Tuesday 12 February 2013

The Seam

Fresh back from my week long course in Ambleside, I hooked up with James and Calum for a trip out. I am desperately trying to get away from the hotspots this winter, but Calum has been itching to get on the Seam for a while now so we headed into Sneachda for what feels like the 100th time. Not to say I minded.....a day out is a day out after all. The forecast was reasonable for Saturday although it became ‘clear’ that it was going to be a bit of a claggy day. We had several overhead visits from the coastguard helicopter on the walk-in, which we questioned as to whether it was a good or bad omen for the day.

Calum

Not too many pictures in this blog, although clicking the photo above will take you to the gallery with a couple more photos of the day. The claggy mist made it really difficult to keep the lens clear and even then, images were pretty dismal.
Calum pretty much owned this route. I led the initial ramps of Invernookie as I’d done them before and could recognise the route through the clag and depths of snow. I actually realised after getting back that I was suppose to lead us up right slightly earlier on to the base of the chimney. It’s probably what made the middle traverse pitch quite tricky.....sorry Calum.
Calum led a short, yet awkward pitch to the base of the chimney and then the final pitch in one rope length. Belay duty was actually a pleasure in this instance as myself and James had much amusement from Ramone and Mark, the team following us to Invernookie, trying to pass our small belay. I also explained to James the term ‘braying Geoffrey’s’ and had an impromptu cinematography lesson.

One reason I like to explore elsewhere.......
Calum did an outstanding job of the whole route, one which I certainly found quite tough and I think James would agree. I used the opportunity of being in a three to take some video footage with the hope of creating a proper edited cut. Here is my first attempt at a climbing short!! It is a little rough around the edges, but I’ve tried to make it a little more than 4 mins of continuous fiddling.

Well done Calum!


2013.02.09 - The Seam from Owen Flowers on Vimeo.

UPDATE: It is unfortunate that some university students from Leeds appear to have got caught out over the weekend, with one later confirmed as killed. Reports suggest that the 5 were recovered on Monday morning after being reported overdue on Sunday evening, so I am unsure what the large MRT presence was on Saturday. Maybe training? None the less, it is sad that the trend over the last few weekends has been folk getting into serious trouble and paying the price. Very sad.

No comments:

Post a Comment