Monday 23 February 2009

Aonach Mor winter skills





Day 1 of a 5 day mountaineering course saw us at Aonach Mor today around the Nid area. We weren't alone and there were Plas y Brenin, Outward Bound, Jagged Globe, 2 other Ice Factor parties and military teams there too. It was still possible to move around and look at a variety of skills there though. We started with walking skills; using the boot, and the axe for stepping and stopping slips. We spent some time looking at self arrest and then moved up to an icey step to introduce crampons. There was an igloo and a shovel up as well as some emergency snow shelters and we saw Blair from SAIS at work. We moved onto some steeper ground looking at both upwards and downwards movement before retreating to the cafe to dry out and for 'refreshments'. The snowpack was still wet and slowly retreating but there still seems to be ice around even at only 900-1000m today. Today I was working for The Ice Factor.

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