In the traditions of the club, a gang of Lomonders headed out on the Solstice to the Cobbler. Armed with extreme optimism, the group planned to tackle the Recess Route and hoped that the weather would hold out despite forecasts and logic dictating otherwise. The walk in to the Narnain Boulder proved to be dry but, once under shelter, the sky turned and the group were pummelled with hail. The climbing was canned and a
The club has enjoyed a great start to the cragging season, with a long dry spell providing great days and evenings out for the club. So far we have been out to Auchinstarry, Neilson and Loudoun hill on our Wednesday evening cragging sessions and members have also been venturing out to Glen Etive and other places. You can even see this drone footage of us at Neilston Quarry.
This year's winter CIC meet was a first visit for a number of newer LMC members. The hut and the surrounding amphitheater of rock and ice can be a beguiling place but always packed with adventure. Two such members, Flo and Tom, set out on a long winter day out on the CMD Arete and Flo created a great written piece on their day out and weekend at the hut: As Lomond Mountaineering Group monthly
By Rob, The Cabin Balgowan is a climbers hut located in the hamlet of Balgowan about a 1.5 miles east of Laggan. The hut is located about a 2 minute walk from a roadside car park, sleeps 10 and is normally provided with mains electricity and running water. On the evening of 18th of May 2018, I journeyed up to this hut in the Cairngorms for the weekend. After spending half an hour driving round
LMC headed to Kalymnos for its Sun Rock sport climbing trip in April. There, the team met up with some Scottish Ladies Mountaineering Club members, and Harry managed to trick Eva into thinking it was a beach holiday, but actually she was there to belay him the whole trip. Kalymnos as ever had fantastic bolting and naming of routes making it very easy to navigate. Areas climbed included Je t'aime, Noufaro, Summertime, Telendos Miltiadis,
Brilliant meet at the CIC hut. Many routes in good condition while blue skies also making an appearance. The club teams tackled many classic routes such as Comb Gulley, Italian Climb, CMD Arete amongst others. You can read about Tom and Flo's big day out on the CMD Arete here. Top memorable moments from the CIC Meet: Wading in loose powder snow in Gardyloo Gulley for 3 hours getting nowhere, while watching others have a
By Michael Fuselage Gully II ** Day 1 if the Ling Hut meet, me, Lorna, Jules, Flo and Tom made the long walk in to Coire Mhic Fhearchair and the magnificent Tripple Buttresses. They did Fuselage Gully which was great fun , fantastic day. Day 2 of the Ling Hut Meet, for me it was a bit of Corbett Bagging. I climbed Beinn Bhan via the North Gully of A Chioch II *** and the
By Stewart This year’s Xmas meet promised great winter climbing in the Cairngorms as the snow had been falling for some weeks previous. The Ladies Scottish Climbing Club Milehouse hut was the perfect place for our meet: a roaring fire, great surroundings and a massive kitchen to cope with the enormous meal that Lorna had planned for us. We rose early on Saturday morning and teams were already planning their day ahead: Danny and Helen
LING HUT MEET REPORT By Micheal: The weekend of the 11th and 12th of August saw myself, Harry, Danny, Jules, Stuart, Lorna and Lisa make the long but worthwhile drive to Torridon for the August meet at the iconic Ling Hut. After a wet but short little walk in we got the fire going and hatched some plans for the following day with our tipple of choice. The Ling Hut is a fantastic hut, a
By Lisa Seems fitting to write this report tonight under my duvet when this time last week we were slogging up the path in the rain and pitch black to reach the CIC hut. I travelled up with Lorna, Michael and Susan but because Michael took so long doing his hair we left late and didn't arrive at the north face car park until 9.30pm. The long walk up was worth it, we were met
By Simmo Day#0: 20 September depart Bristol - London - Paris – Lourdes: Train – Walk – Train – Tube – Train (I knew the script from last year). Rained on getting off the train in Lourdes… the only time that I felt the rain all week. Day#1: Cauterets to Refuge Wallon Sunday as per last year: take the bus to Cauterets with it’s terrific stock up market. This year though I head out and
By Billy Great weekend at the Cairngorm Meet, lots of teams out climbing in the spindrift on saturday and a good windy walk around the Cairngorm on sunday. Everyone was well behaved ( ? ) and made the best of the weather and conditions. Im sure everyone has a story to tell but my memories are of freezing belays,dropped mitts,good banter,too much whisky,blue skyes,great company and having to pish on a frozen HMS before leaving
By Peter Matt,rich and myself (Pedro) went for a day up to glencoe,the plan was the gorms or west,we decided the Coe and go for dorsal arête,grade 2.big rich picked me up at 7.10 with Matt in lovely Dumbarton and we hammered up west along the beautiful Loch Lomond on a fairly calm clearish day with me getting a little travel sick (we cars :@) Matt swapped seats with me.forecast in the area was heavy
By Simmo Day 0: Train: South Wales - London - Paris - Lourdes via Eurostar and the TGV (something like 10 hours travelling time). Day 1: Pont d'Espagne to Refuge Oulettes de Gaube. Took cheap bus from Lourdes to Cauterets, and teamed up with an Aussie couple to share a taxi up to Pont d'Espagne. Put the waterproofs on for the trek up in the cloud, but after half an hour we were out and
By Florian Last Sunday Alika and I sallied forth on an adventurous expedition to Cerro de Punta, highest peak of Puerto Rico. The proud king of the Cordillera Central wears a crown of rusty antennas, adornded with gems of razor wire and mighty signs that read “danger, high voltage, keep out”. As a mountain Cerro de Punta is not to be underestimated, since the road that leads to the top is very technical and full
By Helen Moore July saw the Alps in stupends glorious weather, snowy peaks bathed in sunshine, still deep deep snow remaining from the long and hard winter, and a beautiful adundance of meadow / upland glen flowers...... The first week in Chamonix, with 2 3,500mtr snow and rock peaks for aclimatizing: 'petit aiguilles vert' & 'table couloir on aiguelle du tour' (AD-), with a fab rock ridge and a 15 mtrs knife edge snow ridge!
By Richard A good trip to an excellent venue last weekend. There were overnight frosts and some cold winds but on Saturday we climbed in warm sun at Kyloe. Fabulous fish suppers in Wooler, and the pub turned out to be decent on Saturday night. There were no crowds, polished rock, or massed tourists : We saw only seven or eight climbers at Kyloe, and I wouldn't have imagined Bowden was busy the next day,
By Kevin Mont Thabor is situated in SE France near the Italian border the area is liberally supplied with huts well away from commercial ski developments and with moderate altitudes up to 3000m it makes an ideal early season ski touring area. Our tour took started from Valfrejus over the Col Fontaine Froid to the Magi hut then over a couple of cols with a steep ski down over recent avalanche debris to the very
By Ivonne The CIC hut meet saw Aaron, Michael, Florian, Luca and myself travelling and walking up on Friday evening. Only five other climbers stayed in the hut and they were as determined as us to give the winter another chance – and probably the last one for this season 😉 Guided by the recent blogs we chose climbs for the next day and pulled straws – sorry forks!!! – for the two teams. Early
By Michael A short report on the weekend meet at manse barn. saturdays weather forcast put a bit of a dampner on the meet but it didnt stop it by any means. florian, alika and jules headed up on friday as arranged. on saturday they met with florians friend guito and his girlfriend, they then proceeded to walk up the pap of glencoe, a big well done to jules for completing this so sone after
By Burly Given that I'm sitting around the flat bored I thought I'd knock up a short trip report for the Braedownie meet. We were promised an indian summer with a hut just across the road from a wide variety of rock climbing routes. Unfortunately while everywhere south of the Lake District appeared to enjoy an indian summer the Cairngorms were enjoying two days of solid rain (the second of which wasn't even forecast when
By Martin We got to Greenland OK and did our airdrop onto the glacier, then headed for our landing site just off the glacier ..... that's where the problems started. The pilot did not feel it was safe to land at the proposed landing site (too many boulders), so he landed about 14km away on a flat strip of tundra/plateau. Crucially, as it turned out, the new landing site placed a river between us and
By Kevin The trip started with a warm up on the Tete de Coleney in the Grande Massif which gave superb views of Mt Blanc.Tete de ColoneyWe then headed over to the Wildstrubel which is situated in Switzerland north of the Rhone Valley and South West of Kandersteg where we spent several days ski touring from the Shwarenbach Hut which was reached by cable car and ski from Leukerbad. First day was a short trip
By Florian Yesterday the LMC celebrated its annual Burns Supper at the Stirling Castle Pub, and I learned many useful things: 1. The pudding race has a chieftain, and it tastes great. 2. Scots never say bricht and brocht for bright and brought, except when they quote Robbie Burns. 3. Russian songs are beautiful, especially when they are being translated from Russian to Usbek to English and back to Russian. 4. Richard is a great
By Richard The meet happened, and to all those who said it'd be wet, it wasn't, at least not all the time, and Saturday and Sunday afternoons bothgave very pleasant climbing conditions. None of us - me, Joe and Rob, Veronika, her mate Vera, and Sandra L - climbed on Saturday though as it was nice and sunny and we all piled down the beach, me and the boys going in in wetsuits for a
By Richard The weekend based at Onich was terrific, and I'm sure Russell would have been delighted that we all had such a good time in his memory. I don't intend to monopolise the write-up of the weekend, and it'd be great if others would put in here a few details of what they got up to and how they enjoyed it. Suffice to say my first experience of Tower Ridge was tremendous, and apologies
Sharp unpolished bolted limestone.....Blissful! Hot Hot Hot! sun shine & dry! One mile of bolted crag behind us and the sea in front, a great setting. lovely brand new & great quality routes on sharp unpolished bolted limestone. 7 days of climbing with the 'Fat boys climbing club' (my Huddersfield climbing mates), grade pushing, ice cream eating (a theme seems to be developing in my trip reports!), pizza consuming, wine drinking & a wee bit
by glaramara I shall keep this brief. Due to moving house and losing lots of climbing partners recently, ended up doing the annual pilgrimage Alpswards with the GF. We began in the Escrins, based at the mosquito cursed campsite in Ailefroide. We humped up to the Ecrins refuge at 3175m in 30 degrees heat. The plan was to climb the Pic de Neige Cordier 3463m, then the Roche Faurio 3730m to acclimitise. The Pic was