It was the annual club winter meet, and this year I had put myself forward to deliver the winter skills training. This would be a great opportunity to practice my teaching skills and it would also be good experience for my mountain training logbook.

Back in early February I attended the BMC ‘How to train novice members in your club, winter skills’. This was a great chance for me to gain skills on how to structure my session and learn from the experience of the brilliant Plas y Brenin instructors. Sadly the weather wasn’t in winter condition in Snowdonia that weekend, but we did get a chance to practice our crampon skills on PYB’s very own artificial glacier – aka railway sleepers. An inspiring weekend!

Everyone was excited when they arrived. After some recent poor winters in Scotland, this year she’d really laid it on for us. Snow had been consistently falling in the two weeks prior to our trip with storm after storm rolling in. There had not been many thaw/freeze cycles though, so the avalanche conditions were generally considerable.

The training day started off at our base in Newtonmore where we talked about avalanche risks and how we can safely move through the mountain terrain in winter. We then briefly recapped our basic navigation skills, checked our gear and crampons were fitted correctly, and headed out to the hill.

The start of our practical session began at Cairngorm Mountain where we headed off in to the corries. We started by practising our pacing and timing from the car park to our first turn off on the path, which was roughly 300m. Most of our counting was fairly close to one another, some with slightly longer strides, but it gave everyone an idea of their own pacing and something to practice when they’re out next.

We continued our walk toward Corie an t’Sneachda, then turned west toward the bottom of Fiacaill Ridge where we would practice some skills on the lower slopes.

We quickly dug a large ledge on arrival to place our bags in, which was a great way to warm ourselves up. We then had a look at footwork, using the axe and cutting steps. After this we went through the different techniques for using crampons for ascending and descending slopes.

After a quick demonstration by myself, we warmed ourselves up again by building buried axe belays and snow bollards.

Lastly we touched on ice axe arresting. Conditions weren’t great however, as so much unconsolidated snow had fallen it was really hard to pick up any speed downhill. I was however able to demonstrate all of the positions and they all had at least one go trying it themselves.

We had been out nearly four hours now and snow had not stopped falling for a minute. Back to car we headed to finish the day in the Pinemartin bar in Genmore.

Thanks to Catherine, Ed and Lyndon for a great day.