Posts for category: Climbing Coach

Ice climbing And Dry Tooling

  Warning – the last photo on this blog is GRAPHIC and possibly disturbing – don’t look if you are possibly sensitive to photos of injuries!  Today Francesca wanted to try some actual ice climbing and work on technique with axes and crampons. This was fortunate because the wind was strong even down to sea […]...

Great Climbing Conditions In Polldubh

                    On Tuesday I was out climbing with Thomas again. We wanted to take advantage of the full day of dry, calm weather, so we went to Polldubh for easy access classic Glen Nevis rock climbing. To be honest, the conditions were perfect – dry rock […]...

Dry Kingussie (Mostly)

                    Jagged Globe Courses and Private Guiding Friday was the last day of the course with Davy, and we went for the sun and dry rock over at Kingussie. The goals for the day were to develop Davy’s movement with coaching (using bottom roping) and develop […]...

Dry Dunkeld

                    Jagged Globe Courses and Private Guiding Last Wednesday the weather was forecast wet all over, so we decided to go to Glencoe and the Zig Zags for most of the day. We started the day in Fort William covering something Davy wanted to do – […]...

Dry Polldubh, Glen Nevis

                    Jagged Globe Courses and Private Guiding On Tuesday last week, day 2 of Davy’s course, we took advantage of the great dry weather again and went to Glen Nevis, Polldubh. The intention was to have a great day of climbing, various routes, but also to […]...

Cold & Almost Dry – Glen Nevis

                    On Saturday I was out climbing again with Davy. The weather was slightly different to Friday – it was much colder, and with a few cold showers of rain and sleet/hail. Davy wanted to spend the two days looking at moving his climbing from indoors […]...

Spring Glen Nevis Climbing

                    Today I met up again with Davy, who wants to get into summer trad climbing. To date he had done 2 trad climbs – they were in winter, in the rain/snow, in Glen Nevis – Pinnacle Ridge and The Gutter – so it was time […]...

Ice Factor For Sara And Gustav

              Sara and Gustav have been looking forward to visiting the Ice Factor since they planned their trip to Scotland. Sara bought her crampons a while ago, eagerly anticipating trying some steep ice climbing, so today was the day for a trip to the Ice Factor. We spent pretty […]...

Leading And Rescues

                    Today I was working for the UHI West Highland College, and I was out with Callum, Blair and Jordan from ATM2. They are working towards their SPA and they have already led several outdoor trad climbs. Today in the wet weather, with wet rock, we […]...

Learning To Lead

              Last Wednesday I was working for the College in Fort William (WHC, UHI), and the second year students on the ATM degree course. It was an opportunity to get the 4 students out to dry (or even wet) rock and to develop their leading. The students had already […]...

Ropework and Ice

              Last Tuesday I met up with Doug MacDonald. He has recently done his SPA training, and is soon to attend his assessment, later this month. He wanted to spend half a day ‘fine tuning’ his ropework, and work on ideas of how to become more efficient. We met […]...

End Of Course At Kingussie

                    On Wednesday Jordan and Danny wanted to lead their first trad climbs, so we headed to Kingussie. The day was always going to be a little short, because everybody had to get back to Cameron Barracks early to do lots of kit admin, and do […]...

Polldubh In October

                    On Tuesday, I was again out with Danny and Jordan, who are on their ATCS Climbing course, which included the Foundation course last week. They wanted a little more guided climbing as well as continuing the process of learning to lead. We started on The […]...

Dry Rock Climbing In Polldubh

                    This week I’m working for ATCS and supporting Jamie Bankhead on his RSF course. We took the Infantry Soldiers to Glen Nevis, Polldubh for a quick afternoon on dry rock in warm temperatures. It’s middle October and we’re climbing in t-shirts – fantastic. We did […]...

Kingussie – Developing Climbing Skills

                    On Friday I was working with the first year students (Rob, Scott, Iain, Rosie and Cameron) from the college (WHC, UHI). We went off to Kingussie to develop their leading. Some of them had been climbing through last year, but had never got around to […]...

