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Training - Scotland, February 2005 |
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This February, Fourth Winter Climbing Seminar was held under organization of BMC (British Mountaineering Council). Seminar was held in Glemur Lodge and for the first time there were some participants from S&M , among them one of the EST members. Seminar gathered around forty different climbers from twenty various countries. Organization was great and I would like to thank people from BMC, who were at our disposal all the time. Aside from numerous guests, seminar was also attended by about forty hosts, responsible for guiding us through the climbing areas.
Winter climbing in Scotland has a very long tradition. Names such as Harold Raeburn, and later Tom Patey, Jimmy Marshall, Hamish MacInnes and others have been written in the history of ice and mixed climbing. Today, although climbing equipment unbelievably developed, tradition is preserved, and winter climbing itself is raised to a much higher level. Even some of the best modern climbers of mixes, such as Scot Muir and Dave MacLeod come from Scotland . Because of all these, bunch of climbers dream to travel to Scotland and luckily, this year we had an opportunity to do so. Nevertheless, because of bad climate characteristics for these regions, we didn't really bust ourselves with climbing, but we experienced the so called true Scottish climbing: access to rock of two hours walk in stormy weather and terrain in which only local climber can find his way, winter and snow during ascent and anchoring yourself when you get to the top, in order not to get blown away by even stronger wind that blow from the mountain. Maybe it sounds silly, but all this gives some strange charm to the climbing itself. The first two days we climbed in Northern Cairngorms, and climbing itself was marvelous, but on the third day two climbers didn't return because of the storm that raged on the mountain. The next day, there was no climbing and they organized a search. Lucky us, weather for a short period cleared up and rescue cru with a help of helicopter managed to find our two friends, who slept the first night in snow hole they dug out, and the second night they succeeded in finding mountain bivouac. On the fourth day we had a rest to prepare ourselves for the highest peak of Scotland - Ben Nevis . The peak itself is not very high, but is entangled with many climbing routes; many of those are classical today. As you can see on pictures, time was bad again, so it was good that we managed even to see this famous rock. On the last day almost everyone returned from the ascent, because weather was bad again, so we had to console ourselves with a farewell party.
Although we climbed for only three days, this was great experience for us, because we had an opportunity to associate with climbers from all over the world and to exchange experiences. |
