Winter mountaineering course around Fort William and Glen Coe

5-day winter mountaineering course with a certified guide, to improve your winter climbing skills while admiring Fort Williams and Glen Coe area.

5 Days

Jan - Mar, Dec

High

Beginner

Highlights

Improve your winter climbing skills on a comprehensive 5-day course.
Enjoy climbing during the winter in the amazing Scottish Highlands.
Catch sight of amazing landscapes as you acquire new skills.

Description

Are you a fit hillwalker looking to step it up a notch? Then this Winter Mountaineering course is the perfect opportunity to learn more technical aspects of the sport!

During this 5-day course I will teach you a diverse range of skills to increase your confidence when on winter adventures:

How to move efficiently over steep and exposed terrain.
Advancing through low-grade gullies and ridges.
Revisit central winter skills like the use of the ice ax, crampons, or rope gully.
Introduce climbing techniques such as ropework, avalanche awareness, and winter navigation.

I’ll be teaching these techniques while touring around the admirable scenery that surrounds the Fort William and Glen Coe Area.

Some of the example routes that we may take are:

Ledge Route (I/II) Ben Nevis
East Ridge (I/II) Beinn a’Chaorainn
Ledge Route (II) Ben Nevis
No.2 Gully (II) Ben Nevis
Aonach Eagach (II) Glen Coe
Golden Oldie, (II) Aonach Mor
Curved Ridge, Buachaille Etive Mor (II/III) Glen Coe
School House (ENE) Ridge of Sgorr Bhan (II) Glen Coe

So this 5-day winter mountaineering course will offer you a wide range of activities: learning more about snow and ice climbing, walking with little visibility, and winter survival techniques. Also, I’ll explain daily climate, avalanche, and how to evaluate ascent conditions. If 5 days is too much for you, I also offer a 4-day New year course. This could be the perfect adventure to start a fulfilling Year!

Whatever your preferred option is, keep in mind that these winter mountaineering courses will help you improve your skills. The result is that you will be much more efficient at moving around the endless scenery of the Scottish Highlands!

Contact me now to improve your mountaineering skills and become a Scottish Winter Highlander! And if you are looking for something else around Scotland I offer other possibilities like the Cuillin Hiking or the Cuillin ridge traverse.

Price includes

Guiding fee

Price details

Prices include: guiding and instruction and the use of a harness and helmet. You will also need to take accommodation, food, uplift, personal equipment (including hiring of crampons, ice axes and boots) and insurance costs into consideration.

Itinerary

Day 1: Kit check and basic skills

Kit checks – Essential skills – Step kicking/cutting – Ice axe arrest – Walking & scrambling in crampons – Snow belays – Guided ascent of a graded gully or ridge.

Day 2: Moving together

Essential skills – Using previous skills to ascend a simple graded ridge or gully (Grade I/II). Introduction to ‘moving together’ roped and basic winter belays.

Day 3: 1st technical ascent

Essential skills – Ascent of simple ridge or gully followed by Navigation, Map & Compass, Pacing & Timing.

Day 4: Client leading ascent

Ridge climbing day led by clients under supervision of instructor (Grade II).

Day 5: Client choice

Client choice depending on conditions and fitness level.

Details

More info

Level: Regular summer walkers with a good level of hill fitness. Previous winter walking, easy summer scrambling, and some rock climbing is a plus, but not mandatory.

Equipment: -Socks. A medium to thick pair of synthetic or wool/synthetic blend socks. -Thermal/Base Layers. A couple of thermal layers are useful, along with thermal leggings. -Fleeces. At least one fleece layer for your upper body. Having an extra fleece top or synthetic layer in a waterproof liner at the bottom of your rucksack is essential. -Walking trousers -Warm Hat & Waterproof Gloves -Waterproof jacket and over trousers ( Outer shell clothing) -The trousers should have at least a knee length zip enabling them to be fitted over boots/crampons. -Rucsac. A medium volume sac (35-50 litres) is best for winter climbing, with ice axe carrying loops. -Bivvy Bag -Gaiters or Stop-tous -Head Torch -First Aid kit -Compass/Map -Whistle/Watch Flask -Lunch & Spare Food -Boots. For climbing courses, stiff, crampon compatible boots are required. They should have a stiffness rating of B2 minimum and ideally B3. -Crampons. They should have 12 or 14 points and be compatible with your boots. -Ice Axe -For winter climbing, two technical climbing axes (40-50cm) are required. -Helmet. Please bring one along if you can. We have DMM helmets available. -Harness. Make sure it can be put on over boots and crampons. -Belay device, two HMS Carabiners and one 120cm sling. We can provide you with these if you don’t have your own.

Meeting point

About the guide

Ken

5.0

(19)

Mountain Leader

I gained a good insight into the instruction and guiding of mountaineering activities whilst working as a member of the domestic team at Glenmore Lodge in the summer of 2003. Since then, I have skied, climbed, trekked and mountaineered across the length and breadth of the UK, from Cornwall to the Orkney Isles, and overseas, having sought adventures in China, Mongolia, The Indian Himalayas, New Zealand, Japan, Southern Africa, The Swiss, Italian and French Alps, The Pyrenees, Southern Spain and Norway. I enjoy climbing in all it’s forms, whether it be bouldering at Fontainebleau, sport climbing at Rodellar, trad and winter climbing in the UK or alpine climbing in Switzerland. I have also put up a couple of new routes, Mint Sauce E1 5c in Glen Nevis and Feathered Friend V,5 on Creag Meagaidh.
I have completed my Mountaineering Instructor Certificate (MIC), the highest instructional qualification in the UK, which enable me to work both in summer and winter conditions, whether it’s walking, mountaineering or climbing, and is a full member of both the Association or Mountaineering Instructors, and The Mountain Instructor’s Community. I have also completed my International Mountain Leader Summer Training and have worked as a contracted instructor for Abacus Mountain Guides, Martin Moran, Glenmore Lodge, Mountain Motion, West Coast Mountain Guides, Ardroy Outdoor Education Centre, Adventure Peaks, The Outward Bound Trust, Ryan Glass Mountaineering, Hike Pyrenees, World Challenge Expeditions and Outlook Expeditions.

Languages

English

Certificates

AMI MIC

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What people are saying about Explore-Share

Man

Climbing with guide Guillaume was absolutely a highlight of my 2-week Europe vacation. Originally, we were planning on climbing in the Calanques, but the park was closed due to wind and fire danger. Guillaume chose another amazing location (Pic de Bretagne) based on my climbing abilities and preferences and kindly offered train station pick-up and hotel drop off, which I appreciated very much. The multi-pitch route we did was not only fun but also the right amount of challenge, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The communication from the team (Gauthier) was prompt and clear—highly recommend!

Maxine

Luis Silva was a great climbing guide and belayer! He taught me how to do moves that were difficult and encouraged me to try routes that were challenging for me! Because of his encouragement, I managed to complete these routes! I really enjoyed the climbs and completed 8 routes in the Sesimbra/Azoia area. The weather was perfect, no direct sun and cool enough to enjoy the climbs. Explore-Share made booking an outdoor climbing experience in Lisbon extremely easy. Luis, our guide, was fantastic, and the platform’s organization was flawless.

Valeriya

You’re simply the best!!! :))) Explore-Share made everything easy and stress-free. Will definitely use again.

Joshua

We had Léo as a guide for our day climb in Fonty. We were blessed with a knowledgeable, warm, and instructive guide. Communication with Léo and Ivan was smooth and swift. Explore-Share was excellent in arranging everything for our day climb. The communication was quick, and the platform was easy to use, making our adventure stress-free.

Cami

Patrick was a great guide. He took us on an intermediate Via Ferrata at Passo Sella. Renato was quick to respond with any outreach on the Explore-Share platform. The booking process was straightforward, and once Patrick was confirmed, all went well. It was a wonderful experience, and I’d highly recommend the platform.

4.8