Tuesday Cairngorm

07/02/2012 College Day at Cairngorms

We left the college at around 0830 and headed for Corrie an Sneachda.(‘Corrie of Snow’). On the bus my lecturer gave the class a session plan detailing what we were going to be doing. It was to be a refresher day on a huge range of winter skills. We are to soon to start coaching students these skills so need to be fully confident in our personal abilities. Upon arriving we got kitted up and headed up the path to Corrie an Sneachda. A path that has become very well known to me. On route we discussed avalanches, snow pack and how to teach this to a group, how to address a group, some local information and some chat about the natural history of the area. We cut off the track and headed to the lateral moraines.

Me running to the weather station on top of Cairngorm

On arriving we went over emergency snow shelters, kicking steps and got some more local information. We walked threw the Sneachda to the ice fields at the back where we put our crampons, helmets and harnesses on. My lecture then gave us a lesson on how to deliver a crampon session to a group. I really enjoyed this and learned some new tricks that I can use when coaching. We then went over self belay and how to deliver this as a session to a group.

We were then shown where you can bottom rope ice and mixed climbs and went over how to coach  ice climbing. This was a very interesting session; I never knew there was such an accessable place to bottom rope ice. We all had a go on the ice field practising our self pulling over some awkward bulges of ice. Once we finished this session we headed back into the boulder field in the Sneachda, took our crampons off and walked back to the bus. Everyone fell at least once on the way back to the bus. We headed to the chippy in Aviemore and then back to college.

Overall it was a very good day I learned a lot and picked up some handy tips and tricks that I can hopefully I can use when teaching a group winter skills.

Corrie an Sneachda