Janey and Keith: February 2013

Lilly in the Pentlands!

We took Lilly our westie, up Scald Law and Carnethy Hill in the Pentlands this afternoon for some fun in the snow! She loved it. Here are some cute photos of her in action :)

The Polar Explorer in action

looking over to Carnethy from Scald Law

On the summit trig point, Scald Law

me with my girl <3

descending Carnethy looking over to Scald Law

Janey

Stob Ban North Ridge and Mullach nan Coirean

Yesterday, with an awesome looking forecast we decided to opt for a ridge walk and enjoy the views/weather rather than be restricted to a crag face, probably queuing behind several others just to climb a route. This also allowed us to have a few hours extra in bed!

We headed up Stob Ban (via its North Ridge - grade I) followed by its neighbouring munro Mullach nan Coirean. The graded 'climbing' only really lasted for about 50 metres or so and was more like alpine scrambling in todays conditions. The snow line is up at about 700metres now and is rock solid neve/ice, so crampons were required even on quite gentle slopes.

Lunch Spot, with a view of the Ben behind.

setting off along the ridge

approaching the summit of Stob Ban

Keith at Stob Ban's summit

Keith looking out to Mullach nan Coirean

North Ridge

Keith with Stob Ban in the background

Summit of Mullach nan Coirean

Timed perfectly for the sun starting to set!

Amazing day in the hill! Now its time for pancakes and to head down to the borders for a day on the bikes, then maybe back out in the hills again on Sunday :)

Janey and Keith

Early morning ride before work!

We headed down to Glentress this morning for a quick blast around the red before work/uni. Awesome weather and views to be had! Trails ice and snow free, bone dry in fact.

top of spooky wood

Carn an Tuirc and Cairn of Claise by Ski

Yesterday, with the good looking weather forecast, we decided to head up to Glenshee area with the skis to get a few more munros ticked off. This time last year we headed up to the same place to do a big hill day including six munros, but with the strong wind, driving snow and bad visibility we only managed two before deciding to give up and head back down to the car.

So our plans were to do the remaining four. Once again the bad visibility came in over the plateau and we quickly lost motivation, so ended up just doing two hills - Carn an Tuirc and Cairn of Claise. It was our first time pacing on skis which was interesting, but good...and awkward trying to walk on a bearing! My paces were overshooting the targets initally, but the practice was good and we both seem to have the numbers sorted for walking on skis now.

Here are some photos from our day, plus another amateur attempt at video editting:


Summit of Carn an Tuirc

K heading off into the whiteout

J plateau bashing

Summit number two - Cairn of Claise

Cloud disappearing for the descent!

Keith enjoying the view

J skiing into the distance

Suddenly its all worth while!

skiing 15.2.13 video from GetOutAdventures on Vimeo.

Janey and Keith

Beinn Udlaidh - Green Eyes IV 4*

We went climbing at Beinn Udlaidh yesterday, and chose the fattest looking route we could see which turned out to be Green Eyes IV 4*. Only given one star but we thought it was a really nice route! It was melting fast though, and none of the turf at the crag is frozen.

Udlaidh, Sat 9th Feb 2013

view from the start of the route

Nearer the end of the day we could hear loads of ice falling around the Coire, so its needing another freeze before stuff will be climbable again. The first pitch of Green Eyes was in great nick.

Keith on Pitch 1

Keith cranking

Keith thought the route in its current condition was hard for the grade - corner of the first pitch (cant be seen in these photos) was more towards tech 5. He compared that 5metre section to Organ Pipe Wall (a grade V 5 further along the crag) but obviously it was short lived so no where near as sustained. I can't comment as I havent done any scottish pure ice grade 5s yet, but it did feel hard for IV 4, but then again this was our first route of the season!

J on the much easier pitch 2.

We topped out around 3pm and headed over to the summit for the 'tick' and a bite to eat :)

Quark at summit

We headed off the hill and down to Tyndrum for some well deserved food at the Real Food Cafe. We were originally planning on spending two days climbing, but headed home saturday night as all of our stuff is drenched! (and we wanted a lie in this morning). Heading down to the borders for a day on the bikes fairly soon, but not until after a cooked breakfast. nom nom!

Janey and Keith

Wind, Ice and Skis

Today was windy...and warm, although it certainly didn't feel warm in the wind.

We originally headed up to Ben More, but there was near to no snow cover so we drove back down to Killin in hope for some better coverage.

The Ben Lawers road to the visitor centre was icy. After last weeks epic digging experiences and since we no longer have snow chains until the new ones arrive we opted to park about 1.5km before the car park and trek up the road with skis on our packs. This was rather unpleasant in the wind. Everything in the wind is unpleasant.

The snow pack was also not great - a sheet of hard ice on top of powder so quite challenging to ski on, but then not that much cover.

We played around on the westerly slopes of Beinn Ghlas but didn't head up to the summits as we found mobility with the strong head wind a bit too hard to be worth it. Plus we've done the hills before so didn't need to get the 'tick'.

Heres a few photos and a video of us playing around roughly between 500m and 700m. Cover was better higher up.

Starting the skin up

Beinn Ghlas in the distance.

Briefly practised a bit of self arresting but it wasnt very successful as the axe just ripped through the snow pack as the layer of ice was too thin and snow underneath too loose. Fun sliding down the slope though :)