Mountain Sit Rep

Mousetrap – Deja Vu on the Dubh Loch - It’s been a few years since my last visit to climb on the immense granite cliffs of Creag an Dubh Loch, but the borderline drought conditions, combined w...

No Can Do - Finally, I got myself wedged into the flake of Nocando Crack. I looked down to see Jim, head down, hood up, not moving very much. Obviously the wind w...

SKYE WINTER FESTIVAL 2025. Bookings now open - Glen Brittle Memorial Hut. February 20-23rd, 2025. An open invitation to climbers, walkers and any others with an active interest in the Skye mountains in ...

STILL WINTER, IF YOU WANT IT? - Northern corries from Windy Ridge, last Wednesday We've had some more snow and low temperatures on the Casirngorms and other Munros across the Highland...

Awareness of Danger. - I was reading a forum topic on UKC a few days ago started by Chris Craggs, the title of the topic is, Awareness of Danger, here is a link In his opening po...

Recent New Routes - Away from the cutting edge it has been a relatively quiet season on the new routes front, but several good mid-grade routes have been climbed. Back in earl...

Paddling around Islay - Sea kayaking during the first week in May (2022) with good friends. We took five days to circumnavigate Islay, one of many […] The post Paddling around I...

Guiding ratios in the mountains, what it really means for you, as a customer. - How many people can a guide/instructor/leader look after safely whilst in mountaineering terrain? What do I mean by mountaineering terrain? Scrambles and...

North Wales Weekend - Over the weekend the ClimbNow team had a meet up with some old friends in North Wales. On Saturday Euan and Paul visited Craig LLoer with Tina, Scott and S...

Thwaites Science - Erin dragging the GPR across the ice shelf. Having written about my experiences working on Thwaites Glacier in my previous blog post, I thought that it ...

Train to Run - a trip to the Basque Country - Published in The Fellrunner Magazine #124 (Oct 2019) Finlay competing in Zegama-Aizkorri race 2019 (13th) We live in an age of ever increasing opportunit...

Vlog #14 Motivation to train - A vlog on how I motivate myself to train. It’s pretty simple. Dave MacLeod My book - 9 out of 10 climbers make the same mistakes

Sublime on Solitaire - Haven't blogged in quite a while but today was so good I've got to put some pics up: Its getting tough to find routes Claire hasn't done as we've been hitti...

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New Routing Season Starts - Spring is without doubt my favourite time of the year. Its time to go searching for new trad routes and I've had success already this season. Last year I v...

Scrabble - *Scrabble* Our eyes met. Neither moved. Slowly the slender leg of the heron reached forward and delicately stepped closer to the water. Still our eyes lo...

Antarctic Expeditions 2017/18 - ALE's Union Glacier Camp is up and running for the 2017/18 season so time for an overview of this years Antarctic & South Pole Expeditions. Alongside the u...

Summer so far... (part one) - This year's summer work kicked off with a really fun and interesting Rock Climbing Rescues course with 3rd year Adventure Tourism students at West Hig...

Grand Rocheuse N Face and a little more - Following the excellent climb with Uisdean, Keith arrived for a solid week in the mountains allowing little room for a break. Day 1 resurrected a love for ...

Sucker Punched - So the last couple of weeks have been interesting. At the end of January I was helping with some on the hill training for Tiso staff on loads of awesome pr...

A catch up from the last two weeks. Winter Courses 2017 so far. - Winter has been slow to start this year, but that is not unusual. There was very little snow in January 2008 and it didn't develop a good snow base in Janu...

Indian Himalaya, Miyar Valley Expedition -

Jordan - My first visit to Jordan was through a work trip for a project set up between the UIAA (International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation) and the Jorda...

James Edwards (1976-2016)... - It was during the summer that I learnt of the death of James Edwards following a fall hillwalking on Ruadh Stac Mor. He was in the remote area of Fisher...

Busy day on the Aonach Eagach - Quite a few teams making the best of the decent conditions and last of the summer daylight days today in Glencoe. A pleasant dry day if a little greasy und...

Riding the Achnashellach loop - I joined up with my Brother, Willie. Willie on his bike and me on foot, with the dog as well. We started from Achnashellach station and headed up the Couli...

Professional Mountaineer magazine and Inverness Courier articles - In the last few of weeks I have had a couple of articles published. The first is in Professional Mountaineer magazine, the joint magazine of the AMI, BAIM...

Ancient Trees - Some images from a great day exploring Savernake Forest finding some of the largest and eldest trees - many of which have their own names with some of the ...

Quick Wilton 4 Hit - I managed to grab an hour in Wilton 4 yesterday afternoon after work. I started off flashing Cold Emotions E4 5c*. This was pretty straight forward to a ...

Thursday 12th March 2015 Intro to winter climbing - Been working in the North West highlands for Martin this last week...

Family Fun - I have taken this week off to enjoy some time with the kids over the Easter holidays. We have enjoyed a couple of days of visiting family and managed some...

Scottish Summer but Still Winter in the shade! - Back in Scotland working on a 5 day Intro to Winter Climbing course for Mountain Magic, www.mountainmagic.co.uk Blue Skies, no wind, warm sunshine but fort...

03-02-16, Buachaille, Glen Coe - Winter Climbing - High up on Curved Ridge, Buachaille, Glen Coe. Lovely weather today in West Highlands. light winds, cold great views of snowy mountains. Plenty of soft s...

A buttress as a birthday present - With Facebook birthdays cannot be hidden especially at an age where hiding them seems a sensible option. Being in-between jobs I had some time off on my b...

America - Swimming with dolphins, meeting the Queen, falling in love, standing on the moon. Everyone seems to be talking about "bucket lists" nowadays. If a climber ...

- When Mike and I met this morning to go rock climbing it was a chilly 4C with thick mist over Fort William. We knew this would change though and the sun ...

Skullduggery - Rounding the crest of Quinag’s summit, the wind suddenly petered out, turning my buffeted swagger into a wonderful moment of calm contemplation. The great...

Goodbye Apple Mountaineering, hello West Coast Mountain Guides - Running Apple Mountaineering up until now has been good fun, and an interesting learning curve, and it will be a bit of a shame to sideline it, however, ...

Orkney ‘Sea Stacks and Sea Cliffs’ trip 2015 - We had another great trip exploring the sea cliffs of Orkney recently. We climbed on Orkney itself, South Ronaldsay, Hoy and the Caithness coast. Lots of...

FUNdas, Assessments and Training oh my! - After a blustery flight to Kirkwall on Thursday morning I have been busy with work in the Islands two main climbing walls. Some PPE inspections and meeting...

Sochi - photoblog! - Andy hasn't got a computer with him out in Russia - so here's some pics to whet your appetite for when he gets back and writes up the trip……. Today the ice...

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