Focus Mountaineering

I’ve spent the week on the West Coast working with a group from the Dutch Police for Mountainplan. The week started with an ascent of the Cobbler in the Arrochar Alps in glorious sunshine followed by Ben Nevis by the CMD arete, a day in Glen Nevis and finally a snowy ascent of Bidean nam Bian in Glencoe.  With a low pressure system established over the UK for the latter part of the week, the group experienced all the Scottish mountain seasons in the week (sometime all in one day!)  I’ve included some photos of Ben Nevis taken on Tuesday to show the remaining snow although there has been another dusting since.

I was back on Skye at the end of last week in some pretty damp weather. On Wednesday I helped Allison complete her last Skye Munro of Am Basteir and then James joined me on Thursday and Friday with the aim of climbing the 8 Munros at the Southern end of the Cuillin Ridge which we easily achieved despite challenging conditions.  Skye is undoubtedly home to the most challenging Munros with all involving different degrees of scrambling and rock climbing so its great to help such committed hillwalker achieve their goals.

Laura and I headed over to Torridon today to complete a circuit of Beinn Alligin. This superb ridge outing  has short sections of grade 2 scrambling and is a superb introduction to Torridon’s longer scrambles.  We weren’t treated to the best weather with on/off  showers throughout the day but there were still long enough breaks in the cloud to get good views.