Students Climbing In The Glen

                    On Wednesday I was out with the WHC students, Angus, Louise, Erik and Mairead. Developing them from last week, we wanted to develop their trad leading skill set. We used the morning to build them up for ‘simu-leading’ 3 Pines (S) at Polldubh. Everybody got […]...

Pippet Slab

                  On Wednesday I was with Moffett and Ally who were keen to do another climb in the hills, so we headed off to the Northern Corries. This time we walked over to Stac an Fharaidh to do Pippet Slab (S***), which looked really good in the […]...

Kingussie, Cummingston, Duntelchaig

                    This week I’ve been working at ATC (Army Adventure Training Centre) Scotland, based out of Inverness. The course has been a RSF (Single Pitch Rock Foundation certificated award) – for 5 days. I have only had 4 in my group – Cunny, Howey, Moffett and […]...

Castle Ridge

                    On Thursday I went to Ben Nevis with Wayne to climb Castle Ridge. Lena came along for the day to do some observation. It was another scorcher of a day – we were almost getting used to this weather! As we got closer to Ben […]...

Duntelchaig, Drum

                    On Tuesday I went to Duntelchaig, to introduce the team to easy multi-pitch-climbing. We had Drum (VD*) in mind. It was my first visit to the crag and it took me a few minutes to find an easy access route to the climb, so after […]...

Reserves At Moy Rock

                    With the Reserves last weekend, we went to Moy Rock, in the Northern Highlands, just North of Inverness. This is a great little sport crag, close to the road. This is a relatively recently developed sport crag, and a great deal of forestry has been […]...

Reserves At Kingussie

                Over the last weekend I was working at ATC-Scotland, with a group of Reserves (used to be known as the T.A.). It was an intro weekend to the sport of climbing, with a focus on fun,challenge, and possibly identifying who had sufficient interest to go on to […]...

Loch Tollaidh Crags – Raven’s Nest

                    On Thursday last week, I took the army climbing foundation course to the Loch Tollaidh Crags, and Raven’s Nest. We used the venue to do a mass climbing ascent of Assault Slab, a personal abseil for the whole group, and looking at being a competent […]...

Car Park Slabs – Gruinard Crags

                    On Wednesday last week, Lawrie and I took the army RSF group to the Gruinard Crags to initially coach their movement skills, before moving onto top roping, abseiling and rope management. The weather was great in the morning, but a band of rain moved in […]...

Climbing Near Dundonnell

                    The end of June was busy with a couple of days off, a day marshalling on Ben Nevis and the start of a RSF (Rock Foundation) course for the Army, based out of Dundonnell in Wester Ross, south of Ullapool. On day 1, for an […]...

Curved Ridge And Lena Working

                    On Monday David, Katie and Phoebe had their day on Curved Ridge with Hunter Mountaineering. I was working alongside Lena for the day. The weather forecast indicated that we would get a little drizzle during the day, with possibly cloud affecting our view, but as […]...

Foundation Climbing And Biking

                    Last week I was on another JSAT (Joint Services Adventurous Training) package at ATCS (Adventurous Training Centre – Scotland). The course started with a Foundation Rock climbing course. After day 1 at Kingussie we headed indoors to the Inverness climbing wall. The team went through […]...

Kingussie In Some Showers

              This week I’m back on another JSAT (Joint Services Adventurous Training Scheme) package at ATS (Adventurous Training – Scotland). This course starts with a Foundation Rock climbing course. Today we started by going to Kingussie, and hoped that the weather stayed fine for us. The weather turned out […]...

Ice Climbing – Ice Factor

              Wednesday was the last day of activity of the course for the Joint Services climbing team of 6. With the Foundation Rock Climbing course completed it was time for something a little different, so we went to the Ice Factor to introduce the team to ice climbing. This […]...

Chasing The Sun – Logie Head

                    On Tuesday we had to work out how to avoid the rain. We drove to Logie Head, and by the time we got there, the rain clouds were passing and it started to clear up. We started with a personal abseil for the group, after […]...