A blue sky day in Glencoe

Today I was out in Glencoe with Ronan, who after a two day winter skills course in Scotland last year was back for more! Keen to get onto some climbing ground we decided to head up into Stob Coire nan Lochan and see how things were looking.

What a way to start the day!

Unfortunately my navigation skills seemed to let me down, as we appeared to have left Scotland and entered the Alps…blue sky….sunshine…..what was going on!

Ronan enjoying the first few pitches of Dorsal Arete

We arrived into the corrie to find very few teams in front of us and had our choice of routes. With the amount of soft snow on the ground we decided that the gullies would be a bit of a slog, so headed for Dorsal Arête. With plenty of time on our hands we climbed the route in five pitches, introducing Ronan to the world of stances and basic rope work before getting onto the “Dorsal Fin”.

Gripping to grips with the Dorsal!

After bagging Ronan’s first winter route we headed up to the summit  of Lochan before descending the east ridge towards Gearr Aonach and back to the corrie floor.

Enjoying the views on the approach to the summit

A great day to be out and about, the mountain’s were looking stunning, what a day to climb your first ever winter route!