Laura, Ryan, Jon and I had a good time walking up Ben Nevis today. It was a bit windy to start but on the summit there was very little wind, and we had the summit to ourselves. The cloud was down to Lochain Meall an t'Suidhe so the views were not great from windy corner all the way to the top and back down again. It was quite wet in the cloud and the guys did a great job of staying motivated. We got to the top in a very good time, imagined the views, and headed back down before we got too cold.

There are patches of snow on the trail from corner number two, and continuous snow on the trail from corner number five (1050m) to the top. This means the snow is covering the trail and it is not possible to see it to follow it. There were several other groups out trying to reach the summit but very few actually made it. Most decided, very sensibly, that they should turn around once the snow covered the trail completely and go back down.

If you want to get to the summit when there is snow on the ground and cloud on the summit, you will have to do some careful navigation. The skills of navigation you will need are to follow your location on the map so you know where you are all the time and to be able to use a compass to make sure you go in the correct direction. For this, you need to be able to work out the bearing, put it on your compass and then be able to use your compass to walk in that direction. In addition you will need to be able to measure the distance you travel, probably by counting the number of paces you take. If you already know how many you take to walk 100 you can measure the distance traveled.

These are core skills of navigation that can be learned by studying books, looking online or by hiring a good instructor. Without these skills, you should not expect (or even try) to reach the summit of Ben Nevis in the mist with snow on the ground. If you get the navigation wrong you are likely to go very badly wrong - all the sides of Ben Nevis apart from the one where the trail is have very steep ground or very big cliffs. It susprised me today how many people didn't expect the whiteout on top and didn't have the navigation skills required to deal with it. It was reasuring, though, that all these people turned back before they got too far into the white room to turn back.

This winter has not been a classic for skiing. The snow has been unreliable and there has not been very much of it. There have been some very good days though and today was one of them. After a good amount of fresh snow at the weekend Ian and I started our Scottish Steep Skiing week at Nevis Range. We did a lap of The Goose to get a feel for the snow which told us the snow felt very good indeed. A smooth cover of grippy fresh snow on the smooth old base meant we were carving turns all the way down. 

Ian has done a lot of skiing over the years and has been into the back corries of Aonach Mor a few times as well. We went down Winger Wall to see how we got on first, talking about how to approach the cornice, assess the snow and find and the best snow for skiing. We made a really nice run down and I took the first fall of the day, losing my ski to a long slide dowen the slope as I did so! We had to boot back up a bit to get back onto the traverse line around to the front of the hill again. The traverse is all on snow to Rob Roy and most of the way back to the gondola from there with a couple of fundred metres of walking to Alpha.

Next up was Yellow Belly for a steeper run and more of a drop in over the cornice before our third lap of the backs down Easy Gully. This is a step up with a bigger and steeper drop in followed by a narrow gully for 50m or so before it opens out into the coire. Once you are in it feels fine but looking down from the edge of the cornice is really quite intimidating. The first run is always the most challenging! The snow in the gully was brilliant and the run down to the lochain was really nice too. So, a great start to four days of steep skiing and a good enough forecast to give us hope for some more brilliant days to come.

Ruth and I had a very nice, dry day on Buachaille Etive Mor yesterday. We climbed North Buttress with some useful firm snow and found the top section, and the top of Coire na Tullach, scoured clear of soft snow. It warmed up gently during the day and carried on doing so last night so this morning was a bit soggy from the start and we knew we would not get the same firm snow.

We went to climb Castle Ridge to keep clear of any falling ice or cornices. In a thaw there is always something falling down so it's best not to spoend too much time in a gully. Castle Ridge was very nice although the snow was very soft and wet. Every other step sank in, and upwards progress was quite challenging at some points. There is a lot of snow though and the rocks are very well covered over making some of the route easier. The first tricky corner is much shorter than it can be. The main crux pitch, up the flake chimney hanging over the north face, is quite rattly. It seemed like some of the flakes are more hollow sounding than I remember them being previously. It might just be that they are more loose after the thaw and they will bed in again. Or it might be that they are actually getting looser.

The ridge above all the steep sections was lovely with some snow on it. This is a great section of very narrow ridge in a very impressive position. We made it to the top in very quick time and walked past the Castle Gullies. Both are just about full but the bottom chockstone of South Castle Gully is not properly covered over. This is an amazing run on skis but, right now, make sure you stop before the bottom chockstone to check it out first!

Ruth and I went up to Carn Dearg and down Ledge Route. After the snowfall at the weekend nobody had been up or down Ledge Route and we had to wade down thigh deep snow all the way! At least it will be easier if you go up the way now - it would have been a mission without any trail at all. All of Ledge Route is very well covered over with snow and we found it very easy to walk down. We did not hang around in the bottom of Number Five Gully where there was yet more fresh avalanche debris. The snow cover goes all the way down to the CIC Hut and the current thaw is not very vigorous so I think we will not lose too much snow before it freezes again at the weekend.

