Avalanche!

A fairly quiet weekend at the inn. Not surprising really given the forecast. "Damaging gusts to 85 mph..." I believe were mentioned on Friday's outlook. A good weekend then to head to the hills for a training weekend on Avalanches, organised for members of rescue teams across Scotland by the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland.

Our base for weekend was the swanky new HQ for Lochaber MRT in Fort William. Always used to think that our relatively new base here in Glencoe was quite good. But the new build on the edge of town takes things to a new level. I mean, they've even got a dishwasher! With its location, size and facilities, its not only an ideal base for co-ordinating the many rescues on Ben Nevis (& elsewhere) but could also serve as an excellent training & meeting base for events such as this.

However, once done with the Friday night lectures, we spent most of the weekend out in the white stuff at Nevis Range. Conditions for the weekend proved to be ideal, with snow accumlating fast and constantly changing the snowpack, and making some more 'realistic' rescue conditions.

Tom bravely takes one in the rear in the name of 'live' education.

The weekend covered a wide range of topics from avalanche prediction and forecasting, transceiver search techniques, probing, SARDA dogs, casualty triage & evacuation, and drinking beer whilst discussing it all afterwards.

Our casualty appears to have no pulse - hardly surprising as its a plastic dummy.

Testing conditions for the final live scenario, including this casualty which isn't a dummy!

The SARDA dogs didn't seem to notice that it was bloody freezing!

And, of course, to finish there was a 'terrible accident' which involved an avalanche which wiped out a climbing party which consisted of a remarkable mixture of course leaders and plastic dummys, some of whom had transceivers and some of whom didn't. Go fetch!

Keeping the probe line organised in challenging conditions.

I have to confess that as I woke at some ungodly hour on Saturday morning to rain hammering against the velux window I did wonder whether signing up had been one of my brighter ideas. With 20+ years in Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team I've seen more than my fair share of avalanches in Glencoe and the terrible damage that they can do. However, the course was an excellent refresher on some skills which I've not had to draw on for a few years, and also provided me with an ample portion of new ones. Plus, I got to use the new Mammut Pulse Barryvox transceivers which the team acquired just last week.

And I got home just in time to think about (but not actually get) a mug of steaming hot tea before being called out for another foray into the driving sleat & snow to look for a lost climber on Sron na Lairig.