Exciting few weeks ahead 24-02-10

I thought I'd give a few details of the up coming trips and events which are due to take place in the next couple of weeks.

Firstly on a none climbing note I get to take some pictures of people leaving a night club tonight and then a rather good looking gig on Thursday night.

Then I'm off to Scotland again with the High Peak Club! Huge amounts of snow up there at the moment which is good for all the skiers but unfortunately means a high avalanche risk, however looks like we might get a bit of a thaw so fingers crossed for consolidation.
Looking forward to climbing in Craig Meagaidh on Saturday as the ice there is looking fat as.

After the High Peak Club all drive back down to Sheffield I'll be lucky enough to stay in Kinguisse for a few days of skiing and easy climbing with Anthony Bennett, I'll be putting my guiding hat on as we're off to do some easier routes.

It doesn't end there either, once back in Sheffield it's the High Peak Marathon, an epic 42 mile run/walk around the Derwent Watershed, starting in Edale in the middle of the night it's a race for the most mental of all fell runners.
I'll be camped out on the Bleaklow Head Checkpoint which is where I have checkpointed for the last few years. Looks set to be an awesome night again and lets hope there aren't too many problems!
More information available at http://highpeakclub.union.shef.ac.uk


Looking out towards Glossop and Manchester from Bleaklow Head.

Northern Corries, 13-02-10

First blog post i'll try not to make it shit straight away.
Spent the weekend in the Northern corries with the Sheffield University High Peak Club, great two days of climbing.
First day we spent in Corrie an t-Sneachda walk was quite fast on a track of nicely compacted snow, once we reached about 800m it was cloud free, but after that we were into the cloud and visibility went down to 100m.
First route was to be Aladins Mirror direct, after a plod up the snow slope of Aladins Mirror.
Plenty of snow cover and it was all pretty solid, lots of nice steps up to the bottom of Mirror direct.
the direct route was much shorter than last year but really fat and took plenty of solid screws.
Second pitch up the gully had some really good snice and some useful ice, we then traversed across to Pygmy Ridge.
The first pitch felt hard, lots of snow on the route and very little useful ice and no solid neve. Had to spend quite alot of time digging out gear and placements so upward was pretty slow. Due to large amount snow I had a bit of a near fall which always makes routes a bit more exciting, anyone nearby probably heard my squeal!
Really good climbing on the ridge which made for a fantastic day out, once on the plateau there was a white out to had to follow a bearing to find the goat track back down.

Second day (14-02-10) we trotted back onto t-Sneachda and I soloed a very banked out Runnel which had a quite large cornice giving quite a steep exit but the snow was very solid all the way up. Then quickly nipped up Aladins mirror past a couple of parties enjoying the amount of cloud giving very low vis.
All in all a very good weekend in the Norries.

Hopefully there will be some dry weather now we're in back in sheffield for some grit but we'll see.
Oli enjoying a sit down at the bottom of the Runnel.

No visibility in the bottom of t-sneachda.