Learning to Kayak

After nagging Keith for the past two summers, he finally took me kayaking on Wednesday. We went to Loch Lubnaig near Callander so I could learn the basics on some nice flat water.

Keithy instructing

practicing the low brace

Super psyched for my first river now, which will hopefully be soon, just need to purchase a helmet :) woop. Thanks Keithy... and thanks to Fraser for letting me borrow his paddle.

More walking and climbing in the North West

So I am finally back in Edinburgh for more than a couple of days. I have spent the last 2 weeks in the west highlands helping out with Duke of Edinburgh again, and then up the North West climbing and walking with Keith.

The lovely beds

Helping out with the Duke of Edinburgh was good - free food and alcohol, what more could one want. The beds on the other hand were horrific. Actual mould on the mattresses that have been around since the 1950s.

I went for a walk up Stob Ghabhar on Tuesday 19th June as a detour on route to check on the group of kids at the Clashgour campsite, followed by a walk up the corbett Mam na Gualainn on Wednesday.  The views over Loch Leven and the mamores from Mam na Gulainn were amazing.

Loch Leven

The Mamores

Keith headed up after work on Thursday evening to meet up with me and take advantage of the free meal, before we headed off to Guinard Bay on Friday afternoon. The weather in the North West was surprisingly good on friday, we ended up climbing a route called Halcyon Days (VS 4c**) at Guinard crag before cooking dinner on the beach and enjoying some wine straight from the bottle - classy!

Janey on Halcyon Days

Guinard Bay from the crag

nom nom

We had planned to do An Teallach on Saturday, but when we woke up the midges were so bad that we couldnt face getting out of the car to organise our walking packs. The cloud base was also down at around 400m which was rather off putting, so we headed up to Ullapool for a wee touristy look around, then continued on to Reiff for some single pitch seaside climbing.

I led Westering Home (E1 5b ***) and Pop Out (HVS 5a *). Keith led Hy Brasil (VS 4c **) and we soloed a severe called Midreiff, before driving back down towards Torridon to camp before our planned hill day for Sunday.

K arete hugging on Hy Brasil

Approaching the reachy top out on Westering Home

sorting some gear on 'Pop Out'

We woke up to a very low cloud base on Sunday morning (around 350metres) but manned up and headed for the hills - Moruisg (928m) and Sgurr nan Ceannaichean, marked as 915m on the OS map and guidebook but has been remeasured and downgraded to a corbett at 913m. 

The visability was horrendous and required constant walking on bearing and pacing throughout the day.  Not so pleasant...but what else to do when the weather is horrid! 

Summit of Moruisg

Azalea

loving the nav between summits

summit of Sgurr nan Ceannaichean

the view

For Monday the plan was to do the Liathach Ridge line, but once again when we woke up the cloud base had remained as low as 400m so we decided we would leave it for a nice weathered day. 

We drove back down to Glen Coe, where the weather turned out to be a perfect day (infact almost too hot). We wandered up Buachaille Etive Beag before food at the Real Food Cafe in Tyndrum on our way back to Edinburgh. This was a fairly short day, we were an hour quicker than the book time with two long breaks at each summit :) 

awesome day

Keith on the walk in

Summit of Stob Coire Raineach

Stob Coire Raineach

Azure Hawker (I think)

wee froggy

Summit of Stob Dubh

Janey

Chamonix to the West Highlands

Our last day in Cham (Fri 1st June) took us to the mediocre sport crag known as Les Gaillands. It was only a 1.5km walk from the apartment with lovely views of Mont Blanc, so why not. Super super hot day, so climbing wasn't very pleasant, sore feet as we both only took downturned shoes and ended up just sticking to bumbly routes! Lots of lazing about was had. We climbed a 3 pitch route (TD-) with a single 60 metre rope, so ended up having to abseil off in 3 stages which was a bit of a pain, so headed for some single pitch stuff after that. Routes were 'Directe aux guides' F6b, and I (Janey) attempted 'Les Lezards' F7a, but failed due to the heat and my lack of training recently. It did however feel pretty hard for the grade.

Keith on Direct aux guides (6b)

I was home for one day before heading off again, this time to Bridge of Orchy to help out with the Gold Duke of Edinburgh award for George Heriots School. This was a good week, despite feeling rather home sick and missing my wee pup. Oh and lets not forget the horrific old army style bunkbeds that were the cause of a serious lack of sleep.

Day one involved taking John and Michael up curved ridge. Roped up for a few sections but was fairly straight forward for them as conditions were good. Bone dry rock and lovely weather. Four of us then went on to complete the rest of the Buachaille Etive Mor ridge line (Stob Dearg to Stob na Broige). Carried rack and rope the entire way which was certainly good training for me until the rope was kindly taken off me for the descent.

Loch Etive

 Descended down between Stob Coire Altruim and Stob na Doire, which is a much much nicer route than the usual descent from the summit of the buachaille. 10 hour day in total, then headed along to Gorton Bothy to check on the kids, and back to the Lodge for yummy food (which I didnt have to cook) and wine :)

Wednesday I headed off up the hills behind Forest Lodge, Stob a Choire Odhair for a fairly pleasant walk with the ipod. Cloud base was down at about 700metres, meaning visibilty at the summit was fairly rubbish - down to 10metres, so I opted to just head back down from the first munro instead of heading along to Stob Ghabhar and save myself for Thursday.

At the summit with absolutely no view

Keith headed up late Wednesday night after work so we could log a hill day together on Thursday. He chose a route leading directly up Stob Coire nam Beith, starting from the visitors centre in Glen Coe. It was quite a steep ascent, and a struggle for me being my third hill day in a row. The boulder field and scree wasn't the most fun i've ever had to say the least. ew. We continued on along the ridge line (basically a path of scree) to the summit of Bidean nam Bian, to be greeted with heavy rain and cloud. We ended up running short on time, had to be back to check on the D of E groups, so descended down lost valley instead of summiting the second munro we had planned.

sundew

I am now finally back home in my comfy bed, about to get up and cook a roast chicken dinner for Keith coming in from work. nom nom.

Next week brings another two days of fun, either climbing or hill walking depending on the weather, then i'm off up the Bridge of Orchy again for the qualifying D of E week. Fun times!