Thursday 3 March 2016

Would you like ice with that?

Final day of the Plas Y Brenin MIC Training and we went to Ben Nevis today. the focus was on how to turn a climbing day into a teaching day and on finding some ice. Most of the teams started on the CIC icefalls with mixed success the right hand groove that often gives a good III/IV was wet and detached with holes but the deep gully to the left of the main falls was in great condition. The main ice fall was a dripping chandeliery sett of ice daggers but Matt found the set of II/III steps at the extreme left climbable if a little wet and boomy. A team also climbed the Curtain Rail and something on Moonlight Gully Buttress. We watched others queueing for the Curtain, throwing laps on Waterfall Gully until a bit of it fell down and high on Orion Direct and Observatory Ridge. Sunshine, climbable ice, no wind and lots of good learning going on. After a few pitches we abseiled down above the main cascade to look at making ice screw threads which we then committed to to complete our abseil down the steep ice. Well done to  8 keen students, I look forwards to seeing you all out on the hill working towards becoming MICs!
 Morning light
 Walking in
 The gully on the left
 Boomy wet steps
 Mugonthemove gets some ice today
 Think thin thoughts
 Past the narrows
 Above the ice, below the mixed
 Not bad, eh?
 Abseiling the cascade
End of the course

1 comment:

Bobby M said...

Greatt read thank you