Alpine Climbing & Skiing: Frost Guiding Blog

 Despite the less than ideal weather we had a great rock climbing trip to Scotland. Travelling around in a camper-van meant we could dodge the worst weather and we managed to climb every day for a week - Creag Dubh, Diabaig in Torridon, Cioch Nose near Applecross, Kilt Rock and Neist Point on Skye, Glen Nevis and Glen Coe. These are among some of the most popular cliffs in Scotland but amazingly we met only 1 other team all week. Great climbing, stunning scenery - planning the next trip already!

Lots of pictures here

 Some excellent pictures here from the end of season tour around the Mont Vélan and Grand Combin with the Eagle Ski Club.

Thanks to photographer Rupert Hoare for allowing me to use them. 

Here are a couple of good links for holiday ideas:

- one of the guys on the Arolla ski touring week rents this great holiday house at Glenmalure in the Wicklow mountains about an hour from Dublin. Looks like a great place for a relaxing holiday in the hills. 

- Greg and Linda Murrow have retired from teaching to run "walkortalk" an interesting combination of French lessons and mountain walking in the Écrins alps. I've known them both for as long time - Linda taught French and Greg taught PE at my secondary school and also introduced me to rock climbing. The website also has a good blog with up to date conditions reports for the area. 

 The last week of my ski season and a great way to finish with an adventurous ski tour around the Grand Combin area. Starting from the Mont Velan hut - nice hut but tiny beds! - we climbed Mont Velan via the Col de la Gouille. This gave us a great 1400m descent on good snow with some steep skiing.

A long hot climb in the afternoon led up to the Valsorey hut, and on day 3 we crossed the steep Col du Meitin to the Panossiere hut. We abandoned our plans to climb the Grand Combin on the way. The normal route is bare ice and the Corridor route looked very threatened by seracs - this turned out to be a good choice, as from the hut terrace we watched a huge serac fall obliterate 500m of the track on the Corridor!

Next day we split into 2 teams, 1 team climbed and skied the excellent Tournelon Blanc in the morning, then skied a nice descent from pt 3402 under the Combin de Corbassiere in the afternoon, while the others climbed and skied the Combin de Corbassiere. 

Thanks to Rupert Hoare for this picture of me skiing on the Tournelon Blanc.

On the last day with bad weather forecast we escaped to the valley coping with classic end of season conditions - ice, slush, crust, grass, and eventually a well-earned beer in Fionnay! There are more pictures here