Category: Winter Mountain Leader
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Winter Mountain Day #3: The Langdale Pikes from New Dungeon Ghyll
On Christmas Day, the very last thing I did before heading to bed was to check the weather forecast. I didn’t expect to see winter conditions due to the warmer temperatures but then I read ‘blizzard conditions’ for Boxing Day and knew I needed to head out one more time. So I packed my bags…
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WQMD #2: Fairfield Horseshoe from Ambleside
On Sunday 19th December, I made a ‘day raid’ on Fairfield in the Lake District to make use of some stunning winter conditions. I’ve been mostly reactive in my approach to winter days so far as I had some annual leave and had purposefully made no plans (apart of course from Christmas Day), so I…
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Success on Scafell Pike
If at first you don’t succeed, try try again right?! Video and blog below. I had made quite a few attempts this year on summiting this mountain from Langdale, but been thwarted once by high winds and once by torrential rain and an ill-judged alternative route. So when I saw a winter forecast for a…
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At Home on the Hill
In this article, I want to highlight the different kinds of prep you can do for your winter mountain leader days at home for use on the hill later. I also want to list specific ‘hill skills’ that you can consider practicing in winter conditions. I learned recently, described in another post, that the emphasis…
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How to get ready for Winter Mountain Leader training
To help answer these questions, I recently spotted an advert for an evening webinar delivered by Scotch on the Rocks Guiding. The focus of the session was in preparing for ML Winter training which is great for me as it is exactly what I’m currently aiming for. In addition it’s also useful as my DLOG…
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Preparing for Winter Quality Mountain Days
So the forecast for this coming weekend, according to MWIS and Weatherline, is looking decidedly wintry. As I start on the long journey to Winter Mountain Leader, I begin to ask myself the following question: how best to prepare for the days? I ask this because winter conditions are becoming rarer and more unpredictable due…
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Preparing for Quality Winter Mountain Days
Getting yourself kitted out for the mountains takes a fair bit of time, and let’s face it, it isn’t cheap. The more of it you do, the more you know what to keep an eye out for and what to avoid which is good. I managed to get through my summer ML on a very…
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The Long Journey to Winter ML
So I’ve decided that this winter I’m going to try as hard as I can to get some decent winter days on my DLOG. I’ll be focusing on the Lake District and Snowdonia for these and I’ve also booked some time off work to head to Scotland for a few days in December. I think…