5th-9th March 2012 - Winter Mountain Leader Assessment

Sean and Julie in our snow hotel, getting kit ready

The view from our snow hole entrance. You can't really beat it

Looking into the snow hole with our new lintel and the safety rope

The view from my bed. The door was almost blocked with spin drift in the morning

Half way through developing our snow hole entrance

So last week I was up at Glenmore Lodge on my Winter ML Assessment, which I have been working towards for the previous 3 years since my training in 2009. My hard work and perseverence has all paid off, as I passed first time :) Below is a wee look at each days proceedings, and how I felt on this demanding emotional rollercoaster...

Day 1 - Teaching Approaches, Crampon and axe use, Self-Arrest and Navigation.

We met with the Course Director, Phil Sanderson and our other assessor, Heather Morning and submitted our log books and First Aid certificates before heading out to catch the bus up to the Ciste car park. Here we were set in to two teams (4 and 3) and went looking for snow! I was in a team with Sean and Julie, and we were being assessed by Heather. I took the first nav leg, on which my timing was slightly out but given the absolute adrenaline rush you get when you first start such an assessment, I wasnt too far out! Julie then took the next leg round into Coire Laogh Mor where we found some hard neve to play on. At this point Sean took over, and was asked to lead a group over this terrain and then up the slope without crampons. He cut some efficient steps and showed some superb group management skills. Half way up the neve patch Heather wanted to look at different methods of travelling with such underfoot conditions, and we looked at slash steps, step cutting, master blaster steps and pigeon holes.

I then led us up to the 1028m point where we had a spot of lunch before moving round to the east facing slopes of Cnap Coire na Spreidhe (1151m) to look at coaching techniques and personal application of crampons, ice axes, self-belay and self arrest. Needless to say it was a bit sore throwing yourself down bullet hard neve, so I had borrowed some rather fashionable waterproofs from the Lodge stores to protect my own kit. We performed self arrests on our front, back, upside down, out of control, and with packs on and off. My only little problem was keeping my head down, but I overcame this soon enough. We then looked at teaching self-belay techniques and its progression through to self arrests, before navigating off the hill and back the the Cas car park for some debriefs. No problems today apart from breaking my watch (during self-arrests!), I gave it my best and recieved some excellent feedback.

Day 2 - Security on Steep Ground and Navigation

Day two saw us heading into Coire an Lochain to look at security on steep ground, rope work techniques and confidence roping. We each took a nav leg in, and kept stopping to 'teach' our peers about the mountain environment and areas of interest. Upon reaching the snow pack I made my first and only real school boy error of the day - pass me the dunce hat would you? Having been given my scenario (unconfident client on steep ground, too steep for confidence roping) I strolled straight on up and started preparing (what I thought) was an excellent snow bollard anchor, and a nice deep bucket seat (alot of hard work in the conditions!). I then brought up Heather on the rope, lowered her down, handled a few falls and pendulum swings, answered some questions about the anchor, its construction and uses and then got faced with the biggie: where are your crampons??! Like an idiot, and again surging with adrenaline, I had sauntered up without necessary precautions. Furious at myself, I continued with the day, building a buried axe belay, another snow bollard which I lowered someone off and then abseiled off, then a snow pit to analise the snow pack. We finished with some confidence roping scenarios down the Twin Burn area to the lochans at the coire basin, before naving out and back to the bus. Another strong day apart from that one silly blunder, but it meant that I was going into the expedition phase feeling quite confident. Only my nav could go wrong...

Day 3 & 4 - Expedition skills, Navigation and Snow Holing

The dreaded exped has arrived. This time our assessor is Phil, and if anything was going to let me down I worried it would be my nav. We headed into Coire an t-Sneachda and up the Goat Track navigating as we went. From Coire Domhain we navigated around the plateaux in very high winds and varying visibility. Goggled up, we came across some fresh wind slab build up and negotiated it safely, choosing good tactics to get from place to place avoiding suspect slopes and hazards. We snow holed at the Zero's, above Loch Etchachan. Luckily we only had to tidy up and develop some in-situ holes which had been dug the previous week. We blocked up one entrance, and excavated the other so that cold air would sink out of it. We also put up a new lintel and built a cooking platform inside. By the time we had finished we had a cracking little snow hole for the three of us, see the pics above!

We didn't do any night nav on the first night, and managed to get some rest and sleep before the next day began. Again, conditions were poor with loads of spindrift, very high winds and the threat of rising temperatures as the day progressed. We navigated around the plateaux to increasingly more difficult points. The other guys in the team did really well, and looked confident and comfortable in the harsh environment. I'm sure we all made a few silly mistakes, but regardless we all thought we had failed out right!!! On returning to the snow hole it was clear that the thaw had set in, everything was stripped black and the snow hole had developed an in-built shower (not as bad as the other lads hole though!). Phil decided we would nav out at night, so we made dinner and packed up, nerves stretched at the thought of night nav in deteriorating conditions. However, we managed to do fine for each of our legs until we got onto the Goat Track,. The wind was gusting 120mph on Cairngorm summit that night I heard, and on the precarious slopes going down into Sneachda I got blown off my feet and thought I would meet my end! But only busted my knee and wrist, and made it safely down to the bottom. The way the wind caught the big exped packs was scary at the best of times, but we had survived and got back to the Lodge at about 11:30pm, meaning we would have both a good nights sleep, but also a long waiting game the next day...and long it was!

Day 5 - Nerves, Cold Sweats, The Long Wait and Results

6am. Wide awake. Thoughts form in my cloudy, tired head. Where am I? Oh yeah, I'm on the nervous side of the table on my WML assessment. Sean is up now too, we start disecting each leg we did over the past two days, analysing, critisising, peading for confirmation that we had nailed each one. Nerves increase over breakfast. We are all there, eyeing each other, comparing ourselves, wondering who has cut the mustard and who has fallen short, if any. Half ten, we think it will soon be over, Phil comes in as agreed and tells us its gonna be a 3 hour wait till results are given. I need a shower, the cold sweats too much. One minute I'm fine, the next I'm shaking. We laugh, we joke, we jibe and reminisc over what has undeniably been an excellent week. The banter top notch, like minded folk and yet such a wealth of different back grounds and ambitions. Great people who have showed support to each other through out the week, who made the week what it was, and people I would certainly like to meet up with and share adventures with in the future.

Half one, the time has come. John heads in first, but comes out deferred. The nerves step up a gear, t-shirt soaked, hands clammy. Have faith boy, you know your stuff and you did well out there. But what about that nav leg? Was I in the ball park or was I out? You were fine lad, relax. No. big Paul goes in, its a pass, well deserved, the guy is a legend and was so strong all week. Matts turn, only a year since training and a self critical mind like my own. He has passed, good man! Julie to go. She has decided her self arrest and nav would get her a deferral, and unfortunately she is right, but she isn't phased, one day required on nav and thats it. My turn. My mind is in 5th gear, heart pounding, nav legs and images scanning through my head. To the Ryvoan room, theres Phil in the door way. He offers me a seat, I sit down as he slaps my log book in front of me. Congratulations Craig, it was a very strong pass, no problems in any aspect...' he could be telling me I am a complete moron, good for nothing and he regrets ever clapping eyes on me, but I cant hear him. All I can hear is 'you've passed'. Theres the green sticker, job is trully a good one! My sigh of relief was as strong as the rogue gust which nearly blew me off the Goat Track, but this one welcome, hard earned and relieved.

Well done to Sean and James also, who both comfortably passed and genuinely earned it. Well done to us all for the effort we put in. I for one am glad it's over, now I can focus my attention elsewhere, towards my MIA training in a year or two...after a bit of a rest of course...:)