Day of days at Nevis Range

An overnight frost, clear blue skies and amazing visibility, and huge amounts of snow following the storm at the weekend... Yes, today was a day to tell the folks in the office that I'd be "working from home"!


Dropping in to Chancer's at Nevis Range from Ed Daynes on Vimeo.

Best day of the winter. Well, so far!

At the top of Winger's Wall, with Spean Bridge and the entrance to the Great Glen beyond.

 The Rum Cuillin were clearly visible in the far distance today.

Hope it rains tomorrow. My knees can't stand another day like today!

Snow!

Just a quick note to say that if you want to get in touch with us at Clachaig this week but no one's answering the phone, or your email reply is taking a little longer than usual then our apologies. We've probably all gone skiing!

MD Andy Meldrum outside the ticket office at Glencoe Mountain today 
Sunday 13th March 2011

Friday into Saturday, into the early hours of Sunday saw continuous snowfall at pretty much all levels. However, Glencoe village seemed to avoid the settling snow while Ballachulish saw several inches lying; a scene repeated in Fort William.

 The chairlift at Glencoe Mountain first thing this morning.

On the hills however, there's ridiculous amounts of the white stuff. Glencoe Mountain have had to dig out their ticket office, and that's just at the car park. Meanwhile, one of the best runs at Nevis Range today was back down under the gondola line, back to the car park - and that doesn't happen very often.

 Catch this! Nevis Range car park earlier today.

Conditions like these don't come often enough, so while they're here we hope you don't blame us for making most of them. Normal service will be resumed as soon as the legs are too tired...

(And jesting aside, power to the local transmitter mast has been interrupted, causing a loss of mobile signals. Not sure how long the problems will continue but be advised that mobiles in the Glencoe/Ballachulish area are likely to be without signal at the moment.)

Rock & Roll: The true meaning of Easter?

The North face of Gearr Aonach and Stob Coire nan Lochan

We've had one of the best winters for years and climbers and skiers alike were licking their lips at the prospect of great conditions come the Easter break. It looked like there would be some disappointment after a week or so of mild & wet weather, however, prayers have been answered and the snow returned with a vengeance as blizzards hit the Glen earlier this week. OK!, so it blocked a few roads and delayed the trains but anyone heading this way will be well rewarded.

Alpenglow on Coire nan Lochan

Our staff, as usual, are pulling out all the stops at Clachaig and the Boots bar will be 'rocking' to Lyra Celtica and Bonnie & Jim over the weekend.
The two Roddies, Alex & James, our in-house aficionados on all things craggy, jagged & icy have both reported wonderful conditions on the Mountains - with the usual safety caveats of course.
Skiers will be heartened to hear of fresh snowfalls overnight at both Glencoe & Nevis range with the forecast for more on the way making excellent conditions this weekend....and no queues.

If you don't fit in to either aforementioned categories you can still enjoy the Easter break and get into the hills as Glencoe Mountain are having an Easter Eggstravaganza 3rd, 4th 5th April with face painting, duck racing & egg 'rolling'.... something for everyone.

And when you've had enough excitement just relax with a refreshment, or two, in front of our log fire....Happy Easter from all at Clachaig.

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.