Saturday, 4th of February

Go straight to:
The walk-in
The fun begins

The drive up to Scotland was long, but it passed through some lovely country. After we crossed the Scottish border I was impressed by the wild quality of the terrain, and the sheer scale of the mountain ranges. Even lesser ranges such as the Monadhliath (Grey Mountains) cover a huge area.

We stayed at the Aviemore Bunkhouse, which is a great place with excellent accomodation. Perhaps more importantly it is right next-door to a superb pub. I got to savour Skye's Red Cuilin Ale in its native environment: out of a barrel, and drunk next to a roaring fire in a glass which says "YOU'RE DUE ANOTHER PINT" on the bottom when you've finished! Priceless. Red Cuillin has become my favourite post-hill pint.

Our room in the bunkhouse. Say hello to George, everybody.

After waking up at 7 (too early!) and enjoying a breakfast of porridge cooked with more skill than I've ever been able to manage, the instructor, Howard, introduced himself. First he emptied out his 'sack in order to show us what he normally takes with him on a day in the mountains; this resulted in some of us rushing back downstairs to re-pack our own bags. Most of us then selected helmets, ropes, crampons and ice axes from the pile of equipment. I had brought my own axe and crampons, but was doomed to carry one of the heavy 50m full-weight ropes, plus harness, helmet and several karabiners. This added several kilos to the total weight of my pack.

Getting kitted up in the girls' room, following Howard's briefing

We then piled into the minibus and drove up to the Cairngorm Mountain Ranger Station at the foot of Coire Cas, altitude approximately 650m. The road passes through Rothiemurchus, a region of Caledonian pine forest. It's a primal place, festooned with lichen and with a deep carpet of ancient moss covering the forest floor. I half-expected to see a bear or giant elk shambling across the road in front of the bus.

The carpark was almost full by the time we reached the Ranger Station at about 9:30. It's a very industrialised mountain: apart from the obvious structures near the carpark, there is also the controversial funicular railway leading up the corrie, a multitude of chairlifts, and a network of ski runs criss-crossing the mountainside. I was also disappointed to see that almost all of the snow had gone, as you can see from the photo.

Cairn Gorm, with Coire Cas visible in the centre, from the carpark

Dear lord, I've found a mountain even busier than Snowdon!

The pull up to our selected snow-slope was a perfect example of the "Guide's Pace" (a technique invented by early Alpine guides, where you walk very slowly but don't have to rest as often). After uttering the brilliant phrase "There's nowhere to go but up; there's nowhere to fall but down!", Howard set a slow, steady plod. Some of us obviously thought that this was too slow to begin with, but the genius of the Guide's Pace is that you don't have to stop. And we were all carrying a lot of gear, after all. My pack weighed a ton!

Despite heavy scarring by the hand of man, the scenery was pretty good. Certainly nowhere near the best I've seen, but worth writing home about. The mist and cloud effects were particularly arresting.

Mist swirls around Airgiod-meall

After we had climbed about 100m of vertical height we started coming across the first snow-fields, trapped in the lee of the ski-runs. The snow was old, deep and rock-hard, but badly hacked about by hundreds of pairs of boots.

Looking suspiciously at the first big drift of snow

Despite the lack of snow and mild air temperature, the ground was frozen hard and treacherous in places, reminding me of that slippery descent from the Pass of Devil's Kitchen in November. We followed the ski-run for the entire ascent, so the route was well-graded and smooth underfoot. Consequently we gained height quickly, and for a while at least the backward views were extensive and deep.

Looking back to Queen's Forest and Loch Morlich

The sun bursts over the ridge of the corrie

Clouds begin to crawl over the summit of Lurcher's Crag, signalling a change in the weather

As we reached the bowl of the corrie, Howard identified a relatively extensive patch of snow which he'd been using for ice axe training for several weeks. We left the ski-run and climbed shortly up to the snow-field where we'd spend the rest of the day.

Climbing up to the snow-field

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Howard holds us spellbound with another of his mountain yarns over lunch

We stopped for a ten-minute lunch break, then got stuck in. The first stage was to get used to moving in snow. The snowfield itself was at an angle of about 30-40 degrees, about a metre deep, and rock-solid. Howard described it as bomber snow, some of the best quality he'd ever seen, and consequently avalanche danger was at condition "1": there is a scale from 1 to 5, of which 5 signifies the most danger.

Kicking steps in snow that hard is a bit tricky without support from the ice axes (which we'd left on the bank for the time being). It took several hard kicks to get a decent step in the slope, especially near the bit in the middle where it became solid ice. This exercise was valuable: it taught us to be wary of snow, because it's not as easy to move about on as it looks.

After playing around in the snow for a bit, we returned to the backpack area and donned helmets and harnesses, then picked up our axes in preparation for the bulk of the day's training: ice axe braking, or self-arrest. It was at about this point that a bank of mist rolled in with astonishing speed, giving us greyout conditions which lasted for some hours.

The brave mountaineers

There are five basic basic positions for arresting a slide. We practiced them all over and over until we were confident with each.

1) Face down, feet first. This is the easiest, but still hard to master. The trick is to jam the adze of the axe under your shoulder, planting the pick firmly in contact with the ice, and to keep your feet up. My problem was that I wasn't pulling up on the spike of the axe, which led to my body twisting around, putting most of the strain on my left knee. This means it takes longer to brake.

2) Face up, feet first. You have to turn over onto your stomach, then perform basic self-arrest. I turned over the wrong way the first time, which can be disastrous!

3) Face down, head first. Scary to begin with, but not that much harder than basic self-arrest. You have to use the pick as a pivot to twist you the right way round, then brake.

4) Face up, head first. Very scary on the first slide, especially since there are three entirely separate movements you have to manage all in the space of about two seconds. It is however easy once you get the trick of it.

5) Rolling. This is the hardest of them all. You throw yourself across the slope and roll, then flatten out, not knowing which of the four basic positions you'll end up in ... and that's all before you even get the chance to apply pick to ice. Bertha wiped out on this one, lost her axe and hit the rock in the middle of the slope. Luckily she got away with nothing worse than a bruise!

Jenna arresting a slide

And the clouds part at last!

After making sure we were all thoroughly battered and bruised from the ice axe braking, Howard told us to put the axes to one side and put on the crampons. They give a great deal of security on steep ice, and I was surprised to find that my own crampons (Grivel G10s instead of the Mountain Technology models the others were using) were capable of front-pointing to a certain extent. This was surprising given that I was wearing B:1 boots, which are in theory not stiff enough. I eventually adopted the "hybrid technique" for moving straight up the slope, which involves front-pointing with the right foot and flat-footing with the other.

All that's just a technical way of saying my gear is better than I thought was!

The sun begins to set

We kept the crampons on for most of the walk-out, due to the large amounts of snow and ice on the ski-runs for most of the descent. Walking in crampons is childishly fun!

After we got back to Aviemore we ate dinner--pizzas for all!--then went straight into the pub next-door, where I enjoyed a couple of pints of Red Cuillin ale. It's very much a pub for mountaineers and climbers, with the same sort of ambience as Old Dungeon Ghyll or Wasdale Head Inn. A damn good place: shame I can't remember the name ...

Jenna: "Hey, this crampon business is easy ... ARRRGH!"

Next day: Ropework

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