What is your image of a base jumper? Right at the end of January I went to Skye with Tim Howell, a base jumper and alpinist who is also a Jottnar Pro Team member. I had no idea what to expect. What would he be like? Base jumpers are all nuts aren't they? We did not have much of a plan or fixed ideas about what we would do, but I tried to go with an open mind, keen to learn as always. We also had Brodie Hood on the film camera and Hamish Frost on the stills camera with Donald King looking after them; we had a very talented team. The weather forecast was superb. It was going to be fun.

Road traffic chaos had an impact on what we did on the first day. Snow down to sea level on Skye and stuck campervans made it impossible to get to some places. We did manage to get to Old Man of Storr though and spotted a good looking cliff. So, we set off to try Skye's first base jump and, possibly, Skye's first ski-base jump. The landscape around the many pinnacles of The Storr is amazing, unlike any other place in the UK. It was covered in sparkling soft snow with dazzling sunshine and deep shadows. It was also quite windy which is not good for base jumping. 

If the cliff is over 40m high and vertical then a base jump is quite viable. If it is between 30m and 40m it is more difficult, and less than 30m is too small. The cliff we found was 100m high and vertical. By leaning over the edge and dropping a small stone, you can see where it lands and use a laser range finder to measure the distance. You also need to consider whether an exit left or right is viable or a hazard, which way the wind will take you, if there is any turbulent air down from the top of the cliff and what the landing will be like. There are different ways to deploy your chute as well, depending on the height of the cliff. If it is more than 100m, a bit of free fall might be possible before the chute is opened. There's a lot to consider, and it is all considered very carefully, fully and calmly. The margins might be small but they are measured very accurately.

The wind dropped, Tim did his final checks of equipment, and made the first ski base jump on Skye. In a way it was a bit of an anti-climax. This is a good thing though. There is enough excitement in base jumping - you don't want any more drama by things not going perfectly smoothly. It's not the crazy-jumping-off-stuff pumped-up thing that you might think it is. Tim does a very good job of staying calm, relaxed and thinking straight when every fibre in his being is screaming at him. It's a lot like climbing really but packed into a shorter time frame and more intense as a result.

Next up, we went to the Great Prow of Bla Bheinn. This also has a 100m vertical drop down its front face but is located high on the mountain with the most stunning backdrop of the coire running down to the sea and hills on the far side of the loch. Standing on the edge after all the preparations, Tim asked me to unclip him. This is not something I do comfortably, standing next to a very big cliff. In fact, every part of my training so far has been about keeping people securely attached to the mountain. Tim settled, performed another perfect jump, and had a stunning flight down into the coire. He also had a much shorter walk back to the van than I had!

Our third day was to be securely attached to the mountains, no air time, no jumping off. Despite the temperature on Rannoch Moor being -12 celcius we struggled to find a crag that was white with rime. Down at Bridge of Orchy, the Messiah crag was OK in places and actually had a little ice on it. We got to the last pitch of Promised Land and enjoyed a steep, thin and tenuous pitch of ice climbing. Looking at pictures of this from previous years, the ice can be much fatter and more secure. I placed a thread around a finger fat icicle and another wrist size icicle slightly higher to protect the committing crux moves onto the thicker ice at the top. 

Spending any time in our beautiful mountains in such amazing weather is a very rewarding thing to do. Spending this time with friends, learning new ways to experience, with incredible intensity, the vast scale of the landscape is even more rewarding. It's all about appreciating the beauty of wild places, immersing yourself in nature, taking on physical and mental challenges, and being grounded as a result. How you do this is down to you - there are lots of ways to have fun in the mountains. Just make sure you get out and have adventures.

Thank you to Hamish Frost for the exceptional photos. Thank you to Brodie Hood for the film. Thank you to Donald King and Tim Howell for some brilliant days in the mountains.

Climbing Tower Ridge today had all the ingredients of the full Scottish winter experience and I loved every bit of it. John and I chose this most classic of classic climbs on a day with high avalanche hazard, plenty of uncertainty about the climbing conditions, strong winds, snow showers and poor visibility. On the way up my crampon broke just as we got to the crux pitch, still with Tower Gap to cross. On the summit we could see about 10m and all we could see was white; accurate navigation was essential. It's all of these things that make Scottish winter climb such a test, and so rewarding. We both know the climb pretty well, but it was still a fantastic day out.

The high avalanche forecast was mostly for the warm spell with heavy rain during the night. Remember, the forecast period is from 6pm on the day the forecast is put out until 6pm the day afterwards. By the time we got to the start of the climb, the temperature had dropped and the surface of the snow was just starting to freeze, showing us it had started to stabilise at that altitude. So the climb up East Gully of Douglas Gap was quite secure. The snow cover on the ridge is now very good. We made very good progress over the blocks on the ridge since they are well covered with firm enough snow. The down side to this is that protection is harder to find and finding the best route can be tricky.

Higher up, the snow was less affected by the thaw and was not quite so useful. The fallen block chimney is completely filled in and the step around the block is a bit tricky, as is the crux pitch up the Great Tower. Everything is very well rimed up there and there is some ice in the cracks.

On top it was very white as well. The trail is covered in snow of course and the cairns are covered in thick rime so it is very hard to see them until you are very close to them. We pced back from the top of the ridge to find the line of the cairns and then followed 282 on the compass down onto the zig zags of the trail. There is no sign of the trail until below corner 6 at 1100m and we walked down on snow all the way to the half way point at the Red Burn crossing. 

The rest of this week is forecast to be quite stormy, especially over night tonight until dawn tomorrow. John and I wanted to do some climbing and get down again fairly early so we went to Buachaille Etive Mor and climbed North Buttress. This is a favourite climb of mine, especially when it is windy. Driving up Glen Coe we had some snow showers down to the road at Lagangarbh but also some breaks in the cloud, some blue sky and a few patches of sunshine. The snow was soft and wet from a very brief but wet thaw last night so we plodded up through deep wet snow to the start of the climbing.

The climbing is on pretty solid rock with no turf required at all. If the snow is frozen it is really quite nice but the snow was all soft today with a crust higher up, so it just got in the way! It was all very white though and the views across Rannoch Moor were spectacular. Every now and then we'd get a blast of wind and a wee shower that sent spindrift down the climb but generally it was very nice.

We climbed straight up the chimneys to the terrace in six lovely pitches. Having been to the summit before we decided to go down a different way and keep out of the wind. Two teams behimnd us meant it might be a bit awkward to abseil down the route so we traversed across the top of Raven's Gully, Cuneiform Buttress and into Great Gully. We carried on traversing slightly downhill to the top of Great Gully Buttress and came down the gully between this and Broad Buttress. This is a grade I gully (does anyone know a name for it?) and when it is full of snow, like today, it makes an easy descent back to the path.

We got back to the van as the heavy snow came on and the wind picked up. Later this evening, naturally triggered avalanches started coming down the gullies and Coire na Tullach. Unfortunately there was another avalanche in Number Five Gully on Ben Nevis this morning which killed three people. There is a high avalanche hazard in Lochaber and in Glencoe now and during tomorrow. It's likely to remain very difficult in the mountains for the rest of this week. If you want to go out, plan very carefully, check the SAIS Avalanche Forecast and make sure you know how to interpret what it says. Take care, play safe.

We've just had quite a bit of fresh snow falling down to 600m or so. The strong westerly winds have blown it over onto east facuing slopes and built some big cornices. Today the visibility was in and out all day. So, there was some very good skiing to enjoy in the back coires of Aonach Mor but you had to be pretty switched on to enjoy it safely. I was skiing with Brodie, Connor, Simon and Dom, a very strong team, so we had a blast!

We warmd up with a couple of laps of The Goose which had 20cm or so of fresh soft snow and grauple and, even with a lazy start, we got some first tracks on the slopes. Next up we went for a wee skin up to Easy Gully with no intention of skiing it, given the considerable avalanche hazard. The fresh cornices were quite impressive and we managed to make some of it fall off with a stern look and a gentle tap with a boot. This cleared the gully (which had nobody in it lower down by the way!) and it seemed secure enough for us to drop in. We found a nice gentle start and skied the gully on fairly firm cleared snow until it opened out into beautiful powder in the coire lower down. There's lots of features in the slope which are normally smoothed over with deep snow. The base is very thin relatively so the run down was way more interesting than usual.

We managed to ski round to the front quite easily and had time for another lap. This time we went to the summit of Aonach Mor to ski Summit Gully. The top of this had very little cornice and much less avalanche hazard so we had a great run down, even though the light was starting to go quite flat. More powder lower down and lovely steep pitches got us to the floor of the coire, a long traverse round to the base of Rob Roy and a wee boot back to the traverse back for the gondola.

The recent fresh snow is really welcome. We have a Scottish Steep Skiing trip coming up and I was getting a bit worried that it would turn into more walking than skiing. However, this top up of snow will really help the runs and opens up more possible lines. If you've skied the back coires (Chancer, Yellow Belly, Cascades, Winger Wall) and you want to start to explore the next step up, this is the course for you. We'll start at Nevis Range and ski the back coires with tips on technique and assessment of the snow and avalanche hazard, followed by something like Summit Gully, Rush or even Easy Gully if it looks good. We'll then head into the mountains and find the best skiing we can on Ben Nevis, Carn Mor Dearg, Creag Meagaidh or anywhere that looks good, building up confidence as we go. Get in touch if you'd like to come along!

Bob and I went back up to Coire na Ciste again today after a frost in the glen. Clouds had already built up though and it snowed on the walk in, down to around 500m or so. We went to climb Pinnacle Arete on South Trident Buttress, a really good fun route. It starts at the right end of the terrace cutting across the buttress from the slopes under Number Four Gully so you are already very high up. Tricky grooves and corners in two short pitches get you up to a big terrace. The best pitch is up the groove in the buttress above the terrace; tremendously exposed, great fun and well protected IV,5 climbing. Another pitch over the pinnacles, looking down the big corner of The Clanger, followed by one of the nices and quietest ridges on Ben Nevis got us to the top.

Snow was falling during the day and we are starting to see some reasonable snow cover coming back. Slight thaws and refreezes are helping stabilise this fresh snow and we are forecast more over the next week or so. It looks like the end of the winter might turn out to be the best bit of a very "on offy" winter.

The big easy snow gullies are full of snow but not with much depth. Number Four Gully still has some rocks poking through but there are no problems with cornices at the moment.

The big ridges are very good. Ledge Route, Castle Ridge, Tower Ridge and NE Buttress are all seeing ascents and the snow cover is generally pretty good for these climbs. Observatory Ridge is harder under powder snow and could be a bit more taxing!

The middle grade ice climbs such as South Gully, Central Gullies, Green Gully are OK but much thinner than we might normally expect at this time of year.  Think of them as a grade harder than normal and you miht be about right.

None of the classic harder ice climbs such as Point Five Gully, Orion Direct and Hadrians Wall are formed. We need a few good thaw freeze cycles to form the snow ice on these before they will be good to climb. This might happen over the next week or two, there is enough time still in this winter.

​Right now, the crags above 1000m are very nicely rimed and the mixed climbing is good. There's a little ice in the cracks but not too much. There is also a bit of useful snow ice on the ledges which helps many of the climbs.

​Take care with the fresh snow building up and a few loose blocks still not well frozen in. But, while the snow is here, go climbing!

The wind turned round to the North and we were forecast a very cold day today so Bob and I headed up to Ben Nevis. It turned out not to be so cold on the walk in and we scratched our heads a bit about what to climb. Rain last night made the ground very wet and fresh snow on top was all a bit slushy. It did not look very promising but positive thinking is a requirement for winter climbing so we carried on. In Coire na Ciste we chatted with Richard Bentley who climbed Central Gully Right Hand yesterday on Creag Coire na Ciste. We described it very enthusiastically and said the climbing was great fun, even though there are only wee dods of hard snow and ice in the route. This persuaded us to give it a go.

We ended up climbing Central Gully, abseiling back down to climb Central Gully Right Hand to the top and descending Number Three Gully to climb South Gully. We went down Number Three Gully again into the coire to walk out. Three routes of great climbing with far less ice than is normal making it much more thought provoking and careful climbing. The protection is not great but there is some. I even placed a very good ice screw. The crags above 1000m are well rimed and reasonably well frozen. The tops of the crags have been scoured in the strong wind and the big easy gullies have firm snow and no cornices. So, it turned out to be an excellent day of climbing. Our presistence paid off. Number Three Gully Buttress was a popular and very good choice for today and Richard climbed Green Gully (very carefully!).

The snow made a very welcome return last night. Over the weekend it cooled down a bit and we got some fresh snow on the tops, but a lot of rain as well! Last night it snowed dopwn to 600m and there was quite a lot of it too. Will, Jonathan and I walked up the Allt a'Mhuilinn through a few last heavy showers of grauple and snow to climb NE Buttress. I was expecting this to be quite a slow, arduyous climb with soft snow on rocks, but this is not how it turned out.

Over the weekend we got some wet snow and a brief warmer spell, possibly with rain at most levels. So, when this wet snow froze it made some slightly firmer crispy snow which made the climbing on NE Buttress really very nice. Progress was aided by enough firm snow on the ledges to make the cramponing steady away. There was even some ice on the turf and in the wet corners. It felt properly wintry and was very well rimed up too. The rime is quite thick and icy already but omes away easily enough if you are digging for protection. 

The Mantrap does not have ice in the cracks so it is OK to climb, and the Forty Foot Corner is quite alright as well. Altogether, it was a fantastic climb, much better than I thought it might be.

Over in Number Three Gully there was a small avalanche caused by someone climbing up the gully. We've just had a good bit of fresh snow after a long thaw - the new snow will need some time to settle down a bit. Cornices are still generally fairly small though. Fresh snow will accumulate this week from steady showers each day. The rocks need some time to refreeze, as does the turf, but there's some fun mixed climbing to do.