a 40 meter run out later and we were on the plateau. We had another route in mind as it was only just passed lunchtime but stupidly we ended up wandering a bit too much without having properly navigated and were lucky to end up in the Red Burn (lesson learnt). A few icy bum slides later and a wander back to the NF car park and we managed to catch a lift home, a short day for such a big hill!

The following day I headed to Nevis Range with Kate, Brodie and Magnus to climb in Coire an Lochain. This is a superb crag which is really accessible, with a pair of skis you wouldn't need to do any walking other than between tows and to the head of Easy Gully! We went down towards Web Buttress and Brodie and myself tried a fairly steep route with poor gear from the selection we had so we bailed off and took Kate and Magnus up Spiders Rib which is a fun little grade II climb. All the ice routes just now are super fat. Once this thaw goes away, get out and play!

The past few weeks have gone a long way in reminding me of how good things can be. The place I live in and the people I get to experience it with are all amazing. Again, I want to thank everyone who I've spent time with, talked to or climbed with over the past three weeks, you make it what it is. I keep thinking back to when I lived on Skye during summer 2013 and how simple life was. I didn't make lots of money, I worked hard when I needed to and I climbed routes because they made me really happy. There was nothing complicated about it, and that's probably the most important thing, it'd be good to get back to that mindset again. One of my favorite quotes is from Steve House, alpine climbing beast; 'The simpler you make things, the richer the experience becomes.'

Here's some photo's I've taken over the past few weeks;