One fine day Jill, Kaz, Nic and I ventured by tube, train, bus, plane and finally car to Onich in Scotland to begin our winter mountaineering trip. Thanks to TomTom, we didnt have too much trouble navigating, except for some unexpected road works, which lead us in circles for a while...

Once in Onich we settled into our really nice rooms, and went down to meet our guide and group. To our delight it turned out we were the only 4 doing the weekend course which meant we had better tuition and could go where we wanted to go! We were kitted out with boots, crampons, and helmet.

After a good nights sleep we got together with out guide and discussed the basics of mountaineering including what to pack in our backpacks and what layers to wear. We then went back to our rooms to repack! We then headed out to Anoch Moor for a day of learning some basics. We caught the gondala up to the start of the ski runs, although there was not much snow for skiing bust still a few skier around. We walked up to the sno line and had our first trial at walking in crampons. They are fantastic for walking across ice as long as you can trust them. We practiced jumping, going up, going down and just had a bit of fun. Further up we stopped for lunch and enjoyed a hot thermos of hot chocolate.

We then tested the snow for avalanche risk, and practiced ice-axe arrests! To boost our confidence we roped together and climbed up and over the top of the snow slope. It was very physically challenging! Our legs were like jelly when we made it to the top and we still had to walk back down. We had to climb over lots of rocks and boulders and then back down the grass slope which had hidden ice patches and was very very uneven under foot. Unfortunately, Jill twisted her knee as she navigated her way down. We missed the last gondala down so we had to regroup and repack the bags to take some weight from Jill and then slowly make our way down the bike track. By then it was rapidly getting dark, but thanks to some great guidance we all had our head torches and we safely made it back to the carpark, in about 3 hours! The bike track was amazingly hard to walk, I dont know how people ride mountain bikes down, they must be crazy!!

Once back at the hotel, we had a delicious 3 course meal and then headed off to bed for a well earned sleep.