Winter Skills Training in the Cairngorms
with Scottish Rock & Water
To get the most from our adventures we felt that it was essential to get some professional guidance and tuition. Whilst we have pretty good, but it has to be said, basic knowledge of winter walking we wanted to make sure we were fully equipped with the skills and knowledge we needed to thrive in our amazing wintery Scottish mountains. The only way to be comfortable in our abilities was to find a course, so that's exactly what we did. Now we feel confident enough to push our winter adventures to the next level all the while adding experience to the practical skills we’ve now learnt.
What did we want to get out of a Winter Skills Course
Mrs O and I have been out and about in the snow clad Scottish mountains on many occasion but we pretty much kept to popular and not so adventurous routes. I guess what we really needed was confirmation that what we had learned over the years was actually seen as best practice by a professional guide, a pat on the head and a wee well-done, now on your way, kinda thing! You could say we wanted confirmation of what we were doing was as safe as possible. This would give us that little extra confidence to push our boundaries and help us take the next step up the winter mountaineering skills and experience ladder. It was for that reason we desided to book ourselves a 2 day winter skills course. So what did we need to get the most from our course, this was the list we found on the website of Scottish Rock and Water, CHECK ✓
Effectively planning your days in the mountains, using weather and avalanche forecasts ✓
Appropriate choice and use of equipment and clothing suitable for winter hillwalking ✓
How to be efficient with your snow craft; focusing on efficient footwork; use of the ice axe for self-belay, step cutting and self arrest ✓
Emergency procedures, digging shelters ✓
Core, fundamental navigation techniques for winter travel ✓
Any technical equipment, crampons, ice axe and helmet is included in price ✓
Avalanche awareness/avoidance and its implications for safe route choice ✓
Some challenging winter routes ✓
This was the minimum we wanted to get from our course so we now had an aim and a clear goal. The next question we had to ask ourselves was, who do we go with…
Who to go with
There are a huge number of providers out there but we’re going to save you some time and point you down the path we found ourselves taking.
It was important to choose the right kind of instruction, something that was almost a little personalised. We kept seeing the name Scottish Rock & Water (SRW) on social media etc. We were unknowingly being hooked by the many great pictures and adventures SRW were posting. Now this was a little spooky. We spent a week in Aviemore over the New Year, every time we went out we would see the Scottish Rock & Water minibus ferrying students up to the carpark at the Cairngorm Ski Centre. What was going on, were we being set up here, had Google been engineering this, is big brother working commercially!
Okay, okay, we get the hint. When we got back to the cottage we were staying in I hit Google and had a look at the SRW website. Before I could go much further I was hooked on some awesome footage of a trip SRW undertook Traversing Liathach in its full winter coat with the most amazing sunrise. That hook was sinking deeper. I had a good look through the website and found the winter skills courses. The course content ticked our little list of requirements.
So it was time to check out a few providers. We wanted to make sure we picked a highly experienced & qualified guide, one that had all the correct accreditations and experience. We looked at a few more providers, they all looked great. I was always being drawn back to SRW though.
Time to book a course
SRW winter skills courses based in Aviemore, Scotland vary from two, three to five days. Giving you the opportunity to have options on how much instruction you will receive of the core elements for safe and efficient winter travel; good footwork, with and without crampons, step cutting, what to do if you do take a slide. We also touch on avalanche avoidance, how we gather information from the forecasts and throughout your day to make decisions for safe route choice in the mountains. We had two days and these basics were exactly what we needed.
Day One
We had arranged to be picked up from Glenmore Campsite by Stephen, our instructor for the next two days. We instantly felt comfortable with Stephen, you know how it is when you first meet someone, there’s a little bit of anxiety and a moment of awkwardness (or is that just me!) any worries were quickly pushed to the side by Stephens warm welcome. After all the normal introductions we had a chat about safety and talked about what kit and equipment would be required for winter conditions then a quick outline of the day. We were soon in SRW minibus, the one we had seen so often, and drove up to take a quick look at the Ciste Gully to check out what the snow conditions were like. Unfortunately, we had picked a weekend where the temperature decided to rise significantly, this acted as an unwelcome snow hoover removing a lot of the precious white stuff. Luckily Stephen was adapting the plan as we went, his snow radar was working well and it wasn’t long before we were heading from the Cas carpark towards the Cas headwall.
It was here that we started to see the benefit of having a professional instructor, all the little tips, tricks and techniques that Stephen had been learning over his many years of guiding and teaching were now becoming part of our winter tool kit. We began to see that our choice of course provider had worked out very well. We began by learning some movement techniques on some easy ground to get us started. Stephens teaching style was perfect for us, good clear explanation, a nice demonstration and then it was our turn to carry out the imitation part.
Cutting steps both up and down hill
Me trying to dig out a snow hole rather than a step lol (it goes wrong from time to time!)
It was then time to practice some ice axe arrest techniques. We had been looking forward to this. By this time the banter was now flowing and we were learning and laughing, which was good as these drills were certainly about to make us look daft if we were to get them wrong, and we did! That's what it was all about though. At times we would perform the near perfect arrest then the next time we’d end up in a ball of snow, arms and legs all over the place. Stephens watchful eye helping us to correct our mistakes by reminding us to break down each stage of the process. It wasn't long before we had nailed it!
Once we had dug the snow out our pants we moved to some steeper ground and practiced our new skills. It was a fitting reminder as to why we were doing the course when we seen the mountain rescue team carrying out training. It looked like the scenario was based on avalanche search and recovery. We were now heading off the slope and making our way around the shoulder of spot height 1141 then to the summit of Cairn Gorm. We had a little break at the weather station. Heading East towards the saddle Stephens snow radar was obviously working well, we came across lots of good snow. We stopped and talked about avalanche risk and slope angle. I often wondered how best to measure slope angle, Stephen showed us a very quick and practical method of measuring the angle with our trekking poles. It was them time for some steep ground footwork.
This area was a great place to then practice how to top out from steep ground by cutting foot and handholds and plunging the axe to ungracefully emerge from the top of a route. It was something we hadn't thought about, of course when you get to the top of a climb how are you going to get over the lip to flat ground. Lisa worked away nicely and topped out gracefully. When it came to my turn, well lets just say I got it all wrong! Trying to rush it and be the teachers pet only resulted in me slipping out of my holds and all the way to the bottom of the small gully we were practicing on, it was only really a few meters of soft snow with no run off dangers but it did highlight to me that getting it wrong at height could very much spoil your day! Lisa just sat at the top laughing!
Day Two
We put into action our learning from day one on a little journey, with some navigation. As we walked we talked about coping with adverse weather, how we interpret the snow on our journey and how to try and avoid avalanche terrain. We also looked at emergency procedures. Our route took us into Sneachda, Stephen pointed out twin ribs on the walk in, they look like a nice little playground. We soon crossed the boulder field to access the 'flat ice' at the bottom of the goat track. We then headed up the start of the goat track before cutting across into .5 gully which tops out on the shoulder of Lochain. We then headed around the corrie towards 1141 and back down into the Cas carpark. Point Five gully was our very first proper winter climb, and we loved it!
Nearing the top of .5 gully
Playing around on the flat ice
We’ve picked out some of the main learning points from the course but there was actually a huge amount of information and learning that we took away from the course. As I sit here writing this blog and reflect on the subjects Stephen covered, I realise how much learning we had done and how our skills had improved. We didn't feel like we were being overloaded at the time, it just gently sank in, our bag of new skills slowly filling.
Value for money
For us this is an easy one, not only did we discover new skills we greatly increased our confidence in winter conditions. The trip up .5 Gully had really shown us that we can indeed push ourselves a little further. We had learned how to assess our own skill levels and match them to a winter adventure that’s within our range of experience and our skillset. I’m not sure we would have taken on such a gully if it wasn't for the new skills and guiding that Stephen brought to the party. The normal cost of the course is £150 pp, what makes it even more appealing is that we managed to get Scottish Rock & Water to offer the OTATScotland community a discount on its courses. You can get the code HERE and receive 10% off. Just add the code to the SRW online booking page or quote it in any correspondence.
What's included?
> Highly experienced & qualified guide
> On-course transport
> Equipment supplied by SRW
> Crampons
> Ice axe
> Helmet
> Shovels
> Group shelter
> First Aid kit
> Photos from your course
To finish off…
As I said, we covered a huge amount on the course and haven't talked about everything we learned over the two days. If you are serious about improving your skills and confidence in winter conditions we would certainly be happy to point you in the direction of Scottish Rock & Water. There are plenty of course providers out there but we hope to have saved you a little time in searching out a provider. We had some pure dead brilliant, classic Scottish banter with Stephen alongside the learning which really helped us relax and enjoy. Have an awesome time in the winter mountains of Scotland and be safe.
3 Clune View, Newtonmore, Invernesshire, Scotland, PH201AA
And of course there's our website that we are constantly adding to, you may just find your next adventure there!