Bailing West

We decided to bail out of the East today and headed West to Beinn a'Chaorainn and its East Ridge.

Was far too busy trying not to get blown off the ridge to take any photos - did they get the weather forecast wrong today or did I just misinterpret it?

Heavy going underfoot - there is a nice trench in now :)

Never drank enough and definitely never ate enough.  They joys of winter :)

The white room

Well, apart from the colour scheme, this pretty much summed up today.

In the shadows of the Cairngorms

Today, we worked with the mountains and enjoyed the kind weather.

If I don't want to go into the high mountains on my days off, why would I when working?

The Weather Gods ...

... looked very favourably on us this weekend.  A whole weekend of this:

Just because, at the end of the day, its all about the laughs :)

All photos © Morrocco Media

Third time lucky

We never climbed this:

And we never climbed Pateys, but we did manage to haul our arses up Doctors Choice.

This is gear ...

... something that was lacking.

I don't particularly enjoying following people up a route, but today I was extremely grateful of the 3 very nice people who dug out the anchors :)

Making the most of a minging day

#1  Whoever says that I only go out in nice days with friends is lying:

#2 For once, I most definitely wasn't the brightest cookie on the hill:

#3 Somebody really does need to tell Mr Hare, that his hiding skills need a lot to be desired:

South trident buttress

Haven't a clue where we went today.

I just followed Rich :)

Win some, lose some

On Monday, the magic just wasn't flowing in team Di and for lots of reasons we never managed to set foot on a route, let alone climb one.

In summer, I call these my 'selling my rock shoes days'.  In winter, it is just part of the game.

I suppose what makes it worse is that it was the first nice day for ages and it was a novelty to be able to have a conversation walking in.

Yesterday, we retraced our steps and were pretty confident that we would get a route under our belts.  There are some things that you can get away with forgetting but a helmet probably isn't one of them :(  

So, as Colin enjoyed (I use the word cautiously) his first taste of winter climbing, Derek learnt a very hard lesson.

Somehow, I don't think Derek will be forgetting his helmet again.

How often should I exfoliate?

According to Discovery Fit & Health, "Your skin's job is to protect you day and night from the elements of the outside world, and that means it can take a heavy beating from time to time. There's actually a lot that goes into keeping your skin healthy, and part of the process involves the constant regeneration of cells. You might not be aware of it, but your body produces new skin cells nonstop around the clock. It has to because an average adult can shed up to 50,000 dead skin cells every minute [source:Markey]...

Exfoliation is a simple process that removes dead skin cells from the surface of your body. Most of the time when you exfoliate at home, you use some type of face wash that has tiny, sandlike particles in it. Gently rubbing those particles on your face helps scrape away dead skin cells and expose newer ones, leaving your skin looking and feeling healthier. Generally, you could exfoliate your face twice a week, but there are a few factors that could affect how often you should do it [source: Bruno]..."

Having just spent 2 days having the best exfoliation treatment known to man, I really am missing the bus here by not advertising in the latest edition of Marie Claire.

Stag Rocks

We didn't have any definite plans this morning except to head over to Stag Rocks.

With bomber neve up the Goat Track we were optimistic about conditions.

However, Heather was adamant in choosing a minging and unconsolidated gully - probably the only one in a one hundred mile radius - which she sent both Gregor and Di up first before letting them decide that it really was an utter pants route.

Never to be deterred, good old Afterthought Arete saved the day which provided some enjoyable 3D climbing.

Oh and I ripped my pants today - one of the hazards when wearing sharp crampons and trying to post hole through shi*e snow :(  Better look out the repair box.

Misadventure

I could talk about how amazing Jay & Miriam were at all things wintery and snowy but I won't.

Instead, I will describe this morning:

Di, Jay & Miriam happily doing lots of snowy things heading slowly up the Ciste Gully, and her numerous tributaries, minding their own business.

Lone skier comes swishing down the West Wall - *nice*.

A few minutes later, 3 skiers also start to come down the Ciste Gully.

One skier traverses hard off left onto West Wall, slowly comes to a stop.  Falls over, one ski detaches and skates down the slope.  Skier decides to follow, on arse, out of control - *not nice*.  Skier stops just above rocks - *nice*.

2 remaining skiers stay in Ciste Gully.  One removes skis and decides safest way is to bum slide Ciste Gully - *not very flattering but probably the best place for them*.

Skier on West Wall decides to crawl back up to regain ski which is half way up slope - *on knees - classy* and finally regains ski.

Meanwhile, the other 2 skiers have completely left the scene and are heading back into the ski resort with tails between legs.

Di:  *bugger* better go and help.  Make way up to stranded skier.

Di: "did the ski patrol not have a sign up saying closed?"

Skier: "we followed a skier down"

Di: "Oh, the skier that could ski you mean?"

No drama.  Take skis, give clear and concise instructions and remain out of fall line.

We've all been there - made similar mistakes and ate humble pie.  Just a shame that somebody witnessed the whole thing :)