Focus Mountaineering

I’ve spent the last 2 weeks back north on the Inner Hebridean Island of Mull working for Hebridean Pursuits. I have been responsible for providing a range of challenging activities to help develop and interest two groups of young people. Mull is a wonderful venue for this being remote and having stunning natural scenery. Both weeks were pretty wet allowing us to focus predominantly on water based activities with the highlights being coasteering and canyoning. We did however manage a dry day’s climbing on the pristine granite on the Ross of Mull and a cultural visit to Iona.

On Saturday I finished my week back in Scotland by guiding a group up Ben Nevis on the first stage of their 24hr 3 peak challenge for Maximum Adventure. The mountain was busy with lots of other three peak challengers and only the top 300m of the mountain were in the cloud. Ideally teams need need to be up and down the Ben within 6 hrs to give plenty of time for Scafell and Snowdon . I hope the guys weren’t too delayed on their drive south by the Scottish Open at Loch Lomomd.

Andy, Bill, Danny and Derek continued working with the Dutch army guys this week out of Kinlochleven. A much ‘greener’ week where the troops were dropped off at a number of sites by Spean Bridge/Roy Bridge area and given 3 days to make it back to Kinlochleven undetected with the attached mountaineering instructors keeping a watchful eye on the teams’ safety. Another superb few days on the West Coast has left the visitors with a great experience in unusual terrain and, more importantly, heading home with impressive sun tans (and maybe a few midge bites). Thanks to Danny for the photos.

Where is everyone? I made a quick one day dash to Skye yesterday to guide Terry on her last Skye Munros. We made excellent progress from the Sligachan to the col between Am Basteir and Sgur nan Gillean and were yet again treated to clear summits all to ourselves. We only bumped into a few teams on the hills and the campsite site and pub were pretty empty. Surely everyone isn’t stuck inside glued to the football? Well done Terry – they’re in the bag now.

I’ve been based on the West Coast this week working with a large group from the Dutch Army who have come over to experience some proper mountains (the highest point in the Netherlands is only 322m above sea level). Focus Mountaineering has been hired in a consultancy role to ensure their plans are safe and then provide mountaineering instructors to look after them on the hill. With high pressure established, the troops have seen Lochaber at its best with walks around The Mamore Forest, Ben Nevis Summit and scrambles on the Ring of Steall and in Glencoe. Next week looks a bit more interesting for them…

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.