Petestack Blog

Trying just to knock up a quick (?) weekend report to accompany some photos here, so afraid what you see is what you get… (more…)

Had a great day yesterday with Abacus Mountaineering shadowing Mike Pescod and Kenny Grant teaching winter skills to a Warwick University group on Cairn Gorm. Impressed by how much the guys managed to cover at a pace that stayed geared towards relaxed practice (seeing good retention here), and grateful to both instructors and students (some great smiles coming off the hill!) for letting me tag along. Still plenty to keep practising myself for February’s WML assessment, but it’s been both helpful and inspiring to see these guys at work and I’ve booked Kenny for a day to go through all my skills just before the assessment.

To the Warwick party we worked with (sending you some thoughts by telepathy?), I’d say Mike and Kenny have given you a great start there, so enjoy the rest of your week, keep practising and applying the skills, and stay safe! :-)

Just back (last night) from Winter Mountain Leader Training at Glenmore Lodge with instructors Eric Pirie, David Haygarth and (for one day) John Armstrong. Don’t know when I last saw (or dug!) so much snow, but there was plenty to play with in conditions ranging from spectacularly clear to total whiteout, the standard of instruction was (as always with the Lodge) top class and the crack from instructors and fellow trainees alike was great. (more…)

Back last night from a quick trip north-west (planned on some expectation of a wet Sunday and dry Monday) with Jamie B and Dan from The Ice Factor. Which predictably brought us both wet, claggy Sunday hillwalking and damper-than-hoped Monday climbing… (more…)

With the weather continuing to be unsettled and frustratingly unpredictable after Monday’s amazing day on Shangri-la, I’m afraid that nothing from the remaining days of Angus’s ‘climbing’ holiday was going to come close to that particular highlight. But we did manage two more hill days of a ‘not quite climbing’ nature with a wet traverse of Meall Cumhann in Glen Nevis on Wednesday and ascent of Garbh Bheinn of Ardgour on Thursday… (more…)

Yesterday Anne Petty and I took a slight chance on an indifferent forecast to traverse the Aonach Eagach, which she’s been looking forward to doing for some time. (more…)

Today I was on an an avalanche awareness workshop run by Abacus Mountaineering for the Fort William Mountain Festival. It was wild weather, with vicious winds closing down the Aonach Mor gondola for the day shortly after we took it up in the morning, plenty of stinging precipitation and near white-out conditions most of the time. (more…)