29-10-13, 12:12 AM
Plenty of folks have had their tents destroyed by severe winter weather in the highlands :eek
Loads of hills here in Scotland to keep me busy!
It's more a case of carrying em. I do love it when you get nice crisp icy snow and have the chance to get the old crampons on, you can make good progress with em. If the snow is really soft and plentiful, I learned the hard way (again), it's best to keep the walk short or turn back, it just knocks the shit out of you and it's asking for knee trouble.
I keep to ridges, avoid concave slopes which hold snow etc. I don't know much about reading the snow and I'm not sure I want to, that might start me doing things I'm not sure I want to do. Glenmore Lodge do courses in all that kind of stuff, though from what I've read they can be quite full on.
I just see it as going for a hill walk, but there's snow about, I'm not doing the full on front pointing crampons pulling myself up slopes with axes and stuff, just trying to follow relatively safe ridge routes. And anything that mentions a scramble I forget about it, winter scrambling is proper climbing as far as I am concerned.
I've had a few cracking days when there's been zero wind and you can just sit on the top of the hill soaking up the sun taking in the view, even taking a 15 minute kip in the sun. It's just waiting for those windows of opportunity.
Loads of hills here in Scotland to keep me busy!
Quote:I thought you'd be using axe and crampons - sensible precautions. I think checking snow layers for avalanche conditions would probably be in your skill set too?
Be careful about overnight-ing in the hills tho - it's VERY addictive!
It's more a case of carrying em. I do love it when you get nice crisp icy snow and have the chance to get the old crampons on, you can make good progress with em. If the snow is really soft and plentiful, I learned the hard way (again), it's best to keep the walk short or turn back, it just knocks the shit out of you and it's asking for knee trouble.
I keep to ridges, avoid concave slopes which hold snow etc. I don't know much about reading the snow and I'm not sure I want to, that might start me doing things I'm not sure I want to do. Glenmore Lodge do courses in all that kind of stuff, though from what I've read they can be quite full on.
I just see it as going for a hill walk, but there's snow about, I'm not doing the full on front pointing crampons pulling myself up slopes with axes and stuff, just trying to follow relatively safe ridge routes. And anything that mentions a scramble I forget about it, winter scrambling is proper climbing as far as I am concerned.
I've had a few cracking days when there's been zero wind and you can just sit on the top of the hill soaking up the sun taking in the view, even taking a 15 minute kip in the sun. It's just waiting for those windows of opportunity.