So, having just spent the past month in Scotland, with what has to be said, is probably the best year for snow and ice conditions that i will see in my lifetime to having spent 6 hours digging out the cars and car park at Glenmore Lodge on Friday to try and head south.
Last weekend and Monday and Tuesday were just incredible, glorious alpine lie days, cold, crisp and clear blue skies, then on Wednesday it turned back to being truly scottish again, Sub-arctic dampness, cold, low visibility with the added bonus of the onset of more snow. And, it hadn't stopped snowing when i managed to get onto the A9 at 1800 on Friday eve. 8 hours later and i had made it back to my home in North Wales, slept for a few hours, dumped all my gear out of the van, had a bit of a re-shuffle of kit, a re-pack and then headed to Liverpool Airport to catch a 1700 flight to Geneva, to head into Chamonix, to visit Nick and have a few days of Alpine ski and Climbing before starting work at the Joint Services Centre next week.
Guess what, it's raining in Chamonix!! But it is good to catch up with Nick and earn myself a little mini break.
Over the past month, i have had the chance to climb with some good friends on some routes that were in amazing conditons such as Emerald Gully IV4, Ritchie's Gully IV4, Patey's Route IV4, Finger's Ridge IV4, Wavelength III 4, Milky Way III and so on.
Lets see what fun the next month will bring with evenings getting lighter already, and various things in the pipeline like a Surf Kayak Symposium in Devon and an Inland Kayak 5 star Training to run, not to mention the work for the Joint Services Centre. Then into late April for 3 weeks of ski touring and climbing in the alps including the Bernese Oberland high level tour.
I'll mix this up with a few Mountain Leader Training courses and Climbing instructor (SPA and CWA) courses to run and some surf kayaking for myself and trying my best to get around to some of the providers of the National Navigation Award Scheme (NNAS) Gold awards for their moderation visits.