At the end of January 2014, 3RWELSH headed off to the Cairngorms to undertake Adventure Training in the form of Foundation Level courses, an activity the unit undertakes annually. It’s a long drive, though worth the effort, to secure the conditions to deliver the skills necessary when conducting winter foundation courses.
Norwegian Lodge at Glenmore was unavailable this year due to refurbishment work and instead we were accommodated at Cameron Barracks, Inverness; a venue with more comfort but adding an hour to the daily travel time to the Northern Cairngorms. Throughout the week, conditions were challenging – high winds and blizzards and, on one occasion, the access road closed due to the severity of the weather.
Our climbers on the Winter Climbing Foundation (WCF) found that their areas were unusable due to Considerable and High avalanche risk forecasts; the routes and their exits being laden with unstable wind slab. Not to be deterred, they began by dry tooling at Dunkeld, a low level quarry venue free of snow, albeit a long drive from Inverness. Walkers on the Winter Mountaineering Foundation (WMF) managed to find relatively low level snow above the Coire na Ciste car park to conduct some avalanche training (transceiver searches, group probe searches) and some basic skills such as boot work.
After the walkers lost a day to weather and the climbers kicked their toes on an indoor ice wall, things improved. Maj Gilbert running the WCF, opted to head North and West to Torridon where he calculated conditions would be better. This indeed was the case and they had two very long days on Liathach and Beinn Eighe, managing in all, Meall Dearg’s North Buttress (II), The Northern Pinnacles (II), W-E traverse of the main ridge on Liathach (II) and Beinn Eighe’s East Buttress (IV,5). Meanwhile, the walkers struggled on in the Cairngorms staying low but managing to cover emergency shelters, crampon skills, self-belay and self-arrest.
The walkers undertook a 2-day expedition and snow hole to complete their syllabus and headed, laden up, into Ciste Mhearad high on the NE flanks of Cairngorm, a popular choice for overnighting. Finding a deep low bank, all set to work constructing their holes which took about three hours work. Though visibility was poor, the winds were light and all settled in for twelve hours of sleep. During the evening the winds freshened and the snow holes began to have their entrances drifted-up; consequently, the entrances had to be regularly cleared in order to maintain safe access between inside and outside worlds. As the night progressed, drifting continued and it became difficult to keep the entrances clear. It is all too easy to fall asleep in a snow hole and wake hours later to find yourself entombed and potentially trapped. By 0430 in the morning, drifting was very severe and a large cornice was forming above the entrances: it’s one thing to continually clear drift but a cornice represents the danger of collapse and a sudden mass of snow that threatens to entomb in an instant. The order was given to pack everything and to be ready to move at 0515. Everyone formed up in the dark and wind outside their holes and after a head check, the group walked out and up to the top of the ski pistes and then down the pistes to Coire Cas car park. Though the walkout was in a blizzard, the wind was fortunately from behind and a slow but steady pace kept the group together. So, despite having to bail out, it had been a valuable experience for the novices and an opportunity for the leaders to practise and have their group management, decision making and map reading skills tested.
To finish the week, the climbers, back from Torridon and faced again with poor climbing conditions, visited Creagan Coire Cha above Coire na Ciste car park to climb a couple of routes on the buttress. In all it had been a challenging and productive week for everyone in far from ideal conditions